Tallying the losses of 2011

Not a bad year for news, 2011, and I hate to see it fade away so quickly.

In fact, I’m not going to let it.

In Southern California, I’m not sure who had the worse year. Was it Dodgers owner Frank McCourt or L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca?

A tossup, I’d say.

McCourt lost a wife, alienated a city with the help of his ex, drove the Dodgers into both mediocrity and bankruptcy, and is now being forced to sell the team.

If McCourt is looking for a silver lining, it will be nearly impossible for him to have a worse year in 2012. But I’m not counting him out.

Baca, meanwhile, ended the year promising to look into the small matter of 1,480 cases of wrongful incarcerations in the last five years. And believe it or not, that wasn’t the low point of 2011 for Baca. It was one of his better days, in fact, because the responsibility for the faulty incarcerations extends beyond his department.

Baca had much worse days trying to defend himself and his department against mounting evidence that deputies abused inmates in the jail, allegations that are now the subject of an FBI investigation.

One day he blasted the idea of outside review, another day he welcomed it.

One day he seemed skeptical of the charges, insisting that people shouldn’t necessarily believe what inmates said and speculating that any problems could probably be attributed to a bad apple or two rather than to systemic issues. Another day, under an onslaught of good old-fashioned reporting by Times scribes Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard, he blamed his staff for not letting him know how bad things were.

And when a former jail official came forward to say that he’d repeatedly tried to alert Baca and other officials that deputies were pummeling inmates?

Baca blamed the whistle-blower for not fixing the problem himself.

Baca had such a miserable year that if he were up for reelection in 2012, Frank McCourt would have a shot at beating him. Unfortunately, Baca’s term runs through 2014, so we’re probably stuck with him until then.

As kind as Baca and McCourt were to serve up the occasional softball, there was plenty of other fodder in 2011.

Among the year’s other big local stories was Occupy L.A. I pitched my tent with them for one memorable night, which I suppose means I’m partly responsible for killing the grass at City Hall, which city officials estimate will cost about $400,000 to replace.

Most of the occupiers I met weren’t fans of mainstream media, and I had my criticisms of their movement, too. But I do think they started an important conversation about how things are rigged to benefit a few at the expense of the many. If you don’t think they had a point about that, consider these headlines from 2011, which I pulled straight from the pages of the Los Angeles Times:

March 5: “State is No. 1 in gas prices.”

April 14: “Exxon CEO gets $21.5 million.”

April 15: “Chevron CEO earns $14 million.”

Isn’t that a neat little grouping? If you think so, you’ll like the next one, too.

March 25: “Family wealth shows big drop.”

April 1: “Mattel chief’s pay climbs 20%”

April 2: “Ford CEO’s pay package climbs 48%.”

Bank of America, as everyone knows, found its way into the news on a regular basis in 2011.

March 9: “BofA profits may reach $40 billion.”

Oct. 8: “BofA fee focuses public anger. The ill-timed debit card charge becomes a rallying point for anti-Wall Street protests.”

Who was the BofA genius, I wonder, who looked out at fields of tents, sleeping bags and angry demonstrators waving signs about greedy bankers and said, “Hey, this might be the perfect time to launch that $5-a-month debit card fee.”

Dec. 22: “BofA settles U.S. claim of lending bias. Bank’s $335-million payment will resolve discrimination allegations against its Countrywide unit.”

Discrimination against whom?

Well, the Justice Department had accused Countrywide of charging higher interest rates and fees to African American and Latino home buyers than to white applicants with similar incomes and credit ratings.

A BofA spokesman was quick to say that took place before BofA’s purchase of Countrywide. Not that BofA hasn’t also been subpoenaed by the California attorney general and sued by federal regulators for its marketing of mortgage bonds during the meltdown.

Sept. 1: “CEO pay tops taxes at 25 firms.”

Oct. 27: “The rich are getting richer, U.S. confirms. Top 1% saw incomes soar 275% from 1979 to 2007. The bottom 20% had a gain of 18%.”

Nov. 4: “Study finds many firms pay no taxes. Most companies pay only about half of the 35% corporate income tax rate.”

Dec. 6: “Income divide grows in the U.S.”

Amazing how you can tell a story with so few words. But for me, the most telling headline of the year ran in March, illustrating why nothing will ever change without major reforms in the areas of lobbying and campaign finance.

April 6: “Banks lobbied amid bailouts. $70 million was spent over four years to thwart proposals for slowing foreclosures.”

As Marc Lifsher of The Times reported, $23 million was spent on lobbying and $45.9 million on campaign contributions in California by Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, among others. They helped defeat a bill that would have required a greater effort to modify loans before moving to foreclosure.

Hard to believe, but bankers had an even worse year than Baca and McCourt.

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