Tony Castro's America

Does the Mayor Have a 'Black' Problem?

First there was all that unhappiness among some African-American leaders with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school takeover plan, specifically not having consulted with them on the legislation -- with the mayor ultimately scrambling to explain his rationale and meeting privately with prominent black leaders to repair relations.

Was the mayor's relationship with the African-American community -- critical to predecessor Jim Hahn's erosion of power and equally critical to Villaraigosa's political future -- possibly a political Achilles Heel?

The LAUSD board apparently wondered about that, too, moving to partly co-opt Villaraigosa and his district takeover by naming an African-American admiral, with stature and charisma -- "A Black Antonio?" the L.A. Weekly's David Zahniser even asked -- as superintendent and forcing Antonio to play ball or risk alienating his black support.

Now comes the mayor's veto of the $2.7 million settlement to a black firefighter, which some African Americans have turned into a racial discrimination issue. It all makes for an especially critical time in Villaraigosa's tenure and his continuing finessing of his relationship with the city's African-Americans, something no one seems willing to explore except David Z. once again.

Zahniser reports in the current L.A. Weekly:

"Mindful of the speed with which African-American voters abandoned former mayor James Hahn in 2005 after he refused to reappoint Parks as police chief, Villaraigosa tried to deliver a nuanced defense of his veto. In e-mails to other elected officials, the mayor said he doesn’t necessarily oppose the $2.7 million settlement; he just wants a review."

Education Substance Over Style

Mayor Villaraigosa's education ideas are generally credited with having been taken by political eminent domain from Bob Hertzberg's ill-fated mayoral campaign. But that's forgetting State Senator Richard's Alarcon, who impressed with the depth of his issues in that same campaign, especially on education.

Alarcon, a former teacher, brought one of his mayoral campaign pledges to fruition today when his brainchild -- the Valley Education Collaborative -- announced it was targeting four low-performing northeast San Fernando Valley high schools for dramatic improvements in graduation rates and college admissions.

Does the Alarcon group's plan sound anything like the Villaraigosa LAUSD takeover scheme of targeting low performing schools in Los Angeles for educational makeovers?

Alarcon, a former teacher who still works as a volunteer teacher at Arleta High School, said that it is not coincidental that the new collaborative has undertaken its new role at the same time that “the mayor has stepped forward to challenge each and every one of us in improving our education system.”

But this group’s work, Alarcon said, actually “began even before that effort.

Where all the debates (in the city currently) are about the school structure of the LAUSD, we know we can focus most of our attention on actual support services for our students.”

With the education political climate at the Villaraigosa City Hall, today's announcement at Sylmar High leaves little doubt that education will be Alarcon's major stumping issue as, for all intents and purposes, he launched his controversial campaign to succeed Alex Padilla in the District 7 City Council seat -- the seat Alarcon held until 1998.

Listen to this Alarcon rhetoric:

“Our goal isn’t to improve the graduation rate to 70 percent or 80 percent. We’re setting a goal of 100 percent graduation rate.”

“You want to fix crime? Graduate all our kids. You want to fix the economy? Make sure we graduate all our kids. You want to have a strong nation? Make sure every kid graduates high school. You want a nation where we assimilate everyone into a society we call America? Make sure they graduate high school, and we will make that happen.”

The Jerry Brown Interview

There’s a guy named August Coppola,

Francis Ford Coppola’s older brother, and you know what he said to me? He said your most important role is governor emeritus.

Meaning what, exactly?

I never quite knew what he meant, but I keep thinking about it...

The New York Times' interview with Jerry Brown captures the quintessential Jerry Brown.

Maybe Arnold can help

You would think being a press flak to L.A.'s charismatic mayor would be one of the plums of that profession around town. Think again. Not quite a year and a half into his first term, it appears that Antonio Villaraigosa has either burned out his press team or is revamping his staff to deal with life after his political honeymoon.

Clearly, the mayor's press people dropped the ball in dealing with the Daily News' Nov. 19 "The Man/The Myth" psychological bio that demystified part of Villaraigosa's misleading Clinton-like childhood -- opening the way in the local blogs and around town for even more speculation on the "real Antonio."

Now the mayor is on the hunt for a new press team -- a press secretary, a deputy press secretary, a speech-writer and more.

Maybe the Villaraigosa political patron, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has some spare aides he can send along.

Desperate Latino Leaders

Latino pols thought they'd only get an eyeful when they invited Desperate Housewives' co-star Eva Longoria to keynote their recent Latino Leaders Luncheon Series. But in addition to turning heads, the actress who plays Gabrielle on the hit TV show also had them chuckling.

“I know some of you may only know about me from what you read in the tabloids," she said. "Let me assure you, the tabloids are the second most inaccurate libelous publications in history. First are negative campaign ads.

“Can you imagine the TV ads they’d run based on me as Gabrielle? In the last two years, I had an affair with a teenager, faked a paternity test, my husband went to prison and I pushed him out a window. OK, so I could win in California.”

The untold story of the mayor's rise from poverty to power

Antonio Villaraigosa had promoted his ambitious trade mission to the Far East for almost an hour when he slipped into a monologue about Chinese food and chopsticks.

"It's funny, but I've been addicted to chopsticks since I was a kid. My kids have, too."    

Those thin, metal chopsticks were another matter, the mayor said, trading stories of their difficulty with editors and reporters before drifting back to memories of his childhood.

"I've been using chopsticks since I was a kid ..."     

He rolled his head slowly and gazed upward as if the ceiling tiles were television monitors showing old home movies of his youth when he caught himself and bit his lip.

"That's not true. I think the first time I went to a Chinese restaurant was when I was 19 ..."    

As chroniclers of Antonio Villaraigosa invariably come to discover, sometimes what comes out of the Los Angeles mayor's mouth - particularly when it's about his past - and what ultimately turns out to be true are not always entirely the same.

Now in his second year in office, Villaraigosa, 53, is catching himself in some of those inconsistencies - those embellishments of the past or his tendency to exaggerate or bolster his importance - flaws that can often simply be attributed to a faulty memory or political hyperbole.

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