Five Steps Toward a Better Community

The people of Los Angeles need charter reform because the city’s government, designed more than 100 years ago, is incapable of adapting to today’s needs. City Hall is broken and needs repair, and the neighborhoods of this city know it.

We must reconnect people to city government; charter reform is our best opportunity.

There are five charter issues among many that need careful consideration.

* Neighborhood councils: Increasing citizen participation in government is the most important question before the two charter reform commissions. If the commissions do not create an apparatus to give people more direct participation in city government, their effort will be a failure. It is that simple.

The strong drive for secession cannot be ignored. I oppose secession. It would be bad for the city. But the secession movement should serve as a wake-up call to city officials that the concerns of neighborhoods need to be heard and addressed. To do this, a system of neighborhood councils must be established.

An effective system of neighborhood councils has four requirements: They must be defined by communities of interest, they must be elected, they must have real decision-making authority and they must have support structure.

A commission should be established to draw district lines for the neighborhood councils. Van Nuys or Koreatown should not be spread over three districts, as they are currently. Twenty neighborhood council districts should be established.

Five representatives should be elected from each district, for a total of 100 citywide. The positions would be unpaid and members would meet on a regular basis in their districts.

Neighborhood councils must be given real authority. Under this proposal, planning and land-use decisions would first be considered by neighborhood councils.

Such a system would provide significant local input. Projects would be considered only by the neighborhood council, the planning commission and the mayor. This would streamline the deliberative bodies that consider a proposal from four to two before it is considered by the mayor.

Projects with a citywide impact like airport expansion would be considered under the existing system.

Finally, an office of neighborhoods must be established to help provide support to the neighborhood councils.

* Balance of power: The authority of the mayor should be made more equal to that of the City Council. And the mayor should be granted greater control over the management of departments.

The mayor should have the authority to fire managers without council approval, and should be granted additional exempt positions that are not subject to Civil Service.

The council should not have the ability to micromanage city departments. Once the budget is passed, it should be the mayor who makes sure that general managers live within their means.

* Eliminate Proposition 5: This measure gives City Council veto authority over any commission decision, which undermines the power of the citizen commissions and the mayor.

The City Council now has the authority to reject commission appointments, tilting power too far in the council’s favor.

Department heads are forced to deal with too many bosses--the commission that oversees the department plus the 15 members of the City Council.

Proposition 5 also causes unnecessary delays that impact the business community. Businesses must wait to see if a commission decision is “approved” by the council before work can begin.

* Office of the City Attorney: Splitting the office, as has been proposed, would be a mistake; history shows us that. The office was split for 22 of the last 148 years, which resulted in great instability. During that time, 10 men held the position of prosecutor, none for more than three years. It cost 33% more to operate a bifurcated office. Additionally, the independence that results from electing the city attorney allows for an important check and balance on both the mayor and the City Council. Such independence would not exist if the position were appointed.

* Civil Service: The system should be preserved. City government is not like the normal workplace in that the bosses in city government change all the time.

More exempt positions at top levels should be created, but the workers of this city, who strive day in and day out to keep government running, should not be constantly held hostage to the changing political winds.

Recently, both charter commissions, one elected and one appointed, agreed to work together. This positive development provides hope that we can fix city government to make it work for the people of Los Angeles.

Charter reform may be one of the last, best opportunities to change how this city does business. The chance to provide the residents of Los Angeles with a real voice in government should not be squandered.