Representation Is Key

The Los Angeles City Council and the abstract powers it holds under the existing city charter now loom as one of the biggest obstacles to reform of the 73-year-old charter. That much-amended 1925 document is outdated and unworkable in many ways, starting with its mind-boggling 700 pages of minutiae and duplication. The powers of the council to meddle in virtually any department or issue no matter how small and the natural inclination of people to use the power they have are major reasons why L.A. city government works so slowly and residents feel so frustrated.

Even the existence of two separate charter commissions grew from the council’s opposition to systematic review of the charter. The council appointed its commission in a failed effort to block voter passage in 1997 of Proposition 8, which created the elected charter reform commission. So we’ve had two commissions debating reform for the better part of the past two years.

The central goal of that effort remains to give citizens a stronger voice and better access to city services and to make the bureaucracy more efficient and responsive. We have long argued that the best, most direct way to do that is to reduce the size of City Council districts, meaning by definition a larger council.

Following months of tedious debate, the two reform panels are putting the finishing touches on their separate proposals. Yet, animus and suspicion toward the City Council may ironically sink efforts to improve the workings of the city. Behind the support of some commissioners, particularly on the elected panel, for giving the mayor and neighborhood groups broad new powers is a desire to ensure that all the people in this large and sprawling place have a voice at City Hall. But animosity has often bubbled to the surface as commissioners have debated those issues and the proper size of the City Council.

The two groups came to different conclusions. Now, a conference committee drawn from both panels is meeting in an effort to reach compromises. The goal, properly, is a single consensus charter to go before city voters next June.

In recent weeks, the conference group decided to give the mayor power to fire general managers, subject only to a veto by two-thirds of the City Council. The appointed commission earlier insisted that the council had to concur on such terminations, while the elected panel gave the mayor unilateral power to fire. The panels also compromised on a network of neighborhood councils to give residents more say in their communities. The councils, however, would be only advisory, with no decision-making authority. These proposals and others must still be approved by the separate commissions.

Then last week, the conference panel deadlocked on the size of the City Council under a new charter. The current 15 council members each represent a staggering 250,000 residents, far more than in any major city. Constituent service is a meaningless concept in districts of this size. All residents, not just powerful or wealthy ones, will have a strong voice only when they have access to council members. For that to happen--with or without neighborhood councils and broader authority for the mayor--the size of districts needs to shrink and the council has to grow.

In recent months the elected panel voted to leave the council at 15 members, while giving voters the option to increase it to 25. The appointed panel earlier decided to increase the council to 21 members. A compromise proposal that would have kept the council at 15 members but let voters increase it to 23 members died last week.

Fear that voters, already frustrated with local politicians, won’t support a bigger council has prompted some commissioners to oppose expansion of the council. So too have claims--unsubstantiated in our view--that an expanded council would dilute the electoral clout of minority voters.

The compromise committee will take up this issue again today. We have long urged the two commissions to present voters a single charter; to do otherwise risks defeat of any proposal.

The panels are close to succeeding. But in their final debates they should remember that better elected representation will do more for ordinary residents than any other single proposal being discussed.