Hard as it may be to believe, there is a logical theory to the way L.A. city government is organized that is supposed to provide honesty and efficiency and balance the competing interests in a complex society.
The theory is the mayor provides vision, leadership and oversight to the
entire city government. The City Council makes policy and reviews the
actions of the various departments which each have their own independent
citizen oversight in the form of commissions. Top bureaucrats are held
accountable by their commissions and the elected officials while the
work force is insulated from political interference by civil service
rules.
Clearly, it isn’t working the way it was designed what with extensive evidence of waste, mismanagement, malingering, bribery and stealing not to mention politicians granting favors to friends and contributors from fixing parking tickets to tax breaks and subsidies worth millions.
The entire system has become politicized. Top managers are brow-beaten into submission by the politicians and their staffs. Commissioners are little more than shills for the politicians. Work place discipline has broken.
The result is corruption has become so rampant that the FBI is investigating and a federal grand jury is handing down indictments.
Every dark cloud has a bright spot and City Hall’s is the Police Commission which under the leadership of its president, civil rights leader John Mack, has brought independent oversight and leadership that has done more to restore the LAPD’s credibility than the mayor’s hiring 800 cops and putting them in civilian jobs.
On Tuesday, the commission took a series of actions that are worthy of note, starting with rejecting a recommendation from the department’s top brass to require that toy guns and BB sold in the city be pink or another color so cops wouldn’t mistake them for real guns.
Wouldn’t thugs, the commissioners asked, just paint their guns pink to get the drop on the cops? Duh, the brass didn’t think of that, case closed.
Then, there was the issue of cops of what do about cops who get caught drunk driving or committing other violations. Current practice is to let them off on “conditional own recognizance” for first offenses with a warning they will be suspended or face other discipline if it happens again.
The commissioners suggested it might be a better idea to actually intervene and determine if the officer has an alcohol or other problems and provide help and support so it doesn’t lead to more trouble. Duh, case closed.
The big news was the commission voted unanimously, all five of them — Mack, Alan Skobin, Richard Drooyan, Robert Saltzman and Debra Wong Yang — to kill the red light cameras that so infuriate motorists.
This is no small matter since the firm that provides the red light camera services, American Traffic Solutions, has shown it has real clout with the City Council in no small part due to paying $150,000 in the last two years to the lobbying firm, Sage Advisors, which also peddles its influence on behalf of AEG and IBEW Local 11 to name a few of its clients.
The Council, in supporting the program, ordered the LAPD to renew the contract for the red light cameras.
Nonsense, said the Police Commission, there’s no evidence the cameras improve traffic safety and the $400 fine for getting caught isn’t even enforceable in court so it amounts to a voluntary — and unfair — citation system.
Duh. The cameras will soon be gone unless the City Council chooses to strip the Police Commission of its authority on this issue and take jurisdiction in the next two weeks.
A ray of hope there is some common sense of people who can decide on policy. Thank goodness it isn’t the Mayor or City Council clowns. I don’t always agree with the Commissioners but these policy changes make sense. Finally they are questioning and putting top LAPD command in check. Something that has long been missing in PAB. Now, if they could start to move out all the sworn on the 6th floor who belong back out on the streets and not doing the top command staff grunt work.
I’m curious how the mayor felt about it. I can’t imagine the commission voting against the wishes of both the mayor and Council. If they did, my hat’s off to them (if I had a hat, that is).
But, really, it would be very rare for a commission to vote against the wishes of both “bodies” under the current Charter, unless they already had an inkling of a unanimous vote. ‘Not implying BA violation-just that they might have publicly discussed the matter at a prior meeting or two. Then, what’s a mayor to do, replace all of them?
Maybe the mayor is planning ahead. In a little over a year he’ll be driving again.
Don’t give them too much credit Ron. Do you really think these suck-ups would defy the political leadership if the pols wanted a different result?
I’m actually sad that the Police Commission didn’t let the City Council make the decision and take the heat for it. This deal was done a long time ago. The April extension was just a trial balloon to get all the ducks in a row and make sure the news came down after Memorial Day when fewer folks are paying attention. The Police Commission are just being good soldiers. They will take the heat for the lost revenue and wasted sunk program costs and the City Council gets to dodge a huge bullet of public accountability.
Your Clean Sweep candidates would be sitting in City Hall right now if they had run on the red light camera issue (particularly the fact that anyone well-connected in LA has known for years to ignore red light citations (including the stupid right turn varieties) because they don’t actually get enforced (no DMV holds on licenses or vehicle registrations and no credit report hits or meaningful collection efforts taken).
How does a major American city force poor law-abiding dolts to pay extortionate traffic fines while letting completely off those smart enough to know how the system really works?
The big question is whether there will be amnesty for outstanding tickets and will those who paