Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa seems to have settled the weeks-long debate over whether the cash-strapped city should cover the $1. Read the full post.
Jul 14
2009
03:19 PM ET
L.A. mayor says city should foot the bill for Michael Jackson's memorial service: Is that fair?
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to C.E. – following that logic, no one should ever have to pay for their family member’s funerals as long as they pay taxes. It’s baloney. The poor and middle class pay, but multi millionaires don’t? Please.
exploitation..marketing..lies. gossip…what an epitaph and now the taxpayers pay too- Wow everyone gets raped in tribute to drug abuse and EGOS gone wild – nothing important- a lost soul has passed
why America sucks- it worships CRAP-
THAT SUCK THAT THE TAX PAYERS LIKE ME WOULD HAVE TO PAY . AFTER ALL IT NOT LIKE LOW & MEDIUM INCOME COULD AFFORD TO PAY THAT STUPID.
For a private funeral procession, the responsible party pays for the police escort (which tends to be pricey).The municipality the procession drives through DOES NOT PAY FOR IT.The responsible party for this cost is Jackson’s estate. Sorry LA, you got screwed again.
Wow… just another way of getting screwed. I agree… Tony is just sucking up and trying to show some misplaced sense of L.A. pride and independence in a pathetic attempt to show the world that “L.A. os okay, we don’t need your money, no way, no how”.
Let’s calculate possible revenue: 8750 tickets.
If each person bought a meal in/around L.A., that’s about $175,000 ($20/dish), Hotel stays would be about $350,000, provided the people doubled up at $80/room. If they also doubled up for parking ($12/vehicle), this would bring in $52,500. Grand total? $577,500. If these ticket holders would “donate” $20/each (which will never happen), that would cover $752,500. Just over half the expense.
L.A. (city and county) are hemorrhaging money, and L.A. cannot afford this bill. But, Tony decides to put it where? On the taxpayers back. Of course. So… why isn’t the family paying? Generally, the family pays for funeral services. At least that’s the case for the un-rich and un-famous.
In theory, I support the mayor’s point. LA is a world-class major city and needs to be able to provide services for big (huge) events. However, this was NOT an unavoidable event. The Jackson family chose to have this in order to have a public memorial for the…public. They had a private service first, which I’m sure didn’t cost the city 1.4 million. The second one was an option and shame on the Jackson family & all the rich celebrity friends and family who would want to hurt this city in this way. As others have pointed out, LA is NOT just a city for the rich and, chances are, the poor are the ones who will ultimately pay the price for this with lost services. If any of his rich friends truly want to honor Michael, don’t let that be the lasting legacy of his memorial service. How embarrassing. Pony up! All we hear on the news now is how different family members have “projects” already in the works. PONY UP! You should be ashamed and I think Michael definitely would be.