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THE GUSS REPORT-In the past 20 years, nowhere in Los Angeles has quality of life fallen harder than in Venice.
That doesn t mean Venice has the worst quality of life in the City or even the County of Los Angeles. But conditions worsened more in Venice since the beginning of the 21st century than virtually everywhere else in the area.
LA City Councilmember
Mike Bonin gets leveled with the blame as Venice is a unique pocket of chaos within the affluent but widely troubled District 11 that he has represented since 2013.
Bonin, 54, is a complicated and conflicted soul if ever there was one, having received an undergrad degree from Harvard in 1989, but who also survived a brief battle of quasi-homelessness and continues to survive addiction one day at a time. I don t write that as an excuse for Bonin, but context matters, so bear with me.
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THE GUSS REPORT-William Stoughton was a son-of-a-bitch, albeit an accomplished one if context and the era in which he lived can be considered.
A Harvard grad, he spent the last years of the 17th century as Acting Governor of what eventually became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. But history remembers him mainly as the notorious Chief Justice and prosecutor of the Salem Witch Trials. He made cruel and deadly decisions like ordering juries that came back with
not guilty verdicts to go back and reconsider the case until they switched to
guilty. He also called for the execution of witches who were supposed to be exempt from it due to pregnancy.
Unintended Consequences of Clicking A Zoom Link Details
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THE GUSS REPORT-Largely unknown to most people before the pandemic, Zoom is the video chat service now ingrained in daily life around the planet, keeping colleagues, schoolmates, congregations, and families in contact at a safe social distance.
It is a silver lining of the COVID experience that will improve life moving forward by enabling us to take jobs and do other things previously considered too far away.
But life often takes time to catch up with technology.
Zoom was also a key part of embarrassing 2020 moments like the mortifying end of CNN analyst
Nury Martinez, Unwilling to Lead, Declares More Recess Details
THE GUSS REPORT-LA City Council President
Nury Martinez just did what she does best: send the nation s highest-salaried local lawmakers to another unscheduled, paid recess despite multiple ongoing deadly crises.
Who didn t see that coming?
On March 2, 2020, exactly one year ago, this column reported on colorful criticism by City Hall s tenacious gadfly set leveling Martinez for embracing only the ceremonial part of her ascent to the City Council presidency, but not the nuts and bolts of leadership: If you don t regularly follow LA s zany political gadflies, you re missing quite a show and sometimes astute, if cringe-worthy, observations.
A Sippie Bowl For City Hall Cereal Killer Details
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THE GUSS REPORT-At a salary north of $200,000 plus a pension, perks, and power, is it too much to ask America s highest-paid city council to be fed, appropriately dressed, and paying attention by the start of its 10 a.m. weekday Zoom meetings?
For LA City Councilmember Kevin Leon, better known as
Kevin de León, this seems to be a struggle.
Newly elected to the city s legislative body, the 54-year-old veteran politician was a no-show on Tuesday, missing more than a dozen votes. The next day, he showed up disengaged, unkempt and slurping bowls of breakfast cereal as constituents shared their concerns and criticisms.