Aspiring Cabinet-member Eric Garcetti left at the altar – Daily News

We’ve all been there; waiting at home, staring at the phone, desperate for it to ring.

“She said she’d love to go out with me!” Silence.

“The job interview went fantastic!” But the phone just sits there.

Poor Eric Garcetti. It looks like President-elect Joe Biden has found somebody else. Anybody else.

Last week, the mayor of America’s second-largest city lost his dream job to the mayor of America’s 305th largest city. And not even the mayor, the former mayor!

Former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg landed a seat in Joe Biden’s cabinet as secretary of transportation, the job widely rumored to be Eric Garcetti’s ticket out of town.

His plumb job went instead to a guy whose city’s mass transit system is four Notre Dame students driving for Uber. TRANSPO, South Bend’s public transit agency, has 47 buses. That’s it. L.A.’s Metro has 2,330 buses and someday hopes to have that many passengers.

Despite our infamous gridlock, if there’s a job in D.C. Garcetti can legitimately lay claim to, secretary of transportation is it. Garcetti sits on the MTA Board and spearheaded the campaign for Measure M, which is funding for the largest mass-transit project in the country. Yet, the gig went to Mayor Pete. Why?

With the smoke starting to clear after four years of Trump outrages du jour, L.A.’s dirty laundry has finally floated to the top. Homicides are up 30 percent from last year. Yet, in June, Garcetti was quick to jump on the “defund the police” bandwagon even while rioting and looting were tearing up parts of his city.

Homelessness on the streets of L.A. is not only an international embarrassment, it’s a moral outrage. How is the $1.2 billion in Measure H and HHH money being spent? The average cost per unit of homeless apartments hit $531,000, with some going as high as $746,000.

Last week, City Councilman Paul Koretz was “stunned” to learn the city’s tiny home program in North Hollywood has jumped the shark, with the cost of constructing 8’ x 8’ shelters rocketing to $130,000 each. Wayfair sells an 8’ x 8’ “Little Cottage” wood storage shed for $1,429, including free shipping. At Home Depot, a Duramax 8’ x 10’ retails for $749.

Then there is the corruption at City Hall, all on Eric Garcetti’s watch.

Raymond Chan is the latest public official to do the perp-walk in a major ongoing FBI investigation into pay-to-play in Los Angeles. Councilman Jose Huizar was pinched last June and is scheduled for trial next June. Councilman Mitch Englander was arrested for accepting envelopes stuffed with cash in a men’s room stall and lying to the FBI. He took a plea deal.

More recently, Garcetti’s aide Rick Jacobs resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations, including being named by LAPD Officer and former Garcetti bodyguard Matthew Garza in a lawsuit that claims Jacobs sexually harassed Garza for years in the presence of the mayor, who did nothing. The mayor denies this.