Caruso to give speech on city leadership

Well I guess we'll get some clues about the mayoral aspirations of developer Rick Caruso this afternoon. He's scheduled to speak at a Town Hall Los Angeles luncheon at the Biltmore. He's calling his topic “Los Angeles: A New Kind of Leadership" and it's billed as Caruso sharing his insights on the city’s fiscal, social and infrastructure challenges — and his ideas on how to fix things.

“Since 1980, Los Angeles has added one million people, but not one new job. In fact, it has lost 200,000 jobs since 1995,” Caruso says in the flackage. “Businesses are making fundamental changes to respond to the economic crisis; why not the city? Now is the time for the city to hang a question mark on things it has long taken for granted and get itself back on track to the future it deserves.”

The rack rate for paying customers to hear the potential 2013 candidate is $65 each. This is, I believe, Caruso's first billed appearance since he walked away from that concessions deal at LAX, complaining about the city's laconic process. I suspect there will be some media at this one.