Council Makes It Clear: No Bureaucratic Jargon

Los Angeles bureaucrats are once again fighting a war of words that they just cannot seem to win: They are being challenged to write in plain English.

The latest battlefield in this fight for understanding is the City Council agenda, which is about to get a complete remodeling of format and content.

Some council members say they just cannot comprehend many of the convoluted and jargon-ridden passages, while others see the flagrant use of government-issued vocabulary as an attempt by the bureaucracy to slip measures by an unquestioning council.

“It’s like the emperor who had no clothes,” Councilwoman Gloria Molina said. “Everybody’s afraid to say they don’t understand.”

Molina, who has been skirmishing with bureaucrats over their jargon since she joined the council in 1987, demanded on Wednesday that an important committee report and recommendations on the use of toxic materials be sent back to the authors in the city Planning Department, with instructions to bring it back in comprehensible form.

A largely silent council went along with Molina’s request after Molina challenged any one of her colleagues to stand up and explain just what it was that they were about to vote on.

The first section calls for “amending Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 12.13B1 (u) and (v) and existing ordinance (No. 163620) to waive time limits to process conditional use permits, to include the authority for an ad hoc committee (per Section 25199.7 of the California Health and Safety Code) to review applications, and to include the authority for siting criteria to be established by resolution.”

Nobody rose to accept Molina’s challenge.

“It’s just another example of the gibberish we get and are expected to vote on,” Molina said in an interview later.

Unfathomable Items

“They’ve been getting away with it for years,” she added, noting that her solution would be to send back all unfathomable items.

Molina said she had considered proposing an ordinance that would require simple, straightforward writing in official documents. But she was told the city already had one--and found it unenforceable.

The 1986 policy statement called for all ordinances and reports to be written in “plain English.” It calls for the use of “familiar words,” sentences no longer than 25 words, insertion of informative headings and the avoidance of jargon, and it recommends the use of active verbs whenever possible.

Several months ago, Councilman Marvin Braude asked the city clerk’s office to consider some format changes to help speed readers through the council agendas, which can at times have more than 100 items for consideration.

The agenda is a requirement under the state’s so-called Brown Act, which requires 72-hour public notice of official meetings and the subjects that will be discussed. City Council agendas are published for each of the regularly scheduled Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday meetings.

Copies Distributed

The City Clerk publishes and distributes 716 copies for each meeting. They go to city officials, the press and 181 private citizens who have paid $60 for an annual subscription.

Chief Legislative Assistant Pat Letcher said that as a result of Braude’s suggestions, her staff is working on a series of changes to move crucial information up.

Items will also be presented in a uniform fashion. Some items are now noted with Roman numerals, other with letters and some with Arabic numerals--all depending on who happened to have typed the item. The new format being considered includes a back page that would explain the meaning of key symbols, terms and procedures.

While these changes will surely help, they only solve part of the problem.

“The first thing is to make it more readable,” Letcher said. “The next step is to make it more understandable. . . . We need to encourage everyone to put their work in plain English.”