Street Work in L.A. Follows Odd Pattern

Watts residents have long struggled to make sure their South Los Angeles community got its fair share of services. But on at least one score--street paving-- the city has recently been taking care of business. And then some.

Over the last five years, the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services has repaved or otherwise repaired nearly 40% of the streets in Watts--the highest rate of any community in the city, according to a Times analysis.

That is just one of the surprising findings from the computer-assisted review of five years of street repairs.

The study revealed a puzzling pattern in street work--with no apparent relation to the income levels, population density or age of a community.

In many cases, the analysis found, the pattern cuts against long-held assumptions about the gap in services between rich and poor areas.

For example, the streets of Watts were repaired at a rate about seven times higher than for the streets of affluent Beverly Glen.

At the same time, the streets in Bel-Air, another exclusive Westside neighborhood, were fixed at a rate nearly twice as high as that for the streets in densely populated El Sereno in northeast Los Angeles.

Paving is more than an essential city service.

A fresh layer of asphalt can enhance a neighborhood’s reputation, increase property values, improve traffic flow and reduce wear and tear on the family car. Elected officials fight tenaciously to make sure their constituents get a fair share--and some succeed more often than others.

The struggle is particularly intense in Los Angeles, because only 3% of the city’s 6,500 miles of streets are repaved or otherwise repaired annually. At that rate, it takes 32 years to get to every street.

In contrast, Santa Monica repairs 14% of its streets annually, a schedule that could allow all the city’s streets to be fixed in seven years.

In Los Angeles, the repair rate has varied widely in recent years, according to The Times analysis, which used a computerized mapping program to review nearly 3,500 repair jobs completed by the Bureau of Street Services between July 1, 1996, and June 30, 2001.

For example, Watts, Koreatown and downtown Los Angeles had more than a quarter of their roads fixed during that period. At the same time, the figures for Pacific Palisades, Atwater Village and Porter Ranch were less than 5%.

A recent city audit of the Bureau of Street Services suggests that the reason for such disparities is that street-paving decisions are often based on the political priorities of the 15 City Council members.

The result, according to last month’s audit by City Controller Laura Chick, is that some streets are ignored for so long that they must be completely rebuilt at more than twice the cost of repaving.

“Because [the] council is not given the opportunity to evaluate the needs of the city as a whole, council members may make decisions based on what is to the benefit primarily to their individual district,” the audit said.

That theory is echoed by several former city officials and neighborhood activists.

It is common knowledge at City Hall, they say, that council members and the community activists who complain the loudest receive the most attention. “It is kind of like the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” said one former City Hall staffer. Bureau of Street Services officials concede that they try to accommodate the repair requests from council members. But they insist that only streets in need of repairs get fixed.

“The accusations that we pave streets just because some council member wants it or some politically connected person wants it just doesn’t happen,” said Bill Robertson, assistant director of the bureau.

However, regulars at City Hall recall several instances in which the influence of council members appeared to set paving priorities:

* When longtime City Council President John Ferraro died in April, a fresh coat of asphalt greeted mourners in front of the Hancock Park church where his memorial service was held. The paving was completed just three days before the memorial. Robertson said the work had long been scheduled and was speeded up so it would not interfere with the church services.

* Three years ago, an angry South Los Angeles resident interrupted a news conference organized by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas at Florence and Normandie avenues to mark the anniversary of the 1992 riots. The man complained loudly about the condition of pavement in front of his home on 71st Street. Ridley-Thomas’ staff relayed the complaint to the bureau, which the next year paved that single block.

* A few months after longtime Councilwoman Joy Picus left office in 1993, the short, dead-end street in front of her home in Woodland Hills was paved. One City Hall staffer familiar with the work described it as a “parting gift” from the city.

In an interview, Picus acknowledged that the street didn’t appear to need repairs. But she said she never asked for special treatment and doesn’t know why the work was done.

