The City Council Budget Committee did us all a favor by drawing a line through Neighborhood Councils by gutting their funding.
By slashing funding for NCs by 80 percent in the name of “shared sacrifice,” Bernard Parks’ committee — Bill Rosendahl, Greig Smith, Jose Huizar and the absent City Controller-elect Wendy Greuel — has challenged NC activists to accept their irrelevance in the minds of city officials and provoked a discussion about whether this experiment is a failure and should be abandoned.
It’s now or never.
I’ve heard from dozens of angry people suggesting NC presidents and NC coalition leaders take immediate action to confront city officials, organize email and phone call campaigns, stage protests at City Hall. I’m all for those actions. (CityCouncilcontacts.xls)
Others say that with the exception of a few, NCs are nothing but talking societies and a waste of time and money, a tool of City Hall to keep the natives quiet and ineffective. There’s truth in what they say.
Personally, I embrace both points of view.
NCs were set up to fail as part of City Charter reform that was derailed by the same special interests that have bankrupted the city and produced policies that chased away good-paying jobs, swelled the ranks of the poor, did nothing about gangs, densified the city and allowed the neighborhoods and infrastructure to deteriorate.
In the face of the Valley secession movement, Mayor Richard Riordan and civic leader David Fleming pushed for charter reform as a way to keep LA whole and change the political culture. The goal was a system of boroughs or Neighborhood Councils with authority over development and other important local issues.
Resistance from City Council members and the special interests who have owned them for so long produced advisory NCs without authority that were implemented in a way that deliberately created a chaotic, hodgepodge of largely ineffective community groups.
But it was a starting point, the beginnings of grassroots democracy spurred by the widespread discontent with City Hall.
Ten years later, democracy has taken hold in LA and the energy for change has grown deeper and stronger.
This is the moment we have been waiting for, the time to confront City Hall and demand deconstruction of a political system that has failed us for too long.
If NCs want to survive and have any credibility, activists will have to lead the fight for real change in the structure of city government to achieve a balance of interests in the policies and actions of our elected officials.
The NC movement will live or die on the actions of the 1,600 people directly involved in the 89 NCs across the city.
Whatever the outcome of their fight, the drive for transparency, efficiency and inclusiveness will go on with greater energy. Participatory democracy is an idea whose time has come in America, an idea that is desperately needed to bring LA together in all its rich diversity and make it the great city that was always its destiny.
This is America. I know it’s hard to believe sometimes but ordinary citizens have rights too. And that’s what this about.
We cannot afford to be passive bystanders as our city, our state, our nation teeter on the brink. From the bottom of my heart, I believe the taking back of America from the special interests that have failed us, from the political leaders who have failed us, starts right here in LA.
The outcome, it seems to me, is certain. So to Councilman Parks and his colleagues, I say thanks. You have shown your contempt for the people, for democracy, and escalated the tensions between us.
Sooner rather than later, you will learn that government in America is constituted of, by and for the people.
This is a slap in the face to the thousands of volunteers who have attended NC meetings late into the night. Greig Smith is the moving force behind this because he hates NCs (or anyone for that matter, telling him what to do.) His first step was to demand financial disclosure for any NC bd. member who opened a file with city council, and that was not enough. So, now this. For what it is worth, much of the $50,000.00 NC money went back to city organizations: Greig Smith’s clean ups, and Citrus Sunday, LAUSD, LAPD, Graffitti clean up, which should be a city function already. NCs never fulfilled the function they were supposed to because city councilmembers outright ignored their recommendations–even when every NC in their district voted the same way (they were still ignored.) Better the NC system is taken down now, because it gives too many false hope that they are working for the quality of life in their district. In reality the NC keeps otherwise good activitsts pre-occupied so they do not have time to organize and do any real damage to the city political machine. We need another Valley Secession Movement. We need a mass recall movement of current office holders. Smith needs to cut his budget by 80% and close either his NR or Chatsworth office, which are only 6 miles apart, and lay off the staff members, and turn in their cars, blackberries and expense accounts. All council offices need to do the same.
When will the intelligent voters in the 12th district wake up and see the forest through the trees: Smith’s only agenda is to further his own interests and those of his staff, friends and family. Once in a blue moon he throws his constituents a bone.
As Greg Nelson, the father of NCs, himself pointed out, this is not the final decision of the B&F committee. No one voted on anything yet.
Odds are Rosehdahl, Greuel, and Huizar won’t support such a large cut.
Until we remove the presence of special interests and their clear influence in city politics we will continue to have offerings of inequitable solutions such as this.
Clean Money Campaign Reform and the recall of those who hold office is, in my view, the best approach for long-term improvement in Los Angeles.
Look it, I am not trying to incite a riot here from NC activists, but, you guys still don’t get it. You can’t keep asking for and expecting power knowing how the Council works. You have to seize it (find your own candidates to support and get them elected). Mobilize within yourselves instead of crying foul. Let the city’s version of “citizen democracy” fail, because you have graduated. You no longer need them. Now that you have the organizational skills, the networking, the contacts, and sufficient experience and knowledge necessary to fight City Hall, go be the activists you say you are!
Funny you would say that
The next bunch of councilmembers up for re-election are the even numbered districts. We are forming to discuss finding new candidates to replace them.
I have your candidate for CD 4, believe me.
(….think ex-planning comm.)
What is a slap in the face — the clowncil making such steep cuts, or NC board members spending 20% of their allowance on personal parties for themselves under the guise of outreach?
Wow, these are great comments! We are ready for action. Well, time is short so what are we waiting for?
I am sure that all suggestions posted here will be of interest to all of us and then we can try
for the best. The above list says that the other half of the City Council will be up for re-election – I wish we could vote them out and new
people in. It will be a process. Settle on one aspirant per district among yourselves and then support him. That way the vote cannot be divided and lost. The new people would have one term of office to prove they are capable of understanding budgets and economies like most of us do.
But I would also like to hear more about a city manager and get rid of the council altogether and will happily circulate petitions to that effect. It would be an equivalent to the Gray Davis ouster a while back. TH
Uhhh, can we start the revolution by making sure that Trutanich gets elected city attorney on May 19th? Word on the street is that it is neck and neck.
There may be another election for the CMs but it’s not for 2 years. All in all, there’s only half up for election at a time. There’s going to be long wait for a little change- potential change.
I know several candidates that have run for office in the past two years. If you do not have a three figure income of your own, if you do not have name recognition, and if you cannot claim that you can raise at least $100,000 or more, you will not get endorsed by groups such as DPSFV or the LACDP, or the CLCV. If you don’t have their money and machines backing you, or in reverse, the same kind of Republican machines, then you have very little chance as a candidate.
Welcome to the real world. Yes – we need “Clean Money”.