Opportunities in 2001

It’s an editorial page tradition to set forth suggested resolutions and hopes for our leaders and communities with the arrival of the new year.

Fresh Start in Washington

2000 ended with a bruising presidential election that revealed the country as more severely divided than at any other time in recent memory. When he takes office Jan. 20, let President-elect George W. Bush make meaningful his mantra of bipartisanship and consensus. Otherwise the nation is in for more finger-pointing and legislative gridlock on issues like Social Security and education.

Health care would be a good place to start. We hope Congress will take up such moderate and strongly needed reforms as providing catastrophic prescription drug coverage for seniors who have already spent $6,000 out of pocket, offering affordable health insurance to disabled children’s parents who leave welfare for work and improving quality assurance systems in hospitals and doctors’ offices.

California Power and Water

We urgently wish for strong state leadership from Gov. Gray Davis on California’s energy crisis, including an effective conservation program that truly rewards homeowners and businesses for saving power. Davis needs to speak out in his Jan. 8 State of the State address--or sooner.

On our wish list for the Legislature: a new water transfer law to better facilitate marketing of excess water to those areas that need it, primarily urban areas, and a hefty allocation, at least $300 million, from the state’s budget surplus to counties to replace old punch-card voting machines. The Legislature also needs to begin reform of the state-local government fiscal mess to give cities and counties greater latitude in raising revenue to pay for critical local services.

On the economic front, may the slowdown in the second half of 2000 glide to a soft landing for California--a manageable rate of growth--rather than plunging into a recession. Southern California’s economy is more diversified today than it was during the recession of the early 1990s and is therefore more likely to withstand an economic shock. But it is not recession-proof and faces numerous challenges, including high energy prices, strained transport infrastructure, shortages of industrial and office space and potentially crippling Hollywood strikes.

Los Angeles’ Big Changes

This spring Los Angeles voters will choose a new mayor and eight City Council members. We wish for campaigns that focus on constructive solutions to pressing city issues like police reform, housing, education and open space.

Make 2001 the year in which real reform takes a firm hold within the Police Department, beginning with the selection of a federal monitor with the drive and resources to truly determine whether agreed-upon goals for the LAPD are being met.

In local schools, curriculum reforms are in place that appear to be working. This year the L.A. Unified School District needs to give these reforms more time and continued encouragement. The necessity to get a handle on the space problem is urgent. The stalled Belmont campus, which may never see its first students, continues to divert focus and energy from the district’s enormous facilities needs. L.A. Unified must move on; the realization of improvement in teaching and test scores awaits not just good teachers and plentiful books but also the construction of enough decent classrooms.

The effort to break up the nation’s second-largest city amounts to a political campaign with potentially huge consequences. Yet a loophole in state campaign disclosure laws has allowed the secessionist San Fernando Valley group Valley VOTE to keep the names of its financial backers secret. A new state law, although not retroactive, would let the Los Angeles Local Agency Formation Commission start the year by requiring future public access to such critical information.

The City Council needs to target building and safety code violations in the northeast Valley--the city’s worst area for these problems--by stepping up inspections and making sure the Department of Building and Safety has the staff to do the job.

Regionally, here’s hoping that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will, for the first time in its history, come up with a strong and reasonable long-range transportation plan that addresses population increases and economic need. We also hope that local leaders recognize Los Angeles International Airport as one of the region’s great financial engines and that they come together on a plan to ready LAX for explosive growth in the number of passengers.

Orange County

In the long-running conflict over reuse of the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the Orange County Board of Supervisors should have been chastened by the overwhelming passage of an initiative that would have taken a flawed airport plan out of their hands entirely. The supervisors should not now misread a judge’s December ruling in their favor as a mandate for business as usual. In a separate issue, the board majority’s clumsy handling of relations with the health care community and later with voters over tobacco settlement money have nowhere to go but up.

Ventura County

In Ventura County, we wish for creative new approaches for land use and urban planning, balancing the need to house a growing population of all income levels with the desire to preserve farmland and open space. We wish the Board of Supervisors would take another look at its ordinance guaranteeing abundant and ever more cash to four law enforcement agencies, no matter what shape the county’s finances are in. And now that Measure O has been defeated, we wish for all of the tobacco settlement money to be spent on health care and not one penny on special-interest projects or litigation.

So raise the curtain on what is sure to be a newsworthy year.