Every time the LA City Council meets, my pal Zuma Dogg and others who qualify as gadflies by the regularity of the attendance to rant and rave for their two minutes of public comment and a minute or two each on an assortment of specific issues.
Under the council’s rules — rules they set themselves — members are not required to pay the least attention to these self-styled spokesman for the people. And usually don’t, gossiping or plotting amongst themselves.
Once in a while, groups of ordinary citizens descend on the Council chamber to plead for a cause: Stop the project killing their neighborhoods, ban billboard blight, clamp down on pot shops.
Sometimes like when the fate of Billy the Elephant is at stake, the public, pro and con, get to speak for hours. Other times, they get short-shrift if a committee hearing has been held where they had the chance to speak.– five minutes a side at one minute per speaker if they’re allowed to speak at all.
But recently, the council — apparently chastened by growing evidence that the natives are becoming restless — has taken to suspending the rules and allowing the public enough time to actually convey their concerns and objections.
This dismays the council’s legal adviser, Assistant City Attorney Dion Connell, who grimaces as he advises the council members that those rules of theirs require them to actually pay attention when they conduct what are called “fair hearings.”
The hearings may be “fair” but the result is the council votes exactly as they planned to, unanimously, no matter what the public says.
That’s what occurred last week when the La Brea Gateway project came up and again Wednesday when the the council gave the green light to a massive expansion of the Museum of Tolerance so it can raise money holding weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.
It’s no coincidence both projects are in the district of the developers’ and lobbyists’ best friend, lame duck Jack Weiss.
I bring this up and share the video of the Council wasting its precious time trying to figure out whether or not to give the public a few extra minutes to vent its spleen to make the point that public comment and public hearings don’t amount to a hill of beans if nobody’s really listening and everything already has been decided in back rooms.
What’s the point of trekking down to City Hall, waiting around for hours, paying $13.20 to park just to have two minutes to speak your mind if Council’s minds are already made up?
I’ve done this myself a few times in the last year and always come up feeling empty and foolish.
Part of the strategy that the Saving LA Project has developed but not yet implemented consistently is to emulate how lobbyists work.
They don’t waste their time sitting around the Council chamber to speak for a minute or two unless it’s to put on a show for the cameras when the public shows up in large numbers. They meet privately with Council members and their staffs numerous times in advance of the public debate, such as it is.
Community activists can’t shower money on Council members like lobbyists and their clients do but they can organize their neighborhoods and pose a threat to the political futures of their elected representatives.
If you can’t help or hurt your elected representative, all you’ll ever get is lip service and two minutes to blow off steam.
A full court press on all 15 Council members from well-organized local activists can, and has, changed the course of events.
It’s my belief that Neighborhood Council need to stop talking their issues to death and start banding together within each Council district, coordinate with other organizations in their areas and become lobbyists meeting frequently with their electeds to become an effective pressure group.
From the beginning of my life as an activist, I’ve put my faith in the power of the people to change the political agenda, if not the politicians, through action, not talk.
That’s how Measure B was beaten, Carmen Trutanich elected City Attorney and a growing number of issues won. The Council is even gritting its teeth and allowing the public to speak more often.
Of course, I may be wrong as I often am. But I’m an optimist in a time of so much gloom.
You honestly think that an obnoxious, foul-mouthed vagrant like zuma dogg (if we are to believe him — I have doubts that he really sleeps in his van and on the sidewalks like he claims, even as he manages to blog day and night and show up daily) is going to make public comment MORE relevant? Since he started going and using up his 6-7 minutes/ day plus inspired others to do the same, and doing it more and more rudely, I’d say the council has more reason to ignore public comment at least selectively.
That LaBrea Gateway project is a separate issue and involved years of hearings in Committee to get to this point, if you listen to the councilmembers like Smith and Reyes. (Seems not listening extends both ways — respecting the time of many people who are elected to do a job and have done that at great time and expense, seems to be an issue here. Instead of expecting them to scrap it all at the drop of a hat because people who didn’t get what they want showed up hoping to scotch years of effort to start anew with a different councilmember who will hopefully do what they want.) I’ve read in reliable sources that among those who showed were a majority who went because of the food coupons, and that many consider Saunders and her group bullies out of touch with the majority of the neighborhood. Those who argue that they’ve lived there for decades and don’t want more traffic ignore the fact that what they’ve got now is largely from West Hollywood, which is heavily built up while L A adjacent to the east has been largely stagnant. West Hollywood being so overbuilt is a problem to those on the north and west of that little city as well. The mess they’ve made of Sunset Blvd. impacts both the hills to the north and Beverly Hills to the west and has made homeowner groups angry for decades. It’s understandable that longtime residents don’t want the neighborhood to change without their input, but stagnation and decrepitude while the world moves on is hardly the answer.
