Making Neighborhoods

Drafters of Los Angeles’ 2-year-old city charter envisioned a network of neighborhood councils as one answer to the city’s rootlessness and anonymity. The idea was that these councils would draw together residents, business owners and religious and school leaders--not just homeowners--to solve common problems and implement a common vision, from getting street trash picked up to having a say in new developments.

Last week, Mayor James K. Hahn took his first steps to back up his campaign promises of support for the councils. He released proposals to give the councils more clout, appointed his own slate of commissioners to oversee the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) and accepted the resignation of beleaguered DONE manager Rosalind Stewart. The department has been hampered by staff turnover and criticized for being unresponsive.

Hahn’s actions represent a lot of change for the young department, which is preparing to accept applications for city certification beginning in October. Certification opens the way to city grant funding and other assistance for the councils. Groups forming now from Venice to the San Fernando Valley will be ready, but without upfront assistance, poorer neighborhoods may never get started.

Some of Hahn’s ideas are quite sensible--for example, requiring city departments to consider what neighborhoods want from city services when they make budget requests. But how would that work? Hahn’s plan should tell us more.

Other proposals may not be so helpful. For example, Hahn wants each member of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners to become an advocate for neighborhood councils within their geographic regions as well as providing citywide oversight. Yet charter drafters intended the board to set policy, leaving to DONE the job of helping councils organize and responding to their needs. Directing commissioners to stir the same pot is a recipe for confusion and frustration.

Hahn needs to appoint a chief executive for DONE who can manage a fast-growing staff while encouraging residents from neighborhoods without a tradition of activism to come together. He also needs to move fast so that councils can get certified. The mayor should direct more budget and staff to this effort, particularly in cases where residents don’t have the copying machines or the e-mail tools necessary to recruit members.

The neighborhood councils were intended to help people be heard by the city. But without sharper city leadership, the people getting a hearing will be the same well-off ones who already know how to make noise.