Vernon and it's surprises

Remember awhile back I wrote about the City of Vernon. It is a industrial city with about 100 residents most of whom work for the City and live in City provided housing. It's corruption is legendary. Well, the Speaker of the Assembly of California, John Perez, has been attempting to de-certify it as a city. It is claimed that the intent was to make it part of unincorporated Los Angeles county. Apparently that cannot be done because of the utility company that the City of Vernon owns. Hmmmm.

Now the L.A. Weekly raises the question of whether or not the City of Los Angeles might take it over. This is an amazing idea, wait a second, didn't I mention that about two years ago? I think I did. Left out of the L.A. Weekly article was any discussion of the fact that Vernon has other ties to the City of Los Angeles. The City of LA wanted to buy some land in Kern for a wind or solar farm, a friend of the Mayor's worked with CIM Group to buy the land and then sell it to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, CIM was being partly funded by the City's retirement fund and I believe CalPers also. Anyways, that deal made the papers so the property was hastily sold to, you guessed it, the City of Vernon (except for the water rights).

Let us also not forget that Mr. Perez is the cousin of the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa. CIM Group, pensions, Redevelopment Agencies, politicians and unions are always a bad mix. CIM Group made it into the news again, you may want to read about it if you like Venice. That is it for the night. Be well.