Neighborhood noise

The Neighborhood Council Review Commission has released its recommendations for reforming L.A.’s seven-year-old system of neighborhood councils, and members of the commission visited the editorial board Thursday to discuss their recommendations. Led by executive director Raphael Sonenshein, commission members including chair Rev. Altagracia Perez, vice-chair Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker and vice-chair Jason Lyon discussed their recommendations [pdf] for changing the neighborhood council governance, which include having the city government assist in paperwork, giving the city clerk oversight of neighborhood council elections, establishing a Sunshine Law and expanding “stakeholder status” in councils. Is this the beginning of a new model of city governance or just a new exercise in non-binding process? Read on and decide:

Theoretical lethargy

Rev. Altagracia Perez: When people ask me why is it important to be in these council meetings, I tell my people that real democracy is sloppy — academic and intelligent people having conversations among themselves is not democracy — that real democracy means that everybody on the ground gets in to talk, to argue, to fight. And hopefully to come up with some consensus that can be organized behind. So I think regardless of all the various thoughts there are about how to reform city government, I don’t know that that takes away the place of neighborhood councils. I mean if we get it working smoothly and seen as a powerful voice in city hall, it could be responsive to the kind of lethargy we see which keeps folks from getting involved because it’s too theoretical.

What do the people think?

Raphael J. Sonenshein: One of the things we were able to do was conduct a citywide survey, which hasn’t been done, asking everybody — not neighborhood council people — about neighborhood councils. Were they aware of them, and were they likely to participate? We got this incredible cross-section of the city, including working people, non-citizens, young people. About half of them were aware of neighborhood councils, which was astounding. But they also had a very long list of the things they would want to see in a neighborhood council before they would participate, and one of the things we found was that three-quarters of the people on boards don’t have children at home, for example. Which tells you a lot about — what was it, luxury of time that we heard about at the City Council? People talked about short meetings, about matters that really mattered to them like crime, drugs and things in the neighborhood, which tend not to be the subjects at neighborhood councils. Um, what was the other thing?

Altagracia: Child care...

Raphael: Child care, so there’s a whole agenda we’ve been handed, in effect, by the dog that doesn’t bark — people who haven’t been at the meetings. And that’s why the future orientation of the report is so important. It’s envisioning what the system should look like rather than tweaking what it is.

What’s the point of a powerless council?

Jim Newton: As I recall, the fundamental debate when the neighborhood council charter was passed was how to make them powerful enough that they would attract interest and be meaningful, without being so powerful that they would be a block to the city working as a whole — whether it was blocking development or what. How has that played out in real life? I mean, what is, what are they, how has their power materialized and where is that balance between enough and too much?

Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker: If you look at the survey you’ll see that those who were involved in the neighborhood council system believe they have not exercised sufficient power nor received sufficient respect. Some people who have been interviewed by the neighborhood councils on the pleading side probably believe they have too much power. I think that it’s still a work in progress, and we just need to be reminded of how long it takes any significant movement to mature. So we’re really only in the seventh year. So just to segueway back a little to 1992, before we did the charter, and what I call the economic referendum of ‘92, we found that we could be connected. That there were some differences that were not as important as we thought there were. And that there was a likeness that was more important. I think the neighborhood council system, at least from an elected or appointed charter commissions point of view, was a way to try and sustain that connectedness. We’re now talking about sustainable neighborhoods; we need to find a way to do that. And we started out with a one-size-fits-all. We did not look at standards and best practices.

The power piece, I think that’s almost the wrong word to use. The question is how do we recognize that neighborhoods have different flavors, have different cultures, different needs. How do we include people without having to card them? This gives us an opportunity not just to tweak it but to shape and mold it according to the needs of the neighborhood.

Jason Lyon: I think Jacquie really hit the nail on the head, that we’re really trying to move away from the idea of this being any kind of power struggle, and that if there’s any kind of power base on neighborhood councils it’s their ability to put together a diverse collection of voices that represent a broad range of views in the community, and to bring those ideas to City Hall. But they’re not proving to be effective at overthrowing elections, and every once in a while stopping things, but not very often. And that’s not really the role we envisioned or designed for them. One of the things we’re trying to do is move away from the decision to the deliberation. Because there’s too much focus on the yes or the no from the community. And that’s not the real value of neighborhood councils, which is bringing a lot of ideas to the table. [...]

Jim: Well maybe power’s too hard a word, but I mean, why would I, as a resident of a neighborhood, you know, waste what is limited time in my life to devote time to a neighborhood council that can’t influence life in my neighborhood?

Altagracia: See I think that’s not true, I think they can.

