Dithering Council Leaves Voters in the Lurch

Two empty chairs at the Los Angeles City Council table.

Two districts out of 15, a half-million people without someone there to push the yea or nay buttons on their behalf.

Two very different reasons why.

The Beatles were still touring when John Ferraro took his seat as 4th District councilman. The newspapers called him the “strapping former all-American tackle from USC.” He was so tall that carpenters had to cut away the top drawer of the standard-issue office desk so he could get his knees under it.

Now he is the council president, first among equals. He is a revered figure; at a Greek Theatre concert in September, people began applauding as they caught sight of him. But except for a couple of good weeks, he has been ill since before Thanksgiving. Until he returns to work, the 4th District has no vote.

The other empty chair is quite another story. Jackie Goldberg departed the 13th District in December for her new job in the state Assembly. Goldberg was not universally revered in City Hall. She would not win the Ms. Congeniality sash, nor, I suspect, would she care to.

But because her former council colleagues have neither appointed someone to her job nor called a special election for a successor, the good people of the Hollywood-to-Eastside district have spent two months--and may spend nearly five more, until July 1--with no one to stand up and vote on their behalf. The ACLU, which on occasion has a rather low threshold for outrage, has justly found this state of affairs so outrageously unconstitutional that it has sued the city in federal court.

L.A.’s new charter requires the council to act “within a reasonable period of time” in such cases. What part of “reasonable” don’t they understand?

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John Ferraro has been elected 10 times to the council. Nine were regular elections. The first was a special election the likes of which haunts latter-day politicians. In 1966, when a councilman died, Ferraro was elected to finish out his term. It was a very special election indeed--a 9-5 vote by the City Council.

That 9-5 election was, to modern politicians, the old boy network at its most boyish. So the present council has dithered itself into paralysis over the two legal options: appointment or election. Council member Laura Chick asked the council to appoint Goldberg’s former chief of staff, Sharon Delugach, to the job. The council sent it to the purgatory of “committee.”

Tick tick . . . tick tick.

What are they afraid of?

Here are some hunches. One, a special election costs money, so why not wait until the regular April election? Two, a missing vote makes their remaining votes more powerful. Three, appointing Delugach--who is not running for her boss’ job--would be like giving the not-exactly-popular Goldberg two votes: one in the Assembly and a proxy one in her old district.

Council member Cindy Miscikowski thinks personal animosity “has got to be part of it.” Two years ago, when council member Richard Alarcon became a state senator, the council not only called a special election to replace him, it appointed the winner--Alex Padilla--to take his seat right away rather than wait until the official start date.

In the meantime, and there’s been plenty of meantime, local matters drift. A proposal for a Silver Lake area farmers’ market has gone nowhere without a council member to carry the water.

Just this week, said Miscikowski, there was no vote from the 13th District on how to spend street resurfacing money, “and as a consequence of that, the council deadlocked, so we were not able to deal with this issue.”

Voters will put up with much, but potholes? Don’t push them.

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One vote can matter--in Florida and at City Hall. Overriding Mayor Riordan’s firing of Police Commission President Gerry Chaleff would take 10 votes, and 10 votes out of 14 is a bit more work than 10 out of 15. In lollygagging over Goldberg’s replacement, the council may be eroding its own power.

As term limits scatter politicians to other billets, this will happen again and again. If council member Rudy Svorinich had won his Assembly race, the council would have had to do a “Goldberg” to fill his spot too.

It’s time for a decision on the here-and-now, and a policy for the future. Quick, before someone calls Sacramento and tells Goldberg to come back, all is forgiven.

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Patt Morrison’s column appears Fridays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com.