The 24

Over the past two months, The Times solicited the views of thoughtful, civicly engaged observers from various professions and points of view. Each of the 17 men and seven women was asked for their ideas about what works and what does not work in the city, as well as for suggestions on how to improve Los Angeles government and politics. Excerpts from those interviews:

Warren M. Christopher

Lawyer, former Secretary of State; chairman, Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department

“Able, consistent leadership is going to be essential for the future. That’s what gives me concern . . . We’ve gotten through, but we’ve survived on the basis of our own vitality.”

Richard “Skip” Byrne

Former presiding judge of the Superior Court:

“It seems to me that we do need a mayor who has authority to act . . . The Council has too much authority. You get a lot of grandstanding and I think posturing, which does not do anything to move an issue forward. It becomes divisive and results in paralysis.”

Bruce Cain

U.C. Berkeley political science professor:

“What [Riordan] is saying is: I want to manage efficiently. What I’m saying is you can’t just focus on management and efficiency. In a democracy, you have to do a lot of work on the front end building consensus. If he’s impatient with democracy, he’s in the wrong biz.”

Antonia Hernandez

President and general counsel, MALDEF:

“Representation is to make people feel they have a piece of the rock. The quality of representation has to increase for all residents of the city ... The people in Rita Walters’ district have the right to a person of their choice. If Rita is being responsive, then Rita should stay. But if she’s not, we will replace her.”

Father Greg Boyle

Catholic priest, director, Jobs For a Future:

“I buried the kid who killed the police officer in Hollenbeck. He was 17 years old. I knew him well. He was better than the worst thing he ever did . . . I had a probation officer say to me over the phone: ‘You rot in hell.’ That is not a compassionate government.”

James Q. Wilson

Political philosopher, retired UCLA professor:

“The parliamentary regimes...approach the corporate model. We have used the representation model at the national level. Los Angeles does not represent an alternative model. It represents a muddle. That model has never worked anywhere, as far as I can tell, and least of all here.”

Connie Rice

Western Regional Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund:

“Finding the power centers in this area is like an Easter Egg hunt...The real question is: How do you enhance regional effectiveness, the effectiveness of regional government?”

Linda Griego

Former deputy mayor to Tom Bradley, Partner of Engine Company 28.

“The real problem we face is non-participation...They feel that somehow this is a private club, and they don’t belong...They see nothing in it for them. Those who have, get.”

Dominic Ng

President and CEO of East West Bank:

“Any business that had a structure like this would be torn up. It’s a messed-up charter . . . If I owned the city, the city would elect the a board, and the board would pick the mayor.”

John A. Perez

Executive director, United Food and Commercial Workers States’ Council:

“The thing that doesn’t work well in this city is economic development and land use . . . You have people making short-term decisions that aren’t predicated on building and sustaining communities . . . There has to be vehicle to increase people’s participation in city government. Without it, you have people’s frustration manifesting itself in things like secession.”

Williams S. Epps

Senior pastor, Second Baptist Church:

“We’ve done some housing projects in this city, and for a city that needs housing, it’s very difficult to get through the departments . . . If you’re looking at a Downtown project that’s $20 million or $30 million, they get it through. But you try to provide some low-income housing, and you have to dot every I and cross every T. They look for every comma and every period. There’s an inequity in that system.”

Harold Schulweis

Rabbi, Valley Beth Shalom:

“We have carried individualism to privatism and necessarily to segregation ... You feel once in a while a little yearning for largeness. There is a need for leadership, a desperate need for leadership, to bring people to something larger.”

Alice Callaghan

Episcopal priest, Skid Row activist:

“The mayor has no power. That’s the whole problem . . . You have to have somebody in the city who can make things happen and who can be held responsible. We need someone to blame.”

Harold Meyerson

Executive editor, LA Weekly:

“The whole secession movement isn’t about the center being massive and oppressive. It’s more like a solar system where the central star has lost mass, and the planets are spinning away.”

Richard Fajardo

Lawyer:

“It’s not that waste and inefficiency are not problems. They are problems. But it’s the nature of government. I always distrust people when they say government ought to be run like a business . . . If you want to run government like a business, get out of government and get into business.”

Anthony Thigpenn

Chairperson of the board, AGENDA:

“In any council district, there are community activists, a few dozen. The vast majority don’t feel connected to this government, don’t feel related to it. The price is that a pretty small group of people . . . have a disproportionate role in governing.”

Angela Oh

Lawyer, advisor to President Clinton’s National Dialouge on Race:

“There needs to be some leadership exerted. There needs to be a return of dignity to public office. We need leadership, and it’s often not there.”

Fernando J. Guerra

Director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University:

“LAX, the port, the customs district--these things work. Even the roads, despite the potholes that we see, given the amount of people, given the number of cars, they move pretty well. What doesn’t work is the social infrastructure. On issues such as housing, health and education, we have failed miserably.”

Douglas Ring

Lobbyist, land-use lawyer:

“When the City Council adopted the anti-panhandling ordinance [which Riordan proposed], I watched that with a sense of horror because I realized that they were only doing it to reinforce the stigma against homeless people . . . That was good politics. It was bad lawmaking.”

Brenda Shockley

President of Community Build, non-profit community development organization created in the aftermath of the 1992 riots:

“Doing business with the city really has to be streamlined.... The CRA does one thing. Some of that also is done by the Community Development Department. Then you have the non-profits. And there are these task forces within the mayor’s office doing parallel things. It’s duplication, and it’s really difficult to know where you get access.”

State Sen. Richard Polanco:

“The goal should be to improve how the people of the city of Los Angeles engage in their government and not be as alienated as I believe them to be.”

Ed Davis

Retired chief of police, former state senator:

“The progressives probably were more right than wrong when they created a system for Los Angeles with this many checks and balances. Now we’re in an era when we need a stronger mayor . . . [but] there needs to be some diffusion of power. A strong mayor system might have given us more corruption.”

Vivian Rothstein

Community activist, consultant:

“I lean toward decentralizing government, but in the context of values leadership . . . If you just decentralize, you will have nothing I care about. . . . If you’re not careful, you won’t have any halfway houses, any detox centers, any homeless shelters, any centers for retarted children. Then we’re in real trouble.”

Robert Maguire

Managing partner, MaguirePartners

“The real challenge is how do you get a sense of participation and civility? How do you get a place that is really a civil place to live in? The process is an un-godly hindrance.”