I think AB1818 being shoved on us from the state also panicked and mobilized a lot of homeowner groups legitimately fearful that local input was being usurped, and they put pressure on local officials to stop and think carefully about how we want to grow as a city. The idea of poorly planned dense projects mushrooming overnight along all major corridors is a frightening one.
Both these projects mentioned and others have been seriously scaled down and modified over the course of years, and hardly fit that description though. Preventing all development as some HOAs want is unrealistic and bad for the city’s tax base, job creation, attracting business to L A and future of the city on many levels. Some development will actually reduce traffic in the long run.
People who live in single family homes on major boulevards like La Brea or Pico or Ventura or Santa Monica whether in L A or West Hollywood or Santa Monica, or Venice and Washington Blvds. in Culver City, have to realize that as the city has grown, they have to expect major thoroughfares to be the very areas where large-scale growth is not only feasible but desirable in conjunction with mass transit, a concept we need to give people options to live-work-play without being tied to their cars. It’s what many people actually crave when comparing us to London with its Tube (without which the city would be an even worse parking lot), Paris Metro and never mind Tokyo’s spotless and superfast trains. Some also bike. Young professionals and students especially.
Your base at SLAP are those people who just happen to have the most time to organize against everything, often being retired or elderly, and their main gripe is that things aren’t the way they “used to be.” Well, that is exactly the point, they’re not. For many elderly as well as younger metro types, that can be a very good thing as they become less comfortable driving and prefer to get around by bus. That’s exactly why some congregate around the LaBrea/Fairfax/ Pico/ Wilshire thoroughfares. I know elderly who will drive a car to a drug store parking lot and then take the bus around to shop, to the doctor etc., just driving home. Others take a taxi to a central spot and back home, often wishing there were DASH shuttles serving R1 areas.
But on the other hand there are groups that just want to drag out every process for years and make it so expensive for every developer that nothing is done, traffic just gets worse, old housing stock gets decrepit and no affordable housing is built on the westside or valley, even as they complain about the growing traffic.
Tobacco-Regulation Bill Clears US House, Soon To Be Law
Did you know that the FDA will soon have regulatory authority over tobacco products (read the above linked WSJ article)? That includes tobacco advertising. Did you know that Los Angeles City has regulations on the books that prohibit tobacco advertising that are targeted to children, ie. tobacco ads in close proximity to schools, playgrounds, children centers, etc.? DID YOU KNOW THAT THE LA CITY ATTORNEY REFUSED TO ENFORCE THESE LAWS BECAUSE FEDERAL LAW HAS ON IT’S BOOK PROHIBITIONS ON TOBACCO AD REGULATION?????
THE NEW FEDERAL LAW OVERTURNS PROHIBITION ON TOBACCO AD REGULATION. AND NOW HEAR THIS, THE FDA REGULATES TOBACCO ADS!!!
CITY ATTORNEY ELECT TRUTANICH, get off your butt and
…FORCE THE LIQUOR STORES LOCATED CLOSE TO SCHOOLS, PLAYGROUNDS, AND CHILDREN CENTERS TO STOP ADVERTISING TOBACCO PRODUCTS!!!!!!
THESE ADS ARE TARGETING CHILDREN… AND YOU KNOW IT.
When you watch that video is becomes very clear and apparent how and why the City of Los Angeles lost $7 billion in pension money under their un-watchful eye and have driven the city in a bankrupt pretzel knot that cannot sustain itself, due entirely to their decisions, abilities and actions.
But yeah, blame it on the public comment speakers, 9:40am. If you want to know the REAL problem with the city, Michael Jackson wrote a song about it called, “Man in the Mirror” and it’s where you should start.
AND NOW, the whole city and whole country can see what a bunch of rudderless fools are in charge of the public’s trust and money. YIKES!
They should require some kind of I.Q. test, or common sense quiz to become Councilmember.
You can’t drive a car without taking a competency test, but you can drive the city into the ground without one.
LAMC Chapter 4 Article 5 Section 4.5.19.5c RESTRICTIONS ON SIGNS ADVERTISING TOBACCO PRODUCTS
The Council is probably right to ignore vagrants, professional agenda speakers that consum endless minutes and the like. The problem is that they expect real people to come and speak.
The City Council ought to be out among the real people, asking questions, driving their own cars over crappy streets and suffering those hideous billboards. Instead, they have become buffered gods, with no more idea of wht’s happening than GM’s coddled execs did.