Jacquie: The connectedness to City Council members is clearly evident, despite some conversations. I think it changes based on the City Council member and the savvy of the neighborhood council. But when you raise that question, you’re also raising a question about all the other voices in the community. And so the neighborhood council then has an opportunity not just to be able to be a voice, but the umbrella of voices. So whether it’s the PAC, whether it’s the neighborhood association, whether it’s the block club, the neighborhood council has an opportunity to speak among itself, before it goes to speak to City Hall. Because what happens now is all the divergent voices come to City Hall and City Hall can decide to hear or ignore any one group. [...] Neighborhood councils have demonstrated that you can be a drop-in stakeholder or a stakeholder who stays at the table longer. And that’s something we really wanted to emphasize, because if I have a critical issue, and I want to come to a meeting for that critical issue and not come back until the next critical issue, that should be OK.

Why neighborhood councils?

Robert Greene: One of the things I find myself asking...myself is whether your process is most geared toward sustaining the institution of neighborhood councils and justifying it or if instead it is addressing the question of whether the neighborhood councils are the right institution to do what you want to do. And that brings us to the basic question: What is the purpose of neighborhood councils?

Jacquie: When I came I felt, OK, I’m here to speak for those people who don’t understand, as I didn’t understand, why Empowerment Congress was not taken as a model. Because it was already in place; I just didn’t understand it. I was concerned about the cycle of leadership change, because it did not appear to have any consistency. What I learned in the process is there were a group of very dedicated people committed to the neighborhood council system. They had worked very hard, and it was working more successfully in other sections of the city than in the place where I had been. The real question was how do we take those best practices, tweak some of the bad practices; I’m not saying eliminate them because I know human nature is what it is. My evolution is that I think we should give it another try. I push for five years, not seven. I don’t think we need to give it seven. Because in the next five years it is incumbent upon us to really insist the recommendations be given serious consideration, and dealt with instead of just laying on the table until year seven when it’s time for another review. So yes, I thought neighborhood councils were going to be the umbrella that we were going to go and put the voices in, that they were going to be a listening post. I think that has yet to be realized.

Stakeholders sitting at one table

Robert: Could you just briefly explain what it is to be a stakeholder in a neighborhood council, and why that has been a controversy?

Jacquie: A stakeholder some people believe should only be a resident of the neighborhood. A homeowner already has a voice in the homeowners association. There are lots of issues around work, because of some takeover issues, principally those around elections. So how do we define work? Live, work and own property — if you own property we’re back to some of the basic tenets of this country that we thought we had solved some time ago. But we chose to add, in a very obvious way, the opportunity for someone who believes that stakeholders who declare can be documented — a la the issue around: can somebody who buys a cup of coffee at Starbucks come in with a receipt and say I’m a stakeholder in this community. We believe that it really has to be open. Each neighborhood council can struggle with it. There are ways they can have voices at the table, for deliberation, not just for election. Too much focus has been on election at the Board.

City council and neighborhood council

Raphael: If they act in a coherent way I think that Council members are going to look to neighborhood councils as a way to vet their decisions before they act, and if there’s one thing L.A. has lacked, it’s more voices in decisions before they’re made. It’s always been a very top-down city. I think the Council members are going to be pleasantly surprised by what the neighborhood council members think of them. I think they believe the neighborhood council members all hate them, and our survey shows the exact opposite. And if I were a City Council member now and I had five neighborhood councils, I’d say I’m going to talk to them. And that’s the way to make better decisions. Our whole point is that the city should make better decisions.

Jason: And better access to information. I was going to say, if you’re not a neighborhood council member, the one thing that will change for you is that it will be easier to figure out how to get something done. And we’re moving toward that. I mean the little things, like there’s a, you know, pair of shoes hanging from a wire in my neighborhood and I can’t get to it. Who do I call to get that done? That’s going to be easier to figure out.

Now how much would you pay?

Jim Newton: What’s the dollar figure going to be?

Jacquie: The question is, is there any price that’s too much for a really well functioning city? And I err on the side of Raphe that the participation in the city on election day is so abysmally low that we need to do something. And I think we’re probably spending more because we don’t have people involved. I say to people, you’ve made a significant investment already in your community. Even renters have made a significant investment in the community. Neighborhood councils have the potential of doing that, and that’s why I think in this next five years we have to be very focused on how these recommendations are carried out.

Jason: In terms of an overall price tag I don’t think we really know because some of them will depend on how they’re implemented. For example we called on the city to do a citywide outreach campaign. That part of the problem is that the city isn’t saying this is your portal to City Hall. So we don’t know how much that’s going to cost or what they’ll apportion to that. I mean we know what pieces of it will cost.

Raphael: We’re talking probably a 20% to 25% increase in what the city’s going to spend.

Jim: And right now it’s about $8 million?

Jacquie: Which is not much...

Jason: That’s for a government that’s actually of and by the people. That’s what that price tag is for.

Rapael: The other thing is, this is the only solution in the last 20 years that’s emerged in Los Angeles to the persistent problem of alienation from city government.