For decades, City Hall experimented with a bizarre form of municipal socialism, enriching the rich, impoverishing the poor and driving away the middle class.
The 2000 census showed that white flight in the 1980s had become middle-class flight, cutting across racial and ethnic lines with the poverty rate in the San Fernando Valley — once the largest enclave of middle class families in the nation — soaring by 50 percent.even as home ownership rates plummeted by more than a third.
Today, the situation is far worse. LA has become a city of rich and poor. The result is declining neighborhoods, public schools overwhelmed by the numbers of children with special needs and a workforce that is largely unskilled and competing for the shrinking number of service and laborer jobs.
It is largely the result of misguided public policies that have turned city government into a jobs program, not a services provider, while the roads, sidewalks, water and power systems have deteriorated.
And now City Hall is about to deliver the coup de grace to the middle class.
No longer able to afford the cost of salaries and benefits in the public sector and forced to shed thousands of city workers, the mayor and City Council have slashed core services to the general public like parks and libraries and building code enforcement.
The city’s shrinking resources are focused instead on “revenue generating” services like those that those that impose escalating fees, penalties and rates on the public in the name of “full cost recovery.”
Beyond those policies, First Deputy Mayor and Interim DWP General Manager Austin Beutner is the
architect of what amounts to a desperate attempt to save LA by turning
city government into a profitable business without the burden of providing services other than police to the public.
City Hall, in the name of becoming “business friendly,” is moving rapidly to buy jobs in the private sector.
Tax holidays and discounted DWP rates for new businesses will shortly be matched by tax breaks and discounted DWP rates for existing businesses.
The city’s cash cows — DWP and the Community Redevelopment Agency — are being milled for subsidies even as they squeeze money out of the pockets of residents and tax dollars out of the city treasury.
The death blow to the middle class is now being delivered by Beutner’s hand-picked Planning Director, Michael LoGrande who is all but eliminating public input and involvement in the planning process to speed up the approvals of new projects.
In the sweltering days of August with many on vacation, LoGrande — untrained as a planner but quick to obey orders from above — is pushing through radical changes in the policies that control development in the city.
Just two weeks ago, community activists Lucille Saunders and Cindy Cleghorn found the Planning Department was proposing to the revise the General Plan Framework with far-reaching “Urban Design Guidelines” that set the zoning rules on density throughout the city.
The proposal — which wasn’t made public — was exempted from requirements to meet the state environmental laws and concerned citizens only given to Aug. 25 to comment on something that wasn’t even available to them except by appoing.
Saunders and Cleghorn made an appointment and met with planner Michelle Sorkin. It was days after their meeting that they learned also was including changes in the .
“Community Design Overlay” policy in the same short-circuited process.
LoGrande’s response to community concerns and the flurry of viral emails is to extend the deadline for comment until Labor Day.
No involvement of Neighborhoods Councils, homeowner or other groups allowed. No honest debate. No information.
The outrage of many was captured by Ken Alpern in a City Watch LA article in this sentence in all capital letters:
THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES IS ABOUT READY TO END
PUBLIC INPUT ON A HUGE SERIES OF GUIDELINES THAT WILL DETERMINE FUTURE
DEVELOPMENT THROUGHOUT LOS ANGELES RIGHT AFTER LABOR DAY WITHOUT HARDLY
ANYONE KNOWING WHAT’S PRECISELY IN THOSE GUIDELINES!!!
If they get away with this, they can do anything they want whenever they want.
The public will be completely disenfranchised and the result will be virtually instantaneous approval of nearly all development projects no matter what their impact on the quality of life, on traffic congestion, on the drain on limited water and power resources and the availability of public services.
These policies may be “business friendly” but they are a disaster for the residents of the city.
Appreciate the call to arms, but you utterly fail to tell us how to fight this.
What to do: Contact your NCs, HOAs, Council Members, and the entire hierarchy of the planning department (DCP). Send this blog and your personal message to insist on your rights and to change this “business as usual” pattern.