Contracts under review ought to be posted on line. Meetings ought to be telecasr–inlcuding the ones behind closed doors.
They should hold at least one of their meetings per week at night so that the people that are out working during the day providing the tax dollars they so eagerly spend could be there to comment on issues. Think about it, they are eliminating/silencing a very vital group of people that make up Los Angeles from the process.
Oh, wait a minute. I see. That’s exactly the way they want it. Silly me!
Have to agree with 9:40… Would like to add that offering public comment on every issue before Council does not make the commenter relevant. It pretty much does the opposite.
For $5, you could have taken the Orange Line to the Red Line down to City Hall to complain about how the Council wastes your money. Instead, you spent $13.20 just on PARKING. No irony in that, Ron.
5:16 Some people value their time at more than a few bucks an hour. Ron seems to be one of those. And you make assumptions about Ron’s schedule. You apparently don’t use public transportation much. BTW, have you actually travelled the route you suggested? I did. Never again.
It is important to understand the fundamentals of free speech and public comment. These core values are effective in protecting unpopular speech. Its not up to us to judge that Zuma Dogg should be cut off and then let a celebrity speak for 1/2 hour. The City Council under its current leadership is really pushing the legal limits in the inconsistent enforcement of rules. During the first City council race of the year, the City Council president allowed the City Attorney to cut off a speaker criticizing him (the Council President) for not willing to debate his opponent even though he was supposedly in favor of campaign finance reform. The reason?–it wasn’t in the purvue of the City Council. And yet during the same period, a mayoral candidate and a city council candidate weren’t interuppted. On several occations, Zuma Dogg followed the rules but brought up several controversial but vetted issues that were not flattering to public officials and the City attorney jumped the gun in cutting him off.
The current City Attorney, Delgadillo should be indicted for violations of both the Brown Act and the First Amendment.
There is talk the the District Attorney is looking into LA City’s violations of the Brown Act.
“The current City Attorney, Delgadillo should be indicted for violations of both the Brown Act and the First Amendment.
There is talk that the District Attorney is looking into LA City’s violations of the Brown Act.”
That is good news and I support this action.
Unfortunately, no matter how insightful an article can be, if you simply mention Zuma Dogg you lose credibility. It’s not because what he says lacks insight but because he presents himself as if himself does not take himself seriously. The message is tied to the image and lost in translation. But at least he entertains the council.
Time to train the neighborhood councils to become lobbyists.
9.40 a.m is right that most of the traffic in Hollywood is from that overbuilt city, W. Hollywood. So is the traffic on the west side & the valley from overbuilt cities of Santa Monica, Culver City & Santa Clarita. I used to work in that dumb ass City of LA. When the EIR for the COSTCO in Culver City at the edge of the city was circulated, LA had no interest in even commenting on that. Culver City gets all the revenue and we get the traffic. Multiply this myopic attitude and disinterest with the quality of life of people in this city, and you will get a goverenment and responses of the commenter above. They all want to recreate of what is left of the LA we know. Hey buddy go to London, Paris, New York, or Santa Clarita, if thats what turns you on. We like LA the way it is.
Gary @ 8:00 and 8:33 make no sense. No celebrity gets to speak for half an hour – even Cher and the others testifying re: Billy were given 2 mins. yet this is the only time they’ve appeared, not 6-7 mins. daily to rant rudely and pointlessly daily.
The stuff re: the DA investigating Brown Act violations is nonsense — Garcetti is more than patient in letting these speakers violate rules of decorum over and over before finally booting zuma dogg today for 2 sessions to the acclaim of all. The guy who calls them “criminals” and the one who regularly swears and uses inappropriate sexual references also get reprimands regularly. No one who thinks these same people ranting daily for their own self-promotion and Quixotic Mayoral campaigns, etc., is anything but a huge waste of taxpayer time and money has ever run a business and isn’t paying much in taxes. If my councilmember can’t deal with urgent business because s/he’s listening to those people hours/day it’s a travesty. Democracy requires self-restraint and when some have none whatsoever, it degrades the process and may force limits like the Supervisors have.
What IS offensive is how some of these rude commenters have taken to threatening Garcetti with “I’m going to tell Trutanovich about your violating the Brown Act,” denigrating the proceedings further. I’m sure there are always crude and vulgar anti-social types who applaud those who degrade any process anywhere, from the classroom to legislative bodies.
