Council Majority Inclined to Put Charter on Ballot

After a long and sometimes impassioned City Council debate Friday over a proposal to revamp Los Angeles’ aging City Charter, two things became clear: While most of the lawmakers have serious reservations about the plan, a majority is inclined to put it on the ballot anyway.

In interviews and public comments, seven council members said they are firmly in favor of letting voters consider the new charter in June. Four others indicated that they are undecided, with at least one of those leaning toward sending the matter to voters. Three are inclined to vote against it.

Councilman Richard Alatorre, the panel’s shrewdest vote counter, said he had no doubt that the measure would be cleared for the ballot. “When this is over,” he said, “there will be eight votes.”

Those favoring submitting the matter to the voters are: City Council President John Ferraro and council members Hal Bernson, Laura Chick, Mike Feuer, Mike Hernandez, Cindy Miscikowski and Joel Wachs. The key eighth vote to put it on the ballot could come from any of the undecided votes--Ruth Galanter, Jackie Goldberg, Alatorre and Mark Ridley-Thomas. Several observers suggested that Ridley-Thomas was the most likely official to tip the balance, a contention the councilman did not dispute.

“I am prepared to support whatever method or route gives greater likelihood to creating a network of neighborhood councils throughout the city,” the councilman said late Friday. Ridley-Thomas added that placing two competing charter measures on the June ballot, which would be the most likely alternative to approving the unified charter now before the council, would result in neighborhood councils being “shot to hell.”

Opposed to putting the charter on the ballot are council members Nate Holden, Rudy Svorinich and Rita Walters.

Among those who favor letting voters decide the matter, not all are enthusiastic about the charter crafted by two citizen commissions over the past two years. Indeed, one curious aspect about the charter debate Friday is that few of the city’s leaders wholeheartedly embrace a document that dozens of them have helped shape.

Some believe the proposed charter’s provisions regarding neighborhood councils are ill-advised. Others dislike a proposal for creating an advisory citizens commission on drawing lines for City Council districts. Many of the council members, meanwhile, are angered by provisions that would enhance the power of the mayor, to some extent at the lawmakers’ expense. “This is probably the crux of the matter to me,” Goldberg said of the limitations on council authority. “Tell me what this prohibition, practically speaking, would be.”

Goldberg, who clearly had read the proposal in detail, peppered leaders of the city’s two commissions all day Friday with questions. At one point, she even called their attention to one word in the 333-page document, noting that drafters had mistakenly written “and” where they meant to write “or.”

In an interview, Goldberg said she once had pledged to put the work of the charter commission on the ballot as written. But she said she was reconsidering that position in light of negotiations over the past several weeks that left her questioning the entire document.

Similarly, Galanter once favored placing the matter on the ballot despite her reservations about some aspects of the charter. But recent developments, including a cost estimate by the city administrative office and the chief legislative analyst, pushed her back to undecided.

“When I see that we’re going to be asked to pay an additional $5 million to $19 million in the name of government efficiency, that has me worried,” she said. “That’s the kind of stuff that makes me nervous.”

The vast majority of that upper-end estimate, $13 million, would go toward paying for an expansion of the City Council from 15 members to either 21 or 25 members. But expansion does not necessarily mean adding more members with the same size staffs or salaries. In theory, the council could authorize expansion while cutting staffs and salaries, making it inexpensive or cost-free.

In the end, only a few council members seem committed to voting against putting the measure on the ballot, a move that would likely be futile anyway because the elected commission could go ahead with the proposal if the council disapproves.

Typical of those determined to go forward was Bernson, who complained vigorously about some aspects of the charter. At one point, he even suggested that such a charter might have allowed Mayor Frank Shaw, who ran a notoriously corrupt administration, to have run an even worse one.

But Bernson said that despite his objections, he wants to give voters the choice.

“I intend to put it on the ballot exactly as it is,” he said.