I am greatly heartened and encouraged by the widening circle of information and support on these vital citywide planning issues (Urban Design Guidelines (UDG), City Design Overlay (CDO) changes, and “first simplified code”).
Cindy Cleghorn, of the Sunland-Tujunga NC and Plancheck who attended the planning/Sorkin meeting with me, and many others have sounded the alarm to various NCs and Council offices of our concerns: the lack of public information and input, the sequence (environmental before the policy or not included, ie, no attachment 3 of first simplified code as indicated in that index), and timing. It is no accident half the city, including the City Council and citizens, are on vacation as these policies are being released now.
I presented these policies/issues at Central Hollywood NC last night and will be at Mid City West NC tonight.
Cindy Cleghorn will lead her LUC group in reviewing the urban design guidelines tonight.
Meanwhile the DCP (up to and including Michael LoGrande) is not responding to my several requests for additional information, additional time to review/respond, and to take the CDO out of the UDG “informational meetings.”
Thanks to all for making this change happen.
Lucille Saunders
You may want to include Beutner also for all your complaints.
Or, just stop by and get some more Kool-Aid from Kaye and Abel.
Abel didn’t get picked to be planning director, so Kaye will take down whoever did get picked. No sense waiting to see how it goes, is there?
Just slash away at the guy before he gets his pictures hung in his new office.
Yes, it is the Kaye and Abel way…
(Faintly reminiscent of Chicago Politics, huh?)
City Hall spinhole at 2:20
2:20, read your story on several different postings, and makes no sense. Was Abel in the running for LA Director’s job that was never advertised and thus never competed for. Do you think, a publicly funded position should be just handed over to your favorite niece, nephew or whoever, qualified or not? As for implying that we are all Kool-Aid drinkers, how dare you. It implies that you are smarter, and have some deep insight and qualifications to make such a judgement call on all of us.
I will stipulate Ron Kaye is not stupid and can read.
So when he says the proposed Urban Design Guidelines “set the zoning rules on density throughout the city,” he either hasn’t read them (they don’t change zoning on a single parcel anywhere in the City) or is being deliberately untruthful about their content.
He is likewise inaccurate when he says the Guidelines were “exempted from the requirements to meet the state environmental laws.” In fact, CEQA established different levels of review for different types of project and the Planning Department, quite properly, determined that the Guidelines warranted a low level of review. The fact that the IRS didn’t audit my tax return doesn’t mean I was “exempted” from the tax laws; it might just mean my return is so trivial and apparently legitimate that it doesn’t require a higher level of scrutiny. But I suspect Ron knows that.
Why should I “clean sweep” into office a slate led by a man who either has no qualms against lying or no intellectual curiosity to learn the facts?
How can the Planning Department issue an environmental clearance for a “project” that does not exist, and if it does, it is not published and noone knows about it. Further, to compound its ignorance, as quoted in Citywatch, by the project planner in question, she says that it was not circulated because the Planning Commission needs to first see the draft Urban Design Guidelines. Since when did the Planning Commission start seeing draft documents? Only a final product, which has been subject to community and other stakeholder input is submitted to them. Just who is setting these new rules that bypass the Neighborhood Councils and the communities affected by those guidelines.
I think Los Angeles is headed for a long decline before it’s reborn. Probably 15 years or more.
“The City of Los Angeles runs the city and if you don’t like it, sue in court.” What a deputy mayor told me during a discussion in the rotunda at city hall.
Ms. Sanders – your instructions to contact my Council member – what a $%@#@&* laugh – Janice Hahn has me on her spam e-mail list, her office won’t even take a message, I am nobody ever since I informed her that her prior actions on matters before the Council did not meet my approval and she certainly was not going to get my vote in her run for Lt. Governor. She will be termed out shortly and can not run again for Council office, she has no interest in anything but cowtowing to the union money bags and finding somebody to appoint her to some office so that she will have an income. She doesn’t represent anybody in her district except the unions and those who send her money. What would you expect her to do about the Planning process changes?
She votes 99+% of the time in support of what ever somebody puts on the Council agenda – NEVER raises any questions – like why should Councilman Cardena’s sister get a contract that duplicates services already being paid for on another contract – Janice slept through that one too.
