L.A.’s a Step Away From a Borough Plan

The proposal by five City Council members to create a borough system for Los Angeles could enhance the voter-enacted reforms of 1999 that gave neighborhoods greater control over their affairs. It also may provide a middle ground between secession and the status quo.

With literally everything about the structure of Los Angeles on the table between now and November, it is worth the effort to explore every reasonable alternative that could increase the responsiveness of government without the unforeseeable consequences of a divorce.

Boroughs are not a new idea in Los Angeles, a city that has long been searching for ways to tie together its far-flung communities. Some suggest that the current crisis over Los Angeles governance is a bad time to reintroduce boroughs. Actually, there is no better moment. Noisy times produce enduring reforms. The City Charter reforms were the products of the pressure of secession. Public unrest can create deep change because, rather than springing whole from the active brains of good-government theorists, reforms respond directly to a need felt by residents.

What is a borough? In a borough system, smaller units of government have some authority within a larger system of city government. The city government still retains its general powers, but boroughs have some autonomy.

To understand the concept of a borough, consider the American system of governing vast areas of diverse populations. Each state has its own scope and authority subject to the U.S. Constitution and federal law. Cities and counties are smaller units of states, and each has some autonomy subject to the state constitution and laws. If L.A. sets up a borough system, each borough would have some independence within the framework of the Los Angeles City Charter and city ordinances.

By contrast, secession would break apart the city government. It would create one or more independent cities with no formal relationship with each other.

Critics of a borough system have presented it as a radical change that would utterly alter local government or create a new layer of bureaucracy. Actually, the 1999 reforms already have taken the city well down the road to boroughs. It’s only a matter of completing the process.

The centerpiece of charter reform was the creation of a citywide system of neighborhood councils built around the principle that people should have the opportunity to be heard on all civic matters that affect their neighborhoods. Even though the councils are only advisory, they are a step toward the broader goal of boroughs: empowering communities within the city government. The 30th neighborhood council was just certified.

The biggest step toward a borough structure in the new charter is the area planning commission system, which has authority over some local land-use matters. This reform may be unique among American cities. The commissioners, appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council, must live within the boundaries of the panel’s jurisdiction.

With neighborhood councils preparing to provide community input into government decisions, and with area planning commissions already making formal decisions on some land-use matters, Los Angeles has some key elements necessary for a borough system. There is only one critical element missing: elections.

If the City Charter were amended to empower residents to choose people to represent them in a borough--whether presidents, council members, ombudsmen or area planning commissioners--the current system would in one leap have the skeleton of a borough system.

Even without adding a single formal power to the area planning commissions, the election of its members or their appointment by elected borough officials would dramatically change their orientation. (Of course, other powers could be added, such as partial control of the budget.) Commissioners now are accountable to the mayor and the City Council; under a borough system, they would be accountable to borough voters.

Borough officials would act as local watchdogs over the delivery of city services. Residents could go to a borough hall to lodge complaints and could certainly expect the person they voted for to get things straightened out. Neighborhood councils would lobby borough halls as well as City Hall.

Boroughs are no silver bullet able to miraculously close the distance between neighborhoods and City Hall. But a borough plan is a serious proposal consistent with the direction of city reforms.

Five years ago, neighborhood councils were a radical idea and area planning commissions had not emerged in the debate. Now both are in operation. Los Angeles needed to walk before it could run. Now is the time to pick up the pace.