CITY COUNCIL WATCH : Slo-Mo Production

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s plan to merge the city and county film permitting offices already has been the subject of two reports and two hearings in City Council committees. Yet a third begins today.

Ordinarily, the first two would have been enough to get the plan before the full council for a vote. However, this is an election year, a time when the grandstanding quotient hits new highs.

A case in point was a sudden move by Councilwoman Ruth Galanter to attach a number of potentially onerous amendments to the mayor’s plan nearly a year after it was introduced. The most controversial of these includes a provision that would require a council member’s approval for each film permit issued in his or her district. Another would require applicants to sign a “code of conduct.”

Galanter maintains the issue is about minimizing inconvenience to her constituents and imposing community control. But signing off on every project creates a new layer of bureaucracy that could jeopardize many of the film and television production jobs on which this region depends.

Mayor Riordan’s plan already includes council participation--members would sit on the governing board of the nonprofit city/county permitting office--and would provide a greater measure of community outreach than now exists.

When the planning and economic development committee takes up the consolidation plan today, it should move it to the full council ASAP--before this issue becomes City Hall’s version of “The Neverending Story.”