Tending the Grass Roots

The new city charter will let a thousand flowers of neighborhood activism bloom in Los Angeles, but will anyone water the young plants? Thursday night will be a test. That’s when neighbors from Wilshire-Westlake, Pico-Union and Southeast Los Angeles are invited to St. Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral for the first workshop in a citywide series.

The charter that voters adopted last June will create a citywide web of neighborhood councils, each composed of local residents, business owners and school and religious leaders. Any community can participate. The idea is that these councils, with training and support from the city, will do a much better job than municipal officials in fixing up local communities. The 16 weekly workshops, which run into July, will encourage public input on how the councils should be organized and operate. The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which will oversee the councils, must present its draft rules by December. The first neighborhood councils could be gaveled to order by mid-2001.

Other cities have tried neighborhood councils, but the scale of the Los Angeles experiment is unprecedented. City officials are banking on strong public participation, which isn’t a given. Mountains of negativism and apathy mark many community programs in the city.

How big should neighborhood councils be? How should communities draw their boundaries? How can city officials help make these councils a success? This is your chance to be heard. It’s your neighborhood and your city.

To Take Action: The first neighborhood workshop will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at St. Sophia’s Cathedral, 1324 S. Normandie Ave. For information about future workshops, call (213) 485-1360.