Skip to main content

A Pre-emptive Goodbye to Gov. Villaraigosa

Support Provided By
KCETvillanoI.jpg

Seeing that 2010 would probably not be his year, Mayor Villaraigosa ends the speculation: He will not be running for governor of California next year.

He made the announcement on Monday to CNN's Wolf Blitzter. The L.A. Times sums up his stated reasoning:

The mayor, who begins his second, four-year term July 1, said that the decision was "agonizing" but that he felt duty-bound to stay at City Hall to tackle L.A.'s dire fiscal crisis and to see through the policy agenda he launched in 2005....."...I recognize that I've got a lot of work to do . . . and I've got to do a better job, even, than the job that we've done over the last four years."Villaraigosa said he had considered a gubernatorial run because Sacramento politics have become "an abomination" and that, as a former state Assembly speaker who won two mayoral races in a city known for its factious political divides, he believed that he had the ability to put the state back on track. "I served as a speaker, I was known as a bipartisan leader, I feel like I have my finger on the pulse of what's broken in Sacramento, but I just couldn't get beyond the fact that I love this job and I love this city that I was born and raised in,"

Dan Schnur of USC, in an L.A. Times op-ed, thinks Villaraigosa may be postponing, not killing, his gubernatorial ambitions:

Villaraigosa probably realized that time is on his side. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who turned 76 years old Monday is an unlikely candidate for reelection in 2012. By then, the state and city will have begun the long trek back to economic health, and Villaraigosa will be on the tail end of his second term rather than at the very beginning.....A termed-out mayor with an empty nest and an economic recovery under his belt looks like a much more attractive candidate for statewide office.

The Times's columnist Steve Lopez is a little tougher on the mayor, while realizing his decision was inevitable given L.A.'s dire political and economic straits:

You can't do a mediocre job, get lukewarm support in the polls, and announce one week before the start of your second term that you're graduating to bigger challenges. That'd be like getting a 2.0 GPA in high school and announcing you'd like to be a brain surgeon.....He's not running because at the moment, he knows he wouldn't win, given all the self-inflicted damage he's done by way of empty public promises and dubious private choices.

Mayor Sam's Sister City blog kindly provides a full transcriptof Villaraigosa's CNN announcement.

Past City of Angles blogging on Villaraigosa's ambitions and troubles here and here.

(Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Support Provided By
Read More
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.

Los Angeles County Is Testing AI's Ability To Prevent Homelessness

In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.