Council Plan to Hit Road Hits Detours

The Los Angeles City Council is beginning to learn what it must be like to organize a Rolling Stones road show.

Council President John Ferraro’s plan to hold regular meetings throughout the city is running into the same problem that big-name rock bands face: finding a big enough venue for the event.

The quest is to find city-owned buildings that can hold the 15 lawmakers, their staff members, a truckload of television and recording equipment and the 250 or so residents who often attend the meetings.

The idea behind Ferraro’s plan to take government on the road was to make it more accessible--thus addressing the complaint City Hall is too distant and inaccessible.

But in the vast expanse that is Los Angeles, the city has found it owns few buildings that are underused and can hold more than 200 people.

Ironically, the few city-owned structures that fit the criteria are in downtown Los Angeles, only blocks from the city’s regular council chambers.

“We are scrambling to find the locations because the locations are the hardest thing to find,” said Pat Healy, the city clerk’s executive officer, who is taking the role of the council’s road manager.

At the request of Ferraro, several city departments have created a list of all city-owned meeting rooms.

Although the list is long--it includes libraries, municipal buildings and auditoriums--many of the sites must be dropped because they are within a few blocks of the existing council chambers or do not have adequate parking or handicapped access.

The city’s Recreation and Parks Department has several auditoriums and recreation centers throughout the city that can hold well over 300 people.

Those sites include the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center (capacity 600), the Westwood Recreation Complex (capacity 575) and the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro (capacity 270).

But to use those buildings, city recreation officials concede they may have to preempt regularly scheduled bingo games or line dancing for senior citizens or basketball games for teenagers.

For instance, the Friendship Auditorium near Griffith Park can hold 450 people but is regularly rented out for weddings, seminars, dances and presentations, according to recreation officials.

“Some weeks and weekends it is very, very busy,” said Linda Barth, a senior management analyst for the Recreation and Parks Department.

City officials are also considering the use of high school and college auditoriums. The problem, however, is again the council would have to work around the school’s schedule.

Still another potential drawback with the school sites is that some charge rent for the auditoriums or require that extra security guards or janitors be hired if the buildings are used after regular hours.

Also, if the school facilities don’t have the chairs, podiums and tables that the council needs, the city will either have to pay staff members to haul them out or rent them from a local business.

Although Ferraro was the lead proponent of the idea, he says spending too much money on the meetings might defeat the purpose of holding them in the community.

“I don’t want to make it too costly, because I don’t think people will appreciate spending a lot of money to bring our dog-and-pony show to their neighborhood,” he said.

This is not the first time the council has talked about holding regular meetings outside City Hall. And it is not the first time the idea has run into problems.

Two years ago, the City Council quashed a plan to hold four meetings in the community per year, saying the meetings in the past had been costly and poorly attended. One council member called them “a flop.”

Since then, the council has had a handful of meetings outside of City Hall.

But Ferraro believes the idea will be more successful if the council holds regular monthly community meetings that are advertised far in advance and are held at a permanent location.

The first meeting under this plan is tentatively scheduled for next month somewhere near Hollywood, depending on the availability of a meeting site.