‘One for You, One for Me’ Is No Way to Govern

The Board of Supervisors’ squabble last week over $1.4 million in anti-gang funds is emblematic of what ails Los Angeles County and its cities. The supervisors ended up dividing the money equally among their five districts. They did not allow more time to find a countywide approach to gang prevention, nor did they devote more of the money to the areas with the worst problems.

Their argument? Absent an immediate countywide plan, or a better alternative within the next two months, it’s best to devote the money to groups within each district that have a proven record. Supervisors Mike Antonovich, Don Knabe and Zev Yaroslavsky favored that approach. Their colleagues Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gloria Molina did not.

Take any social problem and you can be certain it will not be spread equally across a jurisdiction. And the gangs certainly don’t choose their turf with regard to electoral boundaries. The board’s decision easily could result in separate anti-gang programs operating at cross-purposes in dealing with a single group whose territory extends across district lines.

If the board’s action was an aberration for the L.A. area, it would hardly be worth comment. But it’s just one more instance of widespread leadership by parochial interest. Some of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board’s biggest problems, for example, involve construction plans based on something for every district rather than transportation needs.

Los Angeles County residents who worry about gangs--and that means most of us--will ask whatever happened to the regional efforts promised after the killing of 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen 16 months ago. Again, in part, governmental energy has been frittered away because of the impulse of elected officials to carve up fledgling programs so their constituents can be sure to get a piece. Whatever happened to the bold idea that called for the quick appointment of a czar to coordinate and evaluate anti-gang efforts throughout the county? For the most part, it seems to have fallen prey to considerations of bureaucratic turf, parochial politics and lack of funding. Agencies guarded their autonomy and resources. What a surprise.

Meanwhile, the street gangs continue to expand. Gang slayings account for 40% of all county homicides; such cases are the least likely to be solved and the most likely to fall apart before trial. Meanwhile, the city of Los Angeles and the county and its more than 87 smaller cities move toward coordination at a snail’s pace. If this “strategy” had a name, it would be Divide and Fail.