I am so flattered to see on today's city council agenda an item (added last minute) by three of my council colleagues proposing (as I did in April of this year) that the city pursue asking the Feds for a waiver in the ceiling of local hires on transportation projects.
See folks, the council already approved directing the City Manager to find out what the city could do to get a waiver on the cap of local hires allowed -- it was a 9-0 vote on April 8, 2011...just a mere 5 months ago.
But nothing happened.
Then last week the LA Times broke the story that the LA Mayor was taking this concept directly to Washington, DC so that LA could get a waiver of the ceiling of local hires on transporation projects -- using perhaps the only allowable way to get a waiver -- by utilizing an innovative contracting procedure.
So thanks, colleagues for agreeing with me, my blog and the Mayor of Los Angeles -- that there is a way to ask the feds for a waiver on the amount of local hires for a transportation project.
Let's hope on the vote today that everyone agrees -- this time we really mean it! (And thanks for the compliment.)