Coalition Uses Loud VOICE to Have Its Say With Politicians

Power has always derived from two main sources, money and people. Lacking money, the Have-Nots must build power from their own flesh and blood.

--social reformer Saul Alinsky

In less than two years, an unlikely coalition of grass-roots activists from the San Fernando Valley’s political backwaters has grown into a powerful, if sometimes abrasive, voice for those who traditionally have had little to say about the way their communities were run.

The organization, VOICE, an acronym for Valley Organized In Community Efforts, has led campaigns against abandoned cars, gangs and assault weapons, and most recently won important victories in an anti-graffiti campaign that included sponsoring legislation that would raise money to scrub the city of Los Angeles clean of illegal writings.

A broad-based coalition of 20 churches and synagogues with a combined membership of 25,000 families, VOICE also has developed a reputation for putting politicians on the spot by extracting promises from them before thousands of people.

These tactics, though often successful, have caused some elected leaders to accuse the organization of being too confrontational.

“Their rigidity disturbs me,” Los Angeles Councilwoman Joy Picus said. “It doesn’t endear them to me. I don’t like confrontations. I don’t like being treated as the enemy, especially when we share the same goals.”

But, said Father David Ullrich, a VOICE leader and pastor of Santa Rosa Catholic Church in San Fernando, the organization provides “a way to give a voice to the voiceless.”

“We’ve been taught that it’s not nice to raise your voice,” he said, “but it’s really silly not to.”

This week, with its anti-graffiti campaign winding down, VOICE will begin an attack on what its leaders say is a serious social ill--the state of public education in Los Angeles County.

The organization will launch its “Kids First” campaign Thursday at East Los Angeles College. It will be a joint effort with VOICE’s sister organizations--the older and more experienced East Los Angeles-based United Neighborhood Organizing Committee, or UNO; the South Central Organizing Committee in Los Angeles, or SCOC; and the East Valley Organization, or EVO, in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys.

“VOICE will not rest until all children can receive a quality education,” said Msgr. James Loughnane, pastor at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Canoga Park. It still remains to be seen whether the entrenched problems of education will respond to VOICE’s grass-roots efforts.

The seeds from which VOICE grew were sewn four years ago, when Father Tom Rush, then the pastor of Santa Rosa Church, set out to form a religion-based coalition of community crusaders ranging from the barrios of Pacoima and San Fernando to the upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Tarzana and Woodland Hills.

Ullrich, who took over in 1987 after Rush was transferred to another parish, said he approached leaders of other area churches and synagogues in an effort to persuade them that by banding together, they could improve the quality of life for their members wherever they lived. This was a new approach in the Valley, where political issues usually are tackled by fragmented homeowners groups.

So successful was the effort that by the time VOICE was launched by a crowd of 1,200 cheering people Nov. 22, 1988, at Cal State Northridge, 15 churches and synagogues representing about 20,000 families already had joined the organization. Hundreds of members have learned how to lobby politicians. Julio Pardo, a factory worker from Pacoima who had never before spoken to a politician, now is a regular in the halls of the Legislature in Sacramento.

Initially, the organization’s goals were to fight drug dealing and liquor sales to minors and to get rid of abandoned cars on residential streets. Eventually, VOICE members broadened their campaign to include gang problems and religious and racial discrimination.

“We’re asking questions and we’re making demands,” said the Rev. Curtis Page, a VOICE leader and former pastor of Kirk O’ the Valley Presbyterian Church in Reseda. “It’s no longer a matter of the politicians lecturing to us, but of us telling them what to do. We believe that people have the right to determine for themselves what is best for them. Through our training, we empower people to take control of their own lives.”

Funding comes from the member congregations. Annual dues range from $500 to $7,000, depending on the size of a congregation. VOICE had an initial budget of $187,000 to hire professional organizers, open an office and send members to leadership training courses. Its annual budget now is about $85,000, Page said.

VOICE’s brand of activism comes from the theories of the late social reformer Saul Alinsky, who rallied Chicago’s Irish slums into a power bloc in the 1930s, and who founded the IAF, acronym for Industrial Areas Foundation, with which VOICE is affiliated.

“If you have organized a vast, mass-people’s organization, you can parade it visibly before the enemy and openly show your power,” he wrote. “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”

But Alinsky’s tactics as employed by VOICE and its three sister organizations have drawn criticism from some elected officials.

