Good, if Ancient, Advice for Unhappy Valleyites

City Hall’s new leadership promises little influence and representation for the San Fernando Valley. The Valley therefore must take matters into its own hands.

A dialogue must be opened about how we are governed; a good place to start might be to study democracy in ancient Greece and Rome.

Large bodies of elected citizens governed their ancient cities, even though the populations of these cities were each smaller than Los Angeles. With about 1 million people, Rome was the biggest city in the world. Yet its legislative body had hundreds of representatives. How many City Council members does L.A. have? Fifteen--for a city more than three times the population of ancient Rome. That means Romans had about 33 times the representation we do today.

Aristotle, the ancient Greek thinker, carefully studied more than 100 of the ancient constitutions of Greek city-states and concluded that the most deserving citizens should be elected--whether they liked it or not.

We cannot force people to run for office, but we should certainly heed the gist of Aristotle’s thought and encourage the most qualified to run. We should make them feel obligated to run. But because of the huge populations in L.A. council districts, it is extremely difficult and costly to run for a council seat.

Valley independence will encourage participation. We cannot count on L.A.’s council to increase the number of its seats and thereby water down an individual’s power. To do so would be against human nature.

Seven major U.S. cities--St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Boston, San Francisco and Pittsburgh--plus the borough of Manhattan, can collectively fit within L.A. The total number of local representatives for all these cities is 122. Compare that to L.A.’s 15 and the picture crystallizes. Each seat in these eight places represents on average 41,387 people compared with about 240,000 in a typical L.A. council district. We have created small kingdoms within our political boundaries.

The current plan proposed by Valley VOTE would give the Valley 14 council seats. This is a step in the right direction. If Valley communities had their own representatives, residents would have advocates protecting their interests on the council. Businesses and civic organizations would have more sway and involvement without having to raise and donate large amounts of money. It might even be possible to know a member of the City Council and be able to offer input.

A fact often overlooked by many, especially demagogues, denouncing Valley independence as a movement for the wealthy Valley is that the poorer East Valley communities, largely minority populated, will have better, more numerous and involved representation due to smaller council districts. This will lead to more home-grown solutions. The smaller and more local the government is, the better it has been in America.