LA Weekly says job-seeking Villaraigosa will leave office broke

In a story with a lot more anecdote and commentary than actual data or on the record sources, LA Weekly writer Patrick Range McDonald (with "additional reporting" by editor Jill Stewart) mentions some of the job searching that Antonio Villaraigosa has been doing for his after-mayor life. The piece contends that Villaraigosa lives now like a one-percenter — because of the official home in Windsor Square, the LAPD driver and the out-of-state travel — and would need $750,000 a year to keep up his standard of living, but that he has no money coming in after he leaves office. The reporters acknowledge they didn't find out what his income would be from his public pensions as a longtime state legislator and city official. There's no response from Villaraigosa's side on the accuracy of anything offered. Interesting anecdote at the top about Villaraigosa asking Bill O'Reilly at the Vanity Fair Oscar party about an on-air job for him at Fox News Channel, though it appears to be something overheard by a lone bystander who didn't hear O'Reilly's reply. Here's an excerpt of the more real stuff:

Villaraigosa has suggested to friends, civic leaders and neighborhood activists that he's the right choice for a Wall Street firm, a think tank, a university seeking a scholar-in-residence or a publisher looking for a hot new memoirist....

Villaraigosa's years of legally required "statements of economic interests" from 2001 through 2012 verify that, aside from a few thousand dollars he annually collects from a modest rental home he owns in Moreno Valley, he has no revenue streams, no financial investments. No stocks. No bonds. (The Weekly could not determine how much public pension Villaraigosa will collect, or when. Through a spokeswoman, Thomas Moutes, head of the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System, said LACERS has "no records" regarding this public information.)

Villaraigosa has been paid a total of $1,682,937 as mayor, a serious chunk of which, for the past several years, has gone to his ex-wife and children in alimony and child support. He has risen to the 1 percent, in practice if not in fact, by relying heavily on other people's money. Taxpayers, private groups and foundations have footed huge travel bills, as Villaraigosa spent fully 42 percent of his official city working hours, according to his own calendar, out of town between Sept. 1 and Dec. 16 last year.

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From Sept. 1 to Dec. 16 [2012], Villaraigosa traveled to 18 destinations, including Charlotte, Houston and San Francisco, and stayed at the luxury Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C., and the Andaz boutique hotel in New York. He took a 10-day trade mission to South America, where he was photographed at the glitzy Forever 21 fashion show at the upscale Titan Plaza mall in Bogotá, Colombia.

Whether at home or on the road, others were there to cover the mayor's restaurant bills, air travel and hotels. The Willie Brown Jr. Institute paid $1,188 for one of his trips to San Francisco; the Academy of Achievement paid $4,573 for one of his stay-overs in Washington, D.C.; the Center for American Progress paid $2,937 for another of his D.C. visits; and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, of which Villaraigosa served as president from June 2011 to June 2012, spent $34,227 on his "airfare, lodging, ground transportation, plus reasonable and necessary expenses"...

Good-government advocate Bob Stern expects Villaraigosa to be jarred when the flow of gifts, liquor, meals and VIP freebies slows, saying, "It's going to be a real letdown for him in July."

He will leave without a place to live or a car, and as yet with no work lined up that anyone has confirmed. There's talk of a book, a university gig and speaking engagements. The story goes over the speculation that Villaraigosa will run for governor in 2018 or county supervisor in the Yaroslavsky district next year. This morning, Villaraigosa hugged mayor-elect Eric Garcetti for the cameras outside Getty House, but abruptly left without taking questions. That struck reporters and even his press secretary as unusual. Maybe he didn't want any questions about this story, which is getting a lot of airplay from Villaraigosa critics.