Panel’s Proposed City Government Face-Lift Gets Mild Local Reception

A proposed face-lift of Los Angeles city government, which would increase the size of the City Council and give the mayor more power to shape local government, received a subdued response Wednesday night in the San Fernando Valley, home of some of the most ardent critics of downtown government and proponents of Valley secession.

The appointed charter commission chose the Northridge Recreation Center gymnasium to spell out its recommendations for a more responsive, efficient city government. The tame presentation and discussion were in sharp contrast to the caustic debate being generated by the commission’s elected counterpart, whose reforms have ignited a border war between Valley activists and powerful L.A. business leaders.

The appointed commission, whose members were chosen mostly by the City Council, must submit its recommendations to the council, which will then decide whether to put them on the ballot. The other commission, which has the power to place its recommendations on the ballot, were chosen by voters. The two are independent but are striving to cooperate on charting a new course for the city.

More than 100 people drifted in during the appointed panel’s “open house.” They aimed the bulk of their questions and criticism at a recommendation that would create neighborhood councils with advisory power, preferring instead elected councils with more power over community affairs.

The proposal to expand the City Council from 15 to 21 members was greeted warmly, but a number of those who came were wary of a recommendation to increase the power of the mayor’s office.

“It’s not strong enough,” Dorothy Boberg, a resident of Northridge since 1957 and member of a local civic association, said of the recommendations. “The neighborhood councils need more power, in the area of zoning especially.”

Wednesday’s public forum was the first foray of the commission’s citywide publicity blitz to sell the dry topic of government reform to the public, a difficult task in a city with many more entertaining distractions.

Besides holding seven neighborhood sessions across the city, the commission is pasting Los Angeles with billboards featuring snappy slogans--”City Happens”--airing radio ads, and distributing thousands of information packets. The next public meeting will be Sept. 26 at the Christ the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church--Leimert Park, 3303 W. Vernon Ave.

“Charter reform can’t match a lot of the stuff that’s out there today, like what’s on the movie screen or what’s going on in Washington, but people will start to pay attention after awhile,” said George Kieffer, chairman of the appointed commission. “It’s hard work, but that’s why we’re here.”

Wednesday’s three-hour forum was designed to gather public response to the commission’s 36 recommendations for charter reform, a radical overhaul to city government that would provide greater public involvement in decision-making, reshape the Los Angeles Unified School District board and allow the mayor to hire and fire the city’s top managers.

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Sometime next year, Los Angeles voters will most likely be asked to vote on a plan to retool city government--a massive overhaul expected to increase the mayor’s power over the city bureaucracy, and to expand the size of the City Council.

Gerald A. Silver of Valley VOTE, the group of Valley activists petitioning for a study and possible vote on Valley secession from Los Angeles, dismissed the work of both commissions. He said the Valley will continue to be ignored by city government, even if the reforms are approved.

“It’s too little, too late,” said Silver, who also is a member of Homeowners of Encino.

Both commissions also are searching for a way to improve community involvement and input in city government, possibly through elected or appointed neighborhood councils. The prospect has been a powder keg, pitting some of Los Angeles’ most powerful businesses against community groups and labor unions.

Sam Bell, president of the Los Angeles Business Advisors, a group whose membership includes executives from some of the city’s largest, most influential corporations, defended the group’s opposition to elected neighborhood councils. The proposal would create another layer of bureaucracy that would eat up tax dollars and make it more difficult for businesses to operate in the city, he said.

But Jose De Sosa of Pacoima, one of the appointed commissioners at the Wednesday forum, said most of those who approached him wanted the neighborhood councils to have more authority--and be elected.

“We’ll have to review all the comments, and maybe we’ll revisit the issue,” said De Sosa, a board member of the San Fernando Valley NAACP.

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Loren Zeldin of Reseda, who works as a librarian at a local middle school, said he agrees with the recommendation to expand the City Council to 21 members “as long as the Valley doesn’t get the shaft.”

“Now, a lot of our districts only have a piece of the Valley, and they wind over the mountains,” Zeldin said. “I don’t want to see any more of those games. I want to see districts that are all Valley.”