Essel's 'Lettergate': Why Is Antonio's Thank You Note in 2000 a Criminal Matter?

by Ron Kaye

As we head into the final two weeks of the Battle for CD2, the campaign between Paul Krekorian and Christine Essel suddenly has escalated into one of the costliest and nastiest ever for the City Council.

The City Hall political machine has pulled out all stops to get Essel elected, which raises the question of why a pro-development corporate lobbyist is getting the nod from powerful city unions and the liberal Democrat city elected officials over a pro-union, liberal Democrat state Assemblyman.

It doesn't make sense...unless there's a lot more at stake than just one seat on a Council that votes unanimously on just about everything no matter how destructive to the public interest and leaves no room for dissenting without punishment.

One clue is the half million dollars or more being poured into Essel's campaign by unions, most of it by bully boy union boss Brian D'Arcy who has taken his effort to a higher level by suing the city over a 23-year-old law limiting individual contributions to independent expenditures.

D'Arcy, whose members at the DWP have benefited spectacularly from sweetheart contracts for years, especially those approved by good pal Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has never had a problem skirting this ethics law provision in the past.

So why now? Could it be he is fronting for wealthy developers who want to build giant projects from Universal City to Victory Boulevard in the face of massive community resistance in CD2 don't want any hard questions asked and are willing to help D'Arcy get the huge DWP rate hikes he wants and ownership of rooftop solar projects?

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