She doesn’t have time to do any research or review of pending items – she’s too busy following the Mayor around for photo ops – including for the car company coming to LA courtesy of funding by your Council – a company which has built ONE car – boy that sure qualifies them doesn’t it?
Then she votes to give Mr. Broad 8 million of your dollars to locate his museum in LA (while he hires a New York architect!!!!! – I guess we don’t have any qualified architects here in LA?? or at least any that contribute to Ms. Hahn’s campaigns)????
The only way to stop all of this massive theft and corruption is to run the bastards out of town on a rail – bring on the tar and feathers!
Have you heard of “Smart Growth”? That’s what they want. Since that’s not what I wanted I moved to Oregon. I saw this coming years ago.
You want to fight this? Then, you become very committed and do what Martin Luther King would do, civil unrest.
Otherwise, just sit back and watch the density increase and the push to use only bus and rail transportation.
It’ll never be pleasant to go the the beach on the weekends, again.
Steve @402pm, couldn’t agree more. People need to realize and accept this so they make the right decisions for the future of the city. But just like city council, the people are overly optimistic and are still speaking as though things are going to magically spring back and things will be the way they used to be. Doesn’t work that way. And when I say I couldn’t agree more. Expect with the part that says it will ever be coming back. Not this part of California. Why would you think that? Haven’t you looked around at the way the next generation of Angelinos behave?
Yah right!!! Accept it. This is what is in store for Los Angeles… traffic jams the likes that only China sees…
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/08/23/china-traffic-jam.html
Well, you can ride bikes. In the SF Valley, it’s only 100 degree heat.
Or, be like our friends in Kenya. They don’t think twice over walking, one mile, two miles, twenty miles. We don’t need the comforts of an industrialized world. Do like Mayor V says, pee in the shower… save an ounce of water. Do like Mayor V says, don’t throw your toilet paper in the commode. Save a speck of paper and put it in the waste basket. Be a zombie!!! Do what Mayor V says.
Hank, did you catch how Janice got the lighthouse funded after learning her cousin, who runs it, was going to lose her job, the one janice got her. POS.
People, just admit — you blew it. LA was a great place to live, have a good job , raise a family. But you didn’t care and voted in all these corrupt politicians , you didn’t care that businesses were leaving left & right . You coddled the illegals and destroyed schools and the quality of life in general . Now it’s too late. LA is in decline and will only get worse.
There goes the neighborhood.
Keep in mind re: white flight/other flights in the 80′s began when affordable housing was created in the outlying areas such as Moreno valley and parts between and to the north in Antelope Valley, Santa Clarita and so on. Those families who were generationally stuck in LA were finally able to move away from crime and into new neighborhoods. So it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Design Guidelines do not establish density or zoning rules. The Zoning Code and the General Plan’s Land Use Element via the Community Plan’s Land Use Designations establish density and zoning rules.
If the public comment period has been extended then how is it that that no public input is happening? Extending a public comment period means that the existing public comment period has been extended. Hello??? Anyone here on planet earth?
If anyone has anything uselful to say, why not understand the difference between design guidelines (perhaps a review of the definition of the term “guideline” might be helpful) and the Zoning Code.
The Zoning Code establishes density and use of property. Look up the Zoning Code online, perhaps the R3 Zone could be a start. Read what it says about density and then look at a “design guidelines” in any applicable community plan and determine how the two are different but related.
Also based on the comment posted August 25, 2010 – 7:30 a.m.
The so called “white flight” also happened because the LAUSD wasn’t an option for a family that wanted their kids to get a good education!
And People were tired of driving on streets that haven’t been improved for 40 years. You don’t need a sign that tells you that your in LA. You just feel the bumps and the rough ride to know you’re in LA! Unless of course, you live in Windsor Square or Westwood! I bet most people who live in Windsor Sqaure or Westwood and have kids are not sending their kids to public schools.
I love the title – “Death Blow to the Middle Class.”
That started happening about 50 years ago!