Big Steps Toward Charter

Surprising some of the cynics, efforts at reforming the Los Angeles City Charter are proceeding at a steady pace. In the past few weeks, the panel appointed by the City Council to review the 70-year-old charter has begun to sort out what should stay and what should go from the gargantuan document that now rules city government decisions. Even more important, the appointed panel and the one that voters elected in 1997 agreed last week on a way to work in tandem.

These are big steps. And although the path to reform is still long and rocky, the process seems to be gathering steam. The goal is not simply a streamlined charter (the existing document is 700 pages of leaden bureaucratese). The goal is a flexible, efficient city government, one that responds quickly when residents need a new street light or a new library, one that encourages and harnesses the energy of residents and their appetite for involvement rather than putting obstacles in their path.

The first big decision reached, that the charter itself should be smaller, seems a no-brainer. Of course the charter is way too long. Of course the endless, minute detail slows and complicates every move the city makes. The appointed commission voted to dump at least half that detail, reorganize it into a separate volume or transfer it to the city codes. The panel decided to rewrite the charter as a set of general principles rather than a detailed operations manual for every facet of city government.

Much of the heavy detail now in the charter--on departmental procedures, election rules and Civil Service and retirement provisions--will go into the administrative code, the election code and an appendix to the charter. The new charter would still be longer than the U.S. Constitution by hundreds of pages but shorter and simpler nonetheless than the one that has been in place seven decades. This can’t help but produce a more supple city government.

In another major development, the elected and appointed commissions announced creation of a joint panel. The fact that two panels were independently established to pursue reform is a powerful sign of the dysfunction and discord in city affairs. Nothing compels these two groups to work together, but the reform effort will surely fail if they do not present a unified set of proposals to the voters next year.

A conference committee, staffed by members of both panels, will now jointly consider all major proposals as each commission proposes them. This is an excellent idea, and by interacting now rather than when both commissions have hardened opinions on separate revision plans, the two panels are more likely to find common ground and to generate the voter support necessary to make charter changes happen.