Clean sweep pulls endorsement of O’Grady

First-hand report of the LA Clean Sweep meeting from Radio LosFeliz. 

Special to Griffith Park Wayist.


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Clean sweep pulls its endorsement of O’Grady
 
By guest blogger Radio LosFeliz

Delivering yet another blow to a campaign that struggles with a series of embarrassing pandering tactics, LA Clean Sweep pulled its endorsement of Tomas O’Grady.

The Clean Sweep nominating committee had initially recommended endorsing both Stephen Box and Tomas O’Grady to run against Tom Labonge’s CD4 seat. But on Sunday’s meeting of the general membership it didn’t take long before the voices against O’Grady spoke out loud and clear. The vote to dump O’Grady was near unanimous.

Failed neighborhood treasurer, driving bitter wedges into a once functioning neighborhood council, and repeated bouts with an explosive temper are apparently not the qualifications Clean Sweep was looking for.

Integrity counts. That is the underlying theme of the Clean Sweep movement. In other words, if you fake a Council letterhead and misrepresent your neighbors it is kind of hard to ask for an endorsement by a group looking for integrity. If you shroud yourself in a mélange of Not For Profit groups and then ask for public money to a point where no one knows exactly who is getting what, then it kind of feels like the typical City Hall dirty tricks. And if you call yourself green in one breath and repeatedly vote on the side of developers and high density with the other then it is clear you will pander to anybody to get yourself elected.

Bottom line, integrity is not a word commonly attached to recent New Jersey landlord Tomas O’Grady.

It is hard to see how anyone could take the O’Grady campaign seriously given the endless controversy that follows him into any meeting room. The Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council has fielded several ethical complaints against him. Whether or not his ethics actually violate unenforceable rules is for his friends at Los Feliz Forward to decide, and conceal.

What is clear is that O’Grady plays dirty. He is known to author an avalanche of intimidating and smearing emails to further his own personal agenda. To disagree at a public meeting is to invite a relentless string of strange, venom filled communications.

His worse opponent is indeed his own temper. His explosive outbursts are well known at the Neighborhood Council and other community meetings. Perhaps that method worked for him New Jersey it is hard to know.

But here in the City of Angels the question is pretty clear. If anger control is a problem while discussing T Shirts for a clean up day, how could he possibly cope with all the heavy issues confronting our City.

It is easy to see why Clean Sweep rejected him as a viable candidate. It is hard to believe he will keep trying anyway.