Several years ago, an angry Mayor Tom Bradley stalked out of a meeting with UNO. More recently, Bradley has drawn fire from some VOICE leaders for not immediately agreeing to a meeting with them on their anti-graffiti proposals.

Late last week, Richard Alarcon, Bradley’s Valley liaison, announced he had firmed up a date for a VOICE meeting with the mayor.

VOICE leaders say they know their confrontational tactics offend elected officials, but they insist that the end justifies the means.

“VOICE is definitely an irritant to some people,” said IAF organizer Mike Clements. “But when people don’t have access, they need to raise their voices. People who have traditionally been ignored have a voice in shaping public life.”

“We’re not rude,” Ullrich said. “But we do face up to things.”

True to Alinsky’s writings, the sheer numbers of people who show up to support VOICE objectives appear to intimidate some politicians, some say.

“It’s eye-opening to watch some of the elected officials,” said VOICE leader Flo Weber, a probation officer from Woodland Hills. “They’ve never seen so many people come before them to support an issue.”

Alinsky’s methods were valid in his time, Picus said, but now should be adapted to acknowledge the change in times. “When Saul Alinsky organized in this manner, he was trying to help the truly helpless who have no allies,” she said. “Now, they have allies.”

Invited to a VOICE assembly in May, Picus thought she was to speak to the group of more than 1,000 people who had gathered at Valley Beth Shalom in Tarzana.

Instead, Page confronted her on stage and pressed her to announce a position on an ordinance authored by Councilman Joel Wachs that would tax utility customers to raise millions of dollars annually for a continuing anti-graffiti program in Los Angeles.

“They never told me they were going to ask that question,” said Picus, who agreed to support the Wachs initiative.

While some elected leaders criticize VOICE’s methods, many admit they have been effective.

The San Fernando City Council earlier this year approved an ordinance proposed by VOICE that requires store owners to keep cans of spray paint under lock and key to make it more difficult for graffiti writers to practice their craft. San Fernando also has made improvements at Las Palmas Park in the city’s mainly minority south side at the request of VOICE.

“They have the potential to be much more influential than they are,” said one political aide, who asked not to be identified. “And they will become much more so. Look at what has happened with UNO in 11 years. UNO is now very powerful.”

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who authored an anti-graffiti bill at the organization’s request, said VOICE members played “a major role” in pushing the legislation through the Assembly. Their lobbying efforts “changed a few minds,” he said.

The bill would allow local jurisdictions to place a tax on the sales of spray paint and wide felt-tip markers used by graffiti writers with the approval of two-thirds of voters. It must now be approved by the Senate.

VOICE’s diversity helped to attract Weber and others to the organization.

“It was important that we had a cross-section of the Valley,” said Weber, who helped in organizing the group. “It’s ecumenical and cross-cultural, and it’s constantly growing.”

“What people have learned is that they have common problems no matter where they live,” Page said.

Malka Tasoff, who is now receiving VOICE leadership training, said the organization was the first she has seen “that strove toward a broad-based coalition. Here, you have the business community coming together with the Hispanic community, the Anglo community and the Jewish community. We’re focusing on our commonality, on issues that concern us all.”

Page, who resigned from his church pastorship as of July 1 to become a professional organizer for the IAF, said the organizations will determine their course of action on education after they learn of members’ concerns through a series of small “house meetings” now being held.

“Education is a monumentally sized issue,” Page said. “But whatever we do will come from the people.”

The education campaign could take several years, Page said. As it stands now, he said, the educational system in Los Angeles--because of inadequate programs and a high dropout rate--condemns many children to spend the rest of their lives in poverty.

Tasoff, a Tarzana attorney and a member of Valley Beth Shalom temple in Tarzana, said she is excited about the education project.

“My impression is that VOICE is the only ray of hope we’ve got,” she said. “I’ve been concerned about public education for years. I am concerned my children are not being educated.”

Millionaire businessman Richard Riordan, who has been active with IAF groups in Los Angeles, is organizing support among Los Angeles business leaders for the effort. Business and industry has a growing need for talented workers and Los Angeles schools are not supplying them, Riordan told a recent VOICE meeting.

“Los Angeles is the wealthiest oasis in the history of mankind and yet we have a totally diseased education system,” Riordan said.