Chick eyes higher office

Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick was awared a new waste and fraud investigation unit within her office yesterday in an unanimous vote of the City Council. Chick approached the council last year about setting up the unit. This may be bad news for City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who is currently running for California Attorney General. Chick and Delgadillo have an ongoing intra-city rivalry Delgadillo is running against former Governor and current Oakland mayor Jerry Brown, who Chick, not coincidentally, had Brown swear her into office earlier this year. It doesn't usually pay when your rival is given an investigative team to look into waste, fraud and abuse. The L.A. Daily Newsreported this week that Chick herself has her eye on higher office. "I love my job as city controller, being the taxpayers' watchdog and fighting waste and fraud," Chick said. "To have the opportunity to do that for all Californians and help clean up the mess in Sacramento is certainly an opportunity worthy of consideration." Between Padilla, Villaraigosa, Delgadillo and Chick there sure are an awful lot of ambituous local-level Los Angeles politicians.