Donations to fund Jacko service welcomed

LOS ANGELES, July 8 (UPI) -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is asking for donations to offset the cost of Michael Jackson's spectacular public memorial.

The Los Angeles Times quoted a spokesman for the mayor as saying the cost to deploy more than 3,000 police officers to Tuesday's star-studded event and the surrounding area was about $4 million.

Los Angeles currently has an estimated $530 million budget deficit, the Times noted.

To help pay for the tribute to Jackson, Villaraigosa created a Web site asking fans to make donations via PayPal.

"Help the City of Angels provide the extraordinary public safety resources required to give Michael the safe, orderly and respectful memorial he deserves," the Times reported a message on the Web site said.

"Getting several e-mails asking why we are 'wasting time' encouraging MJ donations when we have a budget crisis. Folks, that's precisely why," the mayor's spokesman, Matt Szabo, said on his own Twitter page.