Frustrating Trip to City Hall

Why are people so apathetic? Why do they just let things happen to their community?

I believe I have the answer. When they try to fight City Hall all they succeed in accomplishing is getting beaten down. They soon learn that it’s connections to members of the Los Angeles City Council that count.

A case in point: The other day I took a day off work, without pay, to attend a Planning and Land Use Management Committee meeting at City Hall. My son, who’s an accountant (it’s tax time) took the day off and one of my neighbors, who also is busy, was there. Most of the people in the council chamber were there for the Mulholland Specific Plan.

The meeting was called for 2 p.m. It started at almost 2:30. We were the last item on the agenda. After sitting through a bunch of zoning change requests and the like, they finally got to us. Then we were informed that the unpaved portion of Mulholland could not be discussed as it was being referred to the Department of Traffic and Engineering, which does not hold public hearings.

Are you beginning to get the picture? Couldn’t they have announced when they started that we would not be able to address that issue and allowed us to leave at that time, therefore avoiding the rush hour back to the Valley? No. Instead we all sat there for almost three hours for nothing.

We took time off from work, fought freeway traffic, paid plenty for parking and still had to walk for blocks--and accomplished nothing for our trouble. City Hall is going to do what it wants anyway.

BOBBIE FIRESTONE

Tarzana