By Maeve Reston and Ari B. Bloomekatz|July 09, 2009
Hours after the last eulogy to Michael Jackson bounced off the rafters of Staples Center, discussion in Los Angeles civic circles turned to more down-to-earth matters: Were the pop star's death and memorial a net fiscal loss or gain to the city, and should taxpayers get stuck with the tab?
City Atty. Carmen Trutanich said this week that he was investigating how the city ended up with a $1.4-million bill. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office conceded that a city effort to solicit online donations to cover the memorial costs yielded only $17,000 before being upended by "frequent and prolonged server crashes."
Some argued that it didn't matter -- the city would get its money back, and more, as a result of the global attention focused on Los Angeles for the better part of a week.
But the new city controller, Wendy Greuel, seemed more concerned with the $48,826 that the Emergency Management Department spent on 3,500 boxed lunches from Jensen's Finest Foods in Wrightwood, in San Bernardino County. The lunches were intended for emergency personnel at the Jackson memorial, but Greuel thought it seemed excessive, especially after her staff called a nearby Subway and was given an estimate of $17,491 for the same number of lunches.
She sent a stern letter to the head of the department, James Featherstone, criticizing the cost. She added: "It would have been preferable to make this purchase from a business located in the city of Los Angeles, as opposed to nearly 80 miles away."
Featherstone defended the expenditure. He said the city has used Jensen's for years because the company is able to prepare thousands of lunches on short notice, and the meals were costly because they contained enough food to keep police and firefighters going for 12 to 15 hours -- two sandwiches, two drinks, a packaged dessert, a candy bar, trail mix, chips or crackers, a granola bar and a pack of gum.
"It wasn't just a boxed lunch," he said.
Nor was the Jackson memorial just a funeral.
And amid an economic recession in which the city is faced with service cuts and layoffs, the issue of who covers the city's costs for big events like the Jackson memorial and last month's Lakers' victory ceremony has become a political issue.
City Hall frequently confronts the question of how much it should spend for privately sponsored events.
For years, the city has absorbed thousands of dollars in costs for neighborhood block parties, farmers' markets, 10K races, church fairs and parades.
