Doing Right by L.A.’s Kids : Panel is proposed to coordinate city services for youngsters

Too many Los Angeles children don’t have safe places to play and learn. It’s a problem that’s particularly acute after school, before most parents get home from work. Now the Mayor’s Committee on Children, Youth and Families has quantified the need involved and is recommending some creative ways to do better by kids.

Of course, nothing is cheap. The volunteer committee, headed by veteran children’s advocate Nancy Daly, suggests creating a new municipal children’s commission to better coordinate services. That commission would cost $500,000 at a time when Mayor Richard Riordan and the City Council are looking for ways to trim the budget. The move, however, is not impossible; half the costs could be paid for by transferring employees from the Mayor’s Office of Youth Development, and private funding could be generated.

The new city body would not duplicate the county’s Commission for Children’s Services. The county is responsible for supervising the safety net that protects children through foster care, mental health care, juvenile and other social services. The city has no similar legal obligation, although it spends $215 million on programs for children.

The Daly report, “LA4KIDS,” also recommends establishing at least 15 networks, at a cost of $35,000 each, to coordinate and provide more services for families. (Fifteen, perhaps not coincidentally, is the number of council districts.) Businesses would be asked to help by “adopting” libraries, playgrounds, parks, libraries and other city entities. A trust fund would be established to receive donations.

Riordan, like most big-city mayors, must do more with less. One remedy is public-private partnerships. Kaiser Permanente and the Weingarten Foundation have already underwritten the start-up costs for the proposed children’s commission. That’s a beginning on behalf of Los Angeles’ 860,000 children.