Council Repeals Resolution on Race, Sex Bias

Mustering only the barest amount of self-criticism, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday repealed an earlier resolution it passed by mistake, which blasted conservative county supervisors for supposedly ignoring race and sex discrimination.

The resolution--authored in name only by Councilman Robert Farrell--was formally approved Wednesday by unanimous vote because no one bothered to read it, council members have admitted. It was included in a batch of so-called “commendatory resolutions” routinely approved at the end of each council session.

Usually, these resolutions honor a previously unsung civic employee or community bigwig.

Not this one.

Meant to show support for efforts to end discrimination, it included the unnoticed line:

“Whereas, here in Los Angeles County, although studies reveal that race and sex discrimination is pervasive, the conservative majority on the Board of Supervisors simply ignores the injustice. . . . “

Council members asked about the resolution on Wednesday admitted they had neglected to read its contents. But on Friday, when time came to rectify the move, council members were loathe to blame themselves.

Councilman John Ferraro blamed the city’s chief legislative analyst for failing to call the resolution to the attention of the council.

Councilman David Cunningham lightly criticized his colleague Farrell, noting that members of the council “owe” it to their counterparts to keep commendatory resolutions simply commendatory.

He regretted, he said, that the Farrell resolution allowed the council members to be portrayed as “dolts and idiots who don’t read everything that comes on our desk.”

Farrell, admitting that he had received the offending resolution from his staff and failed to read it before sending it to the full council, substituted a docile resolution that liberally quoted from the U.S. Constitution. It, like its predecessor, won unanimous approval.