Wish List ’98

The new year begins with parades and football and last night’s party hats and champagne giving way to today’s firm resolutions. We have our own, plus a “to do” list for government officials, all of it possible. What’s required is forthright leadership. We wish particularly for that.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, L.A. Police Chief Bernard Parks and L.A. Unified School District Supt. Ruben Zacarias will face challenges in 1998. So will City Council members, county supervisors, members of the state Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson. The people need real solutions, not politically expedient ones. Here are some areas where we wish to see progress:

City of Los Angeles. The elected and appointed charter reform commissions should reach a consensus on meaty recommendations to streamline city government. The need to modernize the 72-year-old charter is obvious. The members of the two panels certainly can do the job. What we fear are the inertia, cynicism and bickering that have too long characterized city politics and the public’s profound apathy and distrust of its local leaders.

Most Angelenos know how hard it can be to make a difference in the city’s bureaucracy. That frustration resulted in passage of a state bill that clears the way for the San Fernando Valley potentially to form its own city. The Times strongly opposes splitting Los Angeles, but those who call city government unresponsive, arrogant and out of touch do have a point.

The way to fix that is for City Council members to treat each other civilly and represent not only their own districts but the city as a whole. Los Angeles is not 15 fiefdoms. Charter reform may force council members to change but we urge them to take the initiative. Open doors, give change a chance.

L.A. Unified School District. We have a long way to go here. We need improved student scores and performance. That requires more certified teachers, a textbook for every pupil in every class, an increase in the number of third-graders who read at grade level and more children transferred from classes taught in their native languages to classes in English. Major progress will require cooperation from the now-obstructionist unions that represent the teachers and administrators. Supt. Zacarias and the school board must firmly hold instructors and principals accountable. This generation of students deserves school years that are a positive experience.

L.A. Police Department. A safer city requires more street cops, squad cars and computers. Chief Parks wants to maximize resources by using up-to-the-minute crime statistics to quickly deploy officers to trouble areas. The new chief, with his emphasis on accountability, must get his message to the officers on the street and oversee more evenhanded discipline. And--how many years must we wish for this?--the Christopher Commission reforms should be fully implemented.

Both the Police and Fire departments would get a boost if the city finally built the new 911 system that voters approved five years ago. A two-hour failure of 911 last week was traced to a phone company problem, but the city’s system itself is nonetheless antiquated. The mayor and City Council should make this the year they take action on 911.

The MTA. Oh, where do we start with an agency that has delivered so little? Julian Burke, interim chief of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, must somehow persuade the MTA board this month to approve his plan to vastly downsize the county’s rail plan. The board in turn needs to help sell its proposals to Washington.

L.A. County. Last year planners and public officials demonstrated that they are serious about encouraging growth without damaging the character of neighborhoods. For instance, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and City Councilman John Ferraro negotiated big cuts in the proposed expansion of the Universal Studios theme park. After the remaining questions over noise and lighting are worked out with neighbors, the revised project should get a green light.

We encourage similar give-and-take with Newhall Ranch, the housing project that’s projected to have 70,000 residents in 25 years. The bulk of the project, in the hills west of Santa Clarita, was approved by the L.A. County Regional Planning Commission in December. Now county supervisors must carefully consider the project’s effects on regional growth patterns and listen closely to the concerns of Ventura County residents who fear degradation of the Santa Clara River watershed.

And in the matter of independent audits for county departments: Let’s complete the job.

Orange County. We’d like to see an end to the quarreling over what to do with the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station after the Marines leave in 1999. Orange County’s political, business and civic leadership should make the satisfactory resolution of El Toro’s future a top priority. This would require Southern California as a whole to plan cooperatively for its aviation needs.

The county also has to work harder to find solutions to the perennial problem of jail overcrowding, which has led to the early release of tens of thousands of inmates.

On schools, the Orange unified district needs to tone down the rhetoric and not take recent election results as a mandate to end the subsidized meal programs and counseling that have helped students.

Sacramento. Asking much in the way of achievement from the 1998 California Legislature may be unrealistic because politics are likely to dominate the deliberations this election year. And although the electorate is sick of do-nothing intraparty jostling, there undoubtedly will be internal struggles in both houses to succeed termed-out Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer and Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante.

Gov. Wilson and legislative leaders, meanwhile, will try to take the high road by seeking further education reforms and suppression of juvenile crime, both popular political issues. But Sacramento must make sure that public school reforms fit within an overall plan that will produce results and that juvenile crime legislation will be not just hard-nosed but will contain a strong preventive element.

And surely it’s time--20 years after the passage of Proposition 13--that the Legislature and governor finally examine in depth the tangled mess of state and local government fiscal affairs. Perhaps no other issue begs for attention as this one does.

Welfare reform. As thousands of welfare recipients go to work, they will need help to find child care. As welfare reform forces more stay-at-home mothers into the work force and dictates new child care arrangements, it will be up to Washington, Sacramento and all county welfare departments to make sure poor parents can find decent, dependable and affordable supervision close to home.

These are our top priorities for improving our communities, region and state. Let’s hold our leaders accountable. caption: Wilson, Riordan, Parks and Zacarias: They must provide accountable leadership.