MAYOR'S BROKEN PLEDGE HURTING CITY'S ANIMALS.

Byline: Daniel Guss Local View

IN January 2005, Los Angeles' mayoral candidates spoke in front of nearly 200 animal rescuers, activists and concerned citizens. The only absentee was then-Mayor James Hahn.

When Antonio Villaraigosa came to the podium, he was met with a chorus of boos because, as a City Council member, he had voted in favor of the inexperienced Guerdon Stuckey's appointment to be general manager of city animal shelters. Nevertheless, Villaraigosa turned boos to cheers when he proclaimed, ``(Stuckey) was Jim Hahn's appointment. He wouldn't be mine, and I guarantee you, when I'm mayor of the city of Los Angeles, Gerald (sic) Stuckey will not be the head of Animal Services. Period.''

The event - including Villaraigosa's guarantee - was videotaped.

Villaraigosa said ``period'' to emphasize that, unlike his broken promise to fulfill his elected term on the City Council, this time, his word meant something.

But it was clear to everyone in attendance that Villaraigosa didn't know his audience. The room was primarily filled with vegetarians and vegans, yet Villaraigosa made the particularly insensitive assurance that his guarantee to fire Stuckey ``wasn't just throwing red meat to the lions.''

Ooops. Villaraigosa went from being booed, to being applauded, to being hissed - all in just 20 minutes.

Yet now as mayor, Villaraigosa seems to think that he doesn't need to honor his guarantee to fire Stuckey. Villaraigosa recently told local humane leaders that he had ``made a lot of promises'' on his campaign and, besides, Citizens for a Humane Los Angeles, which ended up endorsing Republican candidate Walter Moore, ``didn't give me their support.''

That's not quite true. Plenty of people in that room that day still supported Villaraigosa with both donations and labor, because Hahn was considered Public Enemy No. 1 to the humane community. But what kind of mayor would Villaraigosa be if he didn't stretch the truth a little, right?

The problem is, Villaraigosa has been stretching the truth like Silly Putty, due in part to his blind reliance on Jimmy Blackman, a deputy mayor who has intimated that if you care too much about animals, you are ``too close to the situation to help bring about a solution.''

Back in July, when it first appeared that Villaraigosa had lied about Stuckey, I started to publish a daily e-mail called ``100 Reasons to Fire Stuckey.'' The messages were fortified with photos of ignored animal-abuse cases, corruption in the shelters and evidence of Stuckey's inability to develop a marketing plan, or even collaborate with the humane community, as he had promised.

Worse yet, Stuckey failed to attend any one of three local seminars on how to enact a real no-kill police in Los Angeles animal shelters. He also ignored documented and photographed reports of animal abuse and torture complaints.

By failing to quickly honor his promise to fire Stuckey, Villaraigosa has backed himself into a corner. Now protesters appear at every one of his public events, shouting things like, ``Hey, Antonio, what do you say? How many lies did you tell today?'' Other chants include references to the hundreds of animals that are being killed daily in the city's shelters due to Stuckey's failure to embrace proven no-kill strategies.

Villaraigosa has quickly and clearly showed Angelenos one thing: Just because he says it doesn't mean anyone should believe it. Period.