# How is LA Mayor Villaraigosa doing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076 "2006-03-27T14:29:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/61 "2006-04-03T22:55:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :dubious: This business about illegals voting was brought up repeatedly by conservative posters in threads dealing with “voter intimidation” in 2004, and in threads on proposed election reforms since, and nobody has yet provided any credible cite to show it actually happens, let alone the numbers. Can you? Talk to Bob Dornan. He’ll tell you all about it. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/62 "2006-04-03T23:54:07Z")
> [@Happy Wanderer](#): > > Talk to Bob Dornan. He’ll tell you all about it. Ye gods, if you have to cite [“B-1 Bob”](http://www.realchange.org/dornan.htm) as a reference, that’s a sure sign you’re fighting for a lost cause. “Don’t use the word ‘gay’ unless it’s an acronym for ‘Got AIDS Yet?’” –Bob Dornan ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/63 "2006-04-04T00:04:38Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Ye gods, if you have to cite [“B-1 Bob”](http://www.realchange.org/dornan.htm) as a reference, that’s a sure sign you’re fighting for a lost cause. > > “Don’t use the word ‘gay’ unless it’s an acronym for ‘Got AIDS Yet?’” > –Bob Dornan That’s 'ol B1 Bob allright! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/64 "2006-04-04T00:20:06Z")
> [@Happy Wanderer](#): > > Talk to Bob Dornan. He’ll tell you all about it. :rolleyes: That is **not** a good name to drop if you want to buttress your credibility on . . . well, anything. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/65 "2006-04-04T04:52:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :rolleyes: That is **not** a good name to drop if you want to buttress your credibility on . . . well, anything. I mention him because he lost a very close race to Loretta Sanchez where there were allegations of illegals voting. I do not endorse all of Bob’s politics. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/66 "2006-04-04T12:47:00Z")
> [@Happy Wanderer](#): > > I mention him because he lost a very close race to Loretta Sanchez where there were allegations of illegals voting. Such “allegations” would be predictable, even inevitable, in that situation; but how about some **proof?** ---
**Author:** ![DVsickgirlDV](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@DVsickgirlDV](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DVsickgirlDV)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/67 "2006-04-04T17:17:54Z")
> [@Happy Wanderer](#): > > Finish the Red Line. Extend the Green Line to LAX. Extend the Gold Line to Claremont and eventually San Bernadino. Reinstate the plan to widen the Ventura Freeway, nimby’s be damned. Build more left turn signals. Time the lights better. Large segments of LA have no syncronization whatsoever. This is something they had in Chicago fifty years ago or more! Improve signage on our confusing roadway system so the out of towners stop getting lost. Require all highway contractors and agencies to perform work at night. > > And he has already done some good things. He has instructed the hated Parking Enforcement department to back off a little, write fewer tickets, and do more to expidite traffic flow. > > Aside from traffic, run a clean administration and cut the prolifigate waste. They are always complaining about lack of funds, threatening to close down the libraries, etc. Find wasted money and repurpose it to needed services and programs. > > If he could do all that in a term or even two, I would praise him to the roof. Wow you expect all that to be accomplished in “a term or even two?!” ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/68 "2006-04-04T20:56:48Z")
> [@DVsickgirlDV](#): > > Wow you expect all that to be accomplished in “a term or even two?!” I don’t expect completion of those projects. Just secured funding and ground broken. Not too much to ask for something that Mayor Tom Bradley had recognized the need for and been advocating since the 1970’s ☹ so it is only 40 years late. Some of it is already going to happen. Wiki indicates the Gold Line extension to San Bernadino is in the planning stages. Remember, we went from zero miles of rail in 1990 to 73 miles today. Keeping up that pace would have all those projects completed in another 10 years. Aiding The Mayor is the fact that ground has been broken on the 6 mile extension of the Gold Line to East LA and the Exposition Line (no color yet, still arguing) which I consider to be a boondoggle as it runs through an area that is mainly warehouses and machine shops that is very low density, will add another five miles or so in the first phase. See, the neat thing about rail is every time you expand the system, the rest of the system becomes more valuable and useful. The Gold Line extension to East LA will boost ridership on the Red Line and the existing segment of the Gold Line. Likewise the San Bernadino extension will synergize and increase ridership on the Union Station/Pasadena segment. Extending the Red Line to Santa Monica would bring daily ridership up to at least a quarter million a day, no small number in a corridor that is among the most congested in the country. Once you have a decent rail framework in place, bus lines can be rerouted to feed into the rail network, as in cities like Chicago. Widening the Ventura Freeway was about to happen, and the Nimbys quashed it. They could get it all done for 10 billion. In a day when lesser cities (in terms of population) are getting way more money (Chicago: 22 billion to spruce up existing rail, Boston: God knows how much for a leaky hole in the ground) it is high time LA had an advocate that could shake loose some of that sugar for us. The Govenator doesn’t seem inclined to support public transit becasue he cannot drive his Hummer on it (his “Just Build It” initiative allocates zero dollars for rail in LA), so little Antonito is our only hope at the moment. ☹ Let us hope his David is up to the Goliath task he has set for himself. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/69 "2006-04-04T23:18:40Z")
And help from our Senators, the dynamic duo of Boxer and Feinstein is also not forthcoming. They are both Bay-Area types who don’t know or care much about Southern California. We are the uwanted relative. They never visit. They never write. They never call. They can afford to ignore us because their seats are as safe as seats can be. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076/70 "2006-04-07T03:17:26Z")
Ahh, discussions of LA politics hijacked by immigration debates and Antonio Villaraigosa’s membership in MEChA. The SDMB no longer has an East Coast Bias! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-la-mayor-villaraigosa-doing/350076.md?page=3)