What I wonder is how is it that the Supervisors can limit public commenters to appearing once a month, without violating the Brown Act? (Have they had their own zuma doggs in the past?) Hence zuma dogg who had boasted he would start making regular appearances there to educate Zev and the others was unceremoniously kept from bringing his uniquely offensive, vile and time-wasting form of “education” to that more somber body? Now, the Supervisors ARE so pompous and little supervised themselves, with the few political reporters all sitting at city hall every day and leaving the former press room covering the Supes literally empty, that the motley mob of zuma dogg and company screaming at them abusively might present an amusing spectacle there. I’d LOVE to see haughty Molina and Antonovich especially forced to listen to the Sages of Venice as their own special daily purgatory.
(The last poster conceding the congestion caused by the smaller cities surrounding L A which gets the negatives without any of the benefits, then concludes that “We like LA the way it is” — and anyone who wants to compare it to a world city should just get out of town — IS just the kind of person 1st poster referred to as being the problem. Thank GOODNESS we’ve had some councilmembers with the guts to try to do what’s best for the city as a whole DESPITE these people.)
What our City Council members don’t seem to understand is that when the public was granted the RIGHT to speak to the Council, an OBLIGATION was created for the Council to listen to the public, because without that OBLIGATION, the RIGHT to speak becomes meaningless.
The council was forced once before to reopen a hearing when a Judge saw a video that showed they had not been paying attention (remember “Cellphone Jack Weiss”?) This should be the rule rather than the exception.
Sure, some speakers are annoying, some ramble, some make no sense. But they still have the RIGHT to speak, and therefore the council has the OBLIGATION to give them their undivided attention.
Remember just a couple of years ago these moron city council members use to have their meetings at night in communities. They are to afraid to do that again because now there is a grass roots movement against them and all the corruption in city hall would all come out. Zuma started the brigade against them now there’s hundreds and they know it.
“Zuma started the brigade against them now there’s hundreds and they know it.” Yikes! Hundreds of what?!
6:16, you ain’t gonna save L.A. by being an elitist, but good luck with that.
To: By Anonymous on June 12, 2009 10:15 PM
Apparently you haven’t paid that much attention. First of all on presentations on Friday, the City Council doesn’t restrict time to 1 minute of even 2 minutes. The public is not allowed to speak during this time. The City Council is “star struck” and does recognize and allow celebrities to speak out of context. They can in fact vote to extend the time of one individual or break their own rules. Also the City Council under its current leadership has allowed politicians to exceed time limitations. An example of that is when Jackie Goldberg spoke on an item well beyond the clocked time. When this was pointed out, Council President Garcetti’s excuse was that she represents her constituents (many people), putting politicians at a higher class than those they serve instead at the very least putting them at equal with those taking their own time to make it to City hall and waiting through the minutiae to speak.
Regarding Zuma Dogg, he may be childish, but he has also gathered his facts and has a right to speak under the law. Without the law in play, the City Council would quash any critical speakers irregardless of their popularity with the public.
The thing that I find most shocking is that the Council, led by Eric Garcetti, who is obsessed with people liking him, has a set of rules, written and enforced by the City Attorney, that are absolutely intended to deprive the public of Brown Act rights.
Committee meetings are a mockery. They allocate an insulting 1 minute for their own constituents to speak on matters of public interest and importance. If the Council is going to do its work in Committee meetings, then there needs to be a meaningful opportunity to speak.
There is a provision in the Brown Act that says that if a committee entirely composed of members of the City Council hear a matter at the Committee Level, then at the City Council meeting, the matter is not required to be reopened for further public hearing.
Guess what? All of Council’s Committee are purposely organized this way to take advantage of the Brown Act Committee level provision that enables them to keep the public from testifying before the City Council television cameras. This is why they hate Zuma Dogg. Zuma figured out how to combine (generally, not always) serious public comment content with attention getting devices that helped grow an audience. People tune into public comment to see what is going on.
For the speaker who wants a single nighttime meeting per week: That will not work. The cynical Eric Garcetti, who manipulates the Council agenda, will schedule presentations and other crap on the nighttime agenda and put all the important stuff they want to ram through without objection on the daytime agenda. There is no choice. Like almost all other cities, we need a Charter amendment that moves all City Council regular meetings to nighttime. These people are the highest paid City Council in the nation. They work for us. Let’s make them have public meetings when the real public can attend. Daytime meetings used by the Council to suppress public objection to the outrageous stuff that they do.
Such a charter amendment should also require the Council Committees to allow a minimum of two minutes and give a minimum of five minutes time to neighborhood council presentations. The people of Los Angeles wanted neighborhood councils — now they should be treated with the respect they deserve by mandating that the Council will listen to them.
And the “fair hearing” concept should be applied to the Council. It would require these public servants to actually sit their chair quietly and turned their listening skills on.
