Help Grow Grass-Roots Governance

The final plan for neighborhood councils in Los Angeles may get a frosty reception at City Hall, where some fear the councils may undermine elected officials’ power. However, that won’t stop local activists who are already getting a taste of their power. If anything, the flurry of activity that began last summer as the city’s new charter took effect has escalated. Local leaders have been drawing boundaries for planned neighborhood councils, drafting bylaws and choosing members. Yet unless city officials act soon to broaden the groundswell of activism, the people who most need these councils could lose out on the substantial political muscle they may offer.

Charter drafters envisioned neighborhood councils as a way for communities to help themselves spruce up a local park, paint out graffiti or make other quality-of-life improvements. The idea is filled with possibilities: It could bring together not just homeowners but renters, business owners, school officials, clergy and others--a true cross-section and not a limited interest group.

The charter directed the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment to draft a plan to monitor and aid the embryonic community councils. That plan went to the City Council last month, and the council, which has long been lukewarm at best toward the idea, has until June to approve or modify it.

The plan is a bare-bones blueprint, outlining how community councils should be constituted and the criteria the department will use to certify them, thereby qualifying them for city assistance and allowing them to compete for grants. The final draft remains necessarily flexible, but two areas hold special concern. Budget and staffing for the department--which will provide assistance to the councils in navigating the city’s bureaucracy--will determine the success of this grand experiment in grass-roots activism. The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment now has seven project coordinators working in communities across the city; it needs more. The department has asked the mayor’s office for a midyear budget increase.

In Venice, Hancock Park, Mar Vista and elsewhere across the city where politically savvy residents are far along in organizing new councils, these implementation issues--staff and budget--matter less than in parts of town without a tradition of activism. It’s in these areas that the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment has a high hill to climb. The challenge is to stimulate and support residents in poorer communities--single parents and those working long hours at low wages--to take an active interest in their neighborhoods. If the effort does not succeed, the chasm between this city’s have and have-not communities will continue to grow, and the city’s venture into grass-roots activism may ultimately fracture rather than unite the disparate parts of Los Angeles.