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 [ ARCHIVE ](https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=16)

#  Occupy LA Post: Half Right and Very Wrong

December 29 2011

Written by Paul Hatfield.

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![](https://www.citywatchla.com/images/stories/Dec-2011/cw9104q.png)PERSPECTIVE - The 12/26/11 edition of City Watch included a post by Occupy LA blogger P J Davenport. The writer hit the mark with his question: “[LA City Hall: Inept or Criminal?](http://216.18.22.247/lead-stories/2638-la-city-hall-inept-or-criminal)”

How can the City Council be upset over an estimated $2 million hit to the cash-deficient general fund when elected officials have failed to approve and manage a truly balanced budget?
Allow me to add - how can any sensible elected body not have seen the potential costs of giving a disorganized, unaccountable movement carte blanche to use and abuse public property for an extended period of time, and coddle them when it became increasingly apparent the cost was going to grow the longer the occupiers stayed?

It might be possible in a parallel Bizarro universe ... or in the City of Los Angeles. Where else can one find collusion between corrupt government officials and inane organizers offering only slogans and no solutions?

Mayor Villaraigosa tried to diminish the fiscal impact with his statement that the “First Amendment is messy.” [\[link\] ](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/occupy-la-costs-could-exceed-1-million-mayor-says.html) Let’s not forget that the mayor failed the bar four times, so his knowledge of constitutional law might be messy, too.

The right of free speech did not give the occupy participants the right to deface or damage property any more than it gives any of us the right to graffiti the mayor’s residence. Davenport is as wrong as the mayor in trying to play down the cost of his group’s damage only because the tab is much lower than the overall deficit faced by the city.

$2 million is still a chunk of change. Who will bear the brunt of the cutbacks the city will have to make to compensate for the cost?

You know the answer, and it will not be our elected officials.

*(Paul Hatfield is a CPA and serves as Treasurer for the Neighborhood Council Valley Village. He blogs at Village to Village, contributes to CityWatch and can be reached at: phinnoho@aol.com )* –cw

Tags: Occupy LA, Paul Hatfield, City Hall, PJ Davenport, Mayor Villaraigosa

CityWatch
Vol 9 Issue 104
Pub: Dec 30, 2011

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