Keeping L.A. Reform Alive

In the early part of the last century, civic reformers John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes championed nonpartisan local elections, citizen boards and commissions and other practices--innovative for their time--that Los Angeles still uses today. They also established a foundation to carry on the cause of good government. Fittingly, the 76-year-old Haynes Foundation is sponsoring a conference today and Friday at USC on how best to run this now booming city in a new century.

Not everyone is happy with the way the Los Angeles of today works--or doesn’t work. This is evident in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood secession measures on the Nov. 5 ballot, and in quieter grumbling from Wilmington to Eagle Rock.

The most recent polls show secession trailing, and we urge voters to indeed turn down so drastic a “fix” for Los Angeles’ problems as breaking the city apart. But even if secession is properly defeated, civic leaders and activists must not stop looking for better ways to do things. After the celebration will come a hangover if Los Angeles on Nov. 6 is united in name but divided by a lingering sense of resentment and estrangement.

Voters citywide already have approved key reforms in recent years, from neighborhood councils to decentralized planning boards. The Haynes Foundation conference brings in university researchers and scholars--a rich resource too seldom tapped here--to talk with community activists and city leaders about how these reforms are faring. They also will look at boroughs and other ideas for governing a Los Angeles that has changed dramatically from the city of a century ago.

The threat of secession has served as an impetus, however negative and divisive, for reform. The conference aims to keep the reform movement going even after the November election.