LAFCO and Charter Reform

* The Times Valley Edition’s Oct. 10 editorial about LAFCO’s [the Local Agency Formation Commission’s] foot-dragging to study the effects of the city’s reorganization into smaller communities (“Time for Constructive Reform”) is 180 degrees off the mark. The Times says it’s reasonable to take five months to pick a consultant, and it’s reasonable to take four years to do a study that involves nothing more than the data crunching of city statistics with software already developed for other jobs.

To spend almost five years to do this maximum 12-month job is no more reasonable than The Times’ own head-in-the-sand negative attitude about the entire study process.

The Times tries to justify the delay by saying we need to wait a few years to see how the new charter works. But this is silly because there is absolutely no connection between the LAFCO study and the new charter. The purpose of the study, in case The Times has forgotten, is to get a handle on what shape the city is in, what kind of assets and liabilities it has, and whether the San Fernando Valley and other concerned areas of the city are capable of self-support if their residents choose to live in smaller, better-run communities with more local control.

We could spend the next hundred years waiting to see how the new charter works, and it still wouldn’t change a thing. People are unhappy with the waste, the bloat and the incompetence they see in all corners of the city. A new charter was a great idea until the politicians and the unions got involved and turned it into a watered-down version of what was promised to the voters. The longer LAFCO waits to make a decision on the financial feasibility of smaller cities, the more we will be able to see how little we got from L.A.’s version of charter reform.

WALTER N. PRINCE

Chairman, PRIDE Cityhood

Study Committee

Northridge