These minimal reforms are necessary and the neighborhood council leaders and people of Los Angeles must TAKE this power back from those at City Hall who seek to control and silence their critics. Public criticism is good — it generally brings about positive change.
I would love to have the City Council have to go to the remote areas of the City once a month. For example, is there a place near the Chatsworth
Courthouse that they could use? Have them go to San Pedro, West LA. Have them experience the traffic. See how early they must get up to be at these remote places by 10:00 AM.
But then, if they made this effort, would the community come out to speak like some do regularly in Van Nuys?
I think if a big agenda item is on a West LA project, the meeting should be in West LA, and the all of the community should get a chance to be heard – regardless of the time that has been spend in the committees.
A City Council meeting is often the culmination of a year or more on a substantial project. There is a year or more of constantly new information that must be addressed in its finality at City Council. It is not unlike a long drawn out lawsuit – the lawyers in the end must do closing arguments.
City Council is where the community does its “closing arguments” for all the world to see.
Ron and Zuma Dogg for ever. The George Washington and Patrick Henry of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles City Council, that includes Councilmembers Eric Garcetti, Ed Reyes, Wendy Greuel, Dennis Zine, Tom LaBonge, Jack Weiss, Tony Cardenas, Richard Alarcon, Bernard Parks, Jan Perry, Herb Wesson, Bill Rosendahl, Greig Smith, and Jose Huizar are DEVIANT. Councilwoman Janice Hahn also should be included with the bunch of self serving politicians because many times she is part of the problem instead of the solution.
With a 3.8 million population, City Council should always allow the public to comment regardless if 100 committee meetings have been held. The United States of America, including Angelenos, like to think Los Angeles City Council wants to encourage participatory democracy at all levels, specifically at chambers. The Los Angeles City Council needs to be reminded that they are PUBLIC SERVANTS and are paid $178,789 salaries by the same people council is constantly shunning.
Here are some examples of the Los Angeles City Council at work.
1. The City Council claims that the item(s) before City Council have been fully vetted at the committee meetings, which many times this does not happen. Just take a look at the Ad Hoc Committee on Gang Violence and Youth Development where most often it is chaired by the solo/lone councilmember, Councilman Tony Cardenas. Where are the other Councilmembers Herb Wesson, Janice Hahn, Jose Huizar, and Ed Reyes? Is this what City Council calls fully vetted?
2. The council constantly speaks on non Agenda items. June 9, 2009 at the end of public comment Alarcon spoke 50 plus words on a non agenda item and Council President Eric Garcettii, who should be setting the example, spoke over 90 words on a non agenda item. This is only one of many examples. Where is the deputy city attorney?
a. For Mr. Zuma Dogg haters, many L.A. City employees attended this City Council meeting for the first time and were astonished to watch how council was not paying attention to the speakers, it happens to the best.
3. The council never caters to special interest groups. When a USC representative came before council for a conditional use permit allowing a sign permit, he had a picture with him showing where the sign would be placed. He was directed to place the picture on the first pew. The cameras immediately zoomed directed at the picture while he spoke. Recently, a stakeholder brought a picture of the Autry Museum and was directed to place the picture in the first pew. She did as she was directed and never once where the cameras zoomed in on her picture while she spoke.
4. March 4, 2009 Councilmembers, Jose Huizar, Eric Garcetti, Ed Reyes, Wendy Greuel, and Tom LaBonge, introduced a resolution supporting Fair Election in El Savador where Los Angeles City Council is to monitor the EI Salvador presidential elections taking place on March 15, 2009 to ensure they are fair and transparent, free of intimidation, and that the decision of the voters and results of the elections will be respected.
The Los Angeles City Council needs to reevaluate their priorities.
Link: http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-0002-s26_reso_3-4-09.pdf
Watching this video made my stomach turn. I remember so well so many similar situations when I and others in the community wanted to speak on behalf of the Ballona Wetlands, and against the massive Playa Vista development that would ruin forever a part of the Ballona Valley where the Los Angeles River once flowed.
Many of us had thought that the term limits at the City Council had brought a new group of electeds who would LISTEN to the public.
This video shows an embarrassing return to the days of John Ferraro and Ruth Galanter, and the public comments are clearly a charade. I agree with a previous commenter that there is likely a legal question here. I think that – regardless of the “public hearing” held in committee, those who are all VOTING on this decision are required to listen to EACH AND EVERY speaker. And one minute is a complete joke.
It is amazing this city can not listen to the public, yet they prattle on about who knows what for enough time that they need to meet THREE TIMES EACH WEEK, when most city councils only meet once a week.
This is all so disgusting.
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