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Enron Mail |
Peter,
Materials have been sent to the contacts you made for TFA in LA. Beyond that I have been focused recently on finalizing the TFA relationships with Smartforce and IverCity.Com. We will announce the Smartforce donation (450K eLearning scholarships over three years) at a meeting in Boston on November 15. This is a huge gift ($30-$45 million in retail value). I have been in contact (phone and face to face visits) with several nonprofit groups in LA involved in local initiatives there. Some of these groups are working together and some are not. 15,000 ($1.5 million in value) of the Smartforce eLearning courses are reserved for LA and could be utilized by local groups there if they can work together. It is my hope that TFA can help encourage that. One of the issues, of course, is identifying other potential co-branding corporations/foundations that can help bring the necessary dollars to the table. In-kind donations have been relatively easy to accumulate. Finding the necessary cash is more difficult. I do agree with you that Mayor Riordan's future plans could be good for TFA. Perhaps we can talk by phone in the next day or two to follow through on some of our previous discussions. I will be in Washington DC later in the week to meet with the Internet Policy Institute, the Pew Foundation and others. I have also been following through on some contacts in DC and New York City. Again, we will need co-branding relationships with $'s and in-kind resources to make this work. Will 713.316.5761 -----Original Message----- From: Peter Douglas [mailto:pdouglas@salus.net] Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2000 12:53 PM To: William Reed (E-mail) Cc: Kenneth L. Lay (E-mail); Jack Trotter (E-mail); Scott Yeager (E-mail 2); John Duncan (E-mail) Subject: Riordan & Los Angeles After leaving office, Mayor Riordan will take an executive position running the LA Unified School district's classroom computer program. I would think this could be good for TFA. How are you coming with the conatcts I gave you? PD Saturday, November 4, 2000 <<...<< News from Los Angeles in the Los Angeles Times Riordan to Join L.A. Unified After He Leaves City Hall <<...<< Mayor: In an address to Valley leaders, he strongly denounces secession, then makes surprising disclosure about plan to take executive post with district. By JIM NEWTON, Times Staff Writer In his final annual address on the state of the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan on Friday delivered his most forceful call ever for that area to remain part of the larger city, then surprised the audience by announcing that he will go to work for the Los Angeles Unified School District when he finishes his term in office. Speaking to a group of Valley business leaders, Riordan denounced secession on political, moral and practical grounds, warning that it would force a tax hike, leave the Valley with uncertain leadership and abandon the city's poor. "I love the Valley," Riordan said. "I feel that you're part of the family, and I don't want you to desert the family. . . . The rest of the city needs you. You can't abandon the poor. It just isn't right." Riordan's pointed rejection of secession represents a significant escalation in his efforts to head off that politically charged prospect--a topic so heated that in a mayoral debate following Riordan's speech, not one of the six candidates angling for election in April so much as mentioned the word. Riordan, by contrast, tackled the issue head-on and in far more confrontational terms than he ever has before. "Secession," Riordan said bluntly, "is a lousy idea." As significant as that pronouncement was, however, the mayor almost overshadowed it with an offhand personal remark in response to a question after his speech. Asked to elaborate on his thoughts about breaking up the school district, Riordan let slip that he intends to go to work for L.A. Unified after he finishes his second term as mayor, which ends next summer. The mayor, who helped elect four of the school board's seven members, said he has been in discussions with Supt. Roy Romer and has agreed to accept an "executive position" with the district next year. Riordan did not elaborate, but in an interview later, he said he and the superintendent had agreed that Riordan would run the district's classroom computer program. The former Colorado governor, who now runs the city's schools, was not immediately available for comment. At the district, Riordan said, he will be in charge of working with schools to make effective use of computers in the classroom. Riordan, who has donated thousands of computers to schools in various parts of the country, said the job fit his talents. "I think this is something I'm good at," he said. "I know the experts in the field." Riordan's post-mayoral plans have for months been the object of much speculation. Most observers predicted he would do something in the field of education, because no topic animates Riordan as much as children and schools. But Riordan is a multimillionaire, and he will be over 70 when he finishes his second term as mayor. He passed up the chance to run for governor in 1998, and some friends had predicted he would slow down when he wrapped up his mayoral administration. The idea of a quiet retirement, however, seems to have little appeal for Riordan, an energetic and restless man. Asked how long he intended to take off between finishing his work as mayor and starting his new job at the school district, Riordan responded: "three or four hours." Riordan has held office for nearly eight years, and for that entire time has enjoyed the strong support of the San Fernando Valley. It was the Valley that helped put him in office in 1993, and polls since have shown that though he is popular citywide, he enjoys his greatest approval ratings north of the Hollywood Hills. As the race to succeed him gathers steam, some of the candidates clearly covet Riordan's base in the Valley. On Friday, City Councilman Joel Wachs often invoked the mayor's name during a low-energy debate among the six leading mayoral candidates. Among other things, Wachs praised Riordan's economic development initiatives and his handling of the recently completed negotiations between the city and federal government over the future of the Los Angeles Police Department. So effusive was Wachs in his praise of Riordan that eventually businessman Steve Soboroff complained. As Soboroff pointed out to the audience, Riordan has endorsed his candidacy, not Wachs'. Soboroff suggested that his rival withdraw from the race and back him instead. Wachs laughed, but did not respond. The debate--really more of a panel discussion in which the candidates rarely addressed one another, while sitting cheek-by-jowl in straight-backed chairs--also was notable as the first joint appearance of the candidates to include state Controller Kathleen Connell, the latest contender to join the race. Connell used her debut debate performance to stress her determination to bring tough fiscal management to the problems of Los Angeles. She addressed issues such as police corruption, transportation and the city's business climate in terms of their economic impact, arguing that her experience in the private sector and as controller made her the right person to handle that task. In other debate highlights, City Atty. James Hahn and Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa enthusiastically welcomed the signing of the consent decree with the federal government on police reform. Connell, Wachs and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra also applauded the deal, though in less glowing terms. Soboroff was the only candidate to oppose it, calling it an abdication of local responsibility.
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