Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Page 11
SNIPPETS (Column)
Best, Best & Krieger, Byrne & Nixon Get City Contracts
The law firm of Best, Best & Krieger was yesterday awarded a contract to provide legal services to the City of Los Angeles, over a protest by Council member Tony Cardenas that the firm has yet to explain why it did not counsel its former client the City of Bell in such a way as to avoid scandals.
A blog on the Los Angeles Times website reported yesterday:
“…Cardenas said Best, Best & Krieger had not adequately explained whether it bore responsibility for any of the problems that arose in Bell between 2006 and 2010—the period when that city was a client of the firm. Eight current and former Bell city leaders were arrested in 2010 on corruption charges, with prosecutors saying they had misappropriated more than $5.5 million and treated the city’s coffers as their personal piggy bank.
“Brant Dveirin, a partner with Best, Best & Krieger, told council members that his firm acted ‘in a very responsible way’ by stepping down as Bell’s lawyer in the wake of the scandal. He said the lawyer who was assigned to Bell left the firm. ‘I don’t believe that my firm did anything wrong with respect to the city of Bell,’ he said.
“Cardenas, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley and is running for Congress, said he was not satisfied with Dveirin’s explanation. ‘I have yet to hear at any point in time that…your firm ever objected to their client continuing to go in such a massively, incredibly…wrong direction,’ he told the lawyer.”
The contract was approved by a vote of 11-2, with Cardenas and Council member Dennis Zine voting “no.”
City files show that the Budget and Finance Committee on Tuesday considered a report by City Administrative Officer Miguel A. Santana calling for contracts for legal services to be entered into with Best, Best & Krieger and with Byrne & Nixon. Council members Bill Rosendahl and Paul Krekorian voted in favor and Cardenas voted against it; the report was forwarded to the full Council, without recommendation, because, with two members absent, the report was not approved by a majority of the full committee.
The committee’s report notes that there is “funding up to $450,000 per contract.”
The CAO’s report of June 7 explains that representation by outside firms is necessary in connection with the dissolution of the Community Redevelopment Agency because of the city’s interests adverse to the successor agency. It says that the issues to be addressed “require an understanding in redevelopment law, and comments:
“For this work, BB&K is recommended. BB&K is considered one of the premier municipal and redevelopment law firms in California. BB&K has offices in Los Angeles, Irvine/Ontario, Sacramento and Washington, D.C., and is well versed and established within the legal circuits of State redevelopment, including legislation and litigation relative to State redevelopment and economic development fields. Ten law firms were considered for this assignment. The Firm’s proposed rates are very competitive at the hourly rate of $325-Partner and Of-Counsel; $265-Associate; and $150-Paralegal.”
•Alan Jackson’s campaign committee yesterday announced the endorsement of the deputy district attorney in his race for the post of DA by Board of Equalization Vice Chair Michelle Steel.
Steel
is quoted in a press release as saying:
“In the years ahead California and Los Angeles will face unprecedented public safety challenges. It is critical that we elect our top prosecutor to lead the largest prosecutorial agency in the nation. That top prosecutor without a doubt is Alan Jackson. Alan has been battle-tested and will serve Los Angeles County well as our next District Attorney.”
Her husband, Shawn Steele, is the Republican national committeeman from California and past chair of the state Republican Central Committee.
The press release says:
“Coming off a tremendous victory on Election Night, Alan Jackson remains the frontrunner with the most BOE and law enforcement organization endorsements. Jackson had been endorsed by BOE member George Runner prior to the June 5th Election.”
Jackson’s opponent in the general election is Chief Deputy District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who is endorsed by District Attorney Steve Cooley.
•Reggie Littlejohn, a Yale Law School graduate, yesterday spoke at the Victims of Communism memorial in the District of Columbia at a gathering to commemorate five years since the statue was unveiled.
“It is fitting that the Memorial statue itself is a replica of the Goddess of Democracy erected by the students on Tianamen Square–a beacon of hope for those students before they were then so brutally slaughtered by their own government,” she said.
Her remarks were centered on a matter of concern to Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, of which she is president. The group describes itself on its website as “a broad-based, international coalition that opposes forced abortion and sexual slavery in China.”
Littlejohn said the organization “has learned that a woman in Shanxi Province, China, was forcibly aborted at seven months of pregnancy on June 3, 2012 – just last week,” adding:
Feng Jianmei was beaten and dragged into a vehicle by a group of Family Planning Officials while her husband, Deng Jiyuan, was out working. The officials asked for RMB 40,000 [$6,280] in fines from Feng Jianmei’s family. When they did not receive the money, they forcibly aborted Feng at seven months, laying the body of her aborted baby next to her in the bed.
Feng Jianmei is not alone. The Chinese Communist Party estimates that it has “prevented” 400 million lives through its brutal One Child Policy. Every one of these 400 million snuffed out lives is a victim of communism.
Affecting 1.3 billion people, the coercive enforcement of China’s One Child Policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth and any other official policy in the history of the world.
….
The true spirit of Communism is most clearly seen in the faces of the Chinese population control police as they drag women away, beat them, strap them down to tables, and force them to abort babies that they want, up to the ninth month of pregnancy. Whether China will turn and become a free, democratic nation, or whether China will continue down the path of totalitarian destruction, is the greatest issue of the twenty-first century and has vast implications for our own national security. Supporting democracy in China should be among the highest priorities of the leaders of the free world.
Copyright 2012, Metropolitan News Company