How the city prioritizes repairs has become an increasingly important question as the backlog has grown. Officials estimate that nearly half of the 6,500 miles of streets need work, at a total cost of about $1.5 billion. But the city repairs just a little more than 200 miles of streets annually, at a cost of about $134 million.

Because so many streets are in the same deteriorating condition, Robertson said, his bureau regularly struggles to set priorities. “The need far exceeds the level of funding out there,” he said.

Based on the bureau’s annual budget, Robertson said, the city determines how many street miles it can repave and repair each year. The bureau then divides the total mileage proportionately among the 15 council districts, based on how many miles of streets are in each district. Critics say such a process is unfair to high-density, inner-city communities with older, deteriorating streets.

“The resources are divided 15 ways, but the problems are not always divided 15 ways,” said Karen Bass, executive director of the Community Coalition, a South-Central advocacy group. “Sometimes inner-city communities need more.”

Yet those areas have at least one advantage: They often get extra state funds for street repairs that can be used only in low-income communities or along heavily used bus routes.

But many older neighborhoods also have deteriorating sewers and other infrastructure, meaning their streets are more often torn up for underground repairs. And the Bureau of Street Services is reluctant to pave a street it knows will soon be ripped up for other work.

The city’s process for prioritizing street repairs may change soon. The bureau plans to adopt a system that uses computerized sensors to record the condition of each street. The system, called MicroPaver, scientifically confirms which streets are most worn out. It is expected to come online next year.

A prime example of how street repairs are handled is the 15th Council District, which stretches from Watts through Wilmington to San Pedro.

The area had been represented for eight years by Rudy Svorinich Jr., who left the council in June because of term limits.

The streets of Watts and San Pedro have been heavily repaved in the last five years while the streets of Wilmington have been largely ignored, The Times analysis showed.

The extra attention has been noticed. Pete Kim, who runs a family-owned convenience store in Watts, was pleasantly surprised last month to find that the city had repaved a long stretch of Compton Avenue in front of his store.

“It wasn’t even in that bad a shape before,” he said, standing behind his counter. “It’s not even an election year.”

Svorinich said Watts and San Pedro received more street services because he and his staff demanded it from the Bureau of Street Services. “If you were not proactive, then you got less of a piece of the pie,” he said.

The former councilman acknowledged that he did not lobby for extra road work in Wilmington, saying that many streets in that community were repaved in the mid-1980s.

But some critics say Wilmington--a low-income, mostly Latino community--got fewer streets repaved because it lacks the political clout and vocal leadership found in Watts and San Pedro. It is a claim that Svorinich rejects.

Robertson of Street Services acknowledged that Svorinich helped set the priorities for street paving in his district. But he insisted that Svorinich and every other council member received a proportionate share of repairs.

Yet, The Times analysis showed that some council members received more than their proportionate share in the last five years, including Svorinich’s former ward, the 15th; the 7th District in the San Fernando Valley, represented by Council President Alex Padilla; and the South Los Angeles district that recently passed from Rita Walters to newly elected Councilwoman Jan Perry.

For example, 5% of the total miles of city streets are in Perry’s 9th District. But in the last five years, 8% of the total miles of streets repaired were in that district, according to The Times study.

The analysis covered just the last five years, and it is difficult to say whether council districts received more equitable treatment over a longer period of time.

Robertson said he could not explain the inequity found in the review, but suggested that such factors as the extra funding available for street repairs in low-income communities played a role.

In the San Fernando Valley, home to a vocal secession movement, activists have claimed that the Valley does not get its fair share of city services.

But when it comes to street repairs, the Valley has received close to its proportional share.

Nearly 44% of the city’s streets are in the Valley. Since 1996, 41% of the streets repaired were in the Valley, according to The Times analysis.

Former state Assemblyman Richard Katz, a member of Valley VOTE, the main group pushing for secession, said his organization is concerned about equal allocation of services.

But he said the organization also wants to promote a government that spends more on basic services--such as street repairs--for everyone.

“When there is not enough put into basic services, it pits neighborhoods against each other,” he said.

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Researcher Sandra Poindexter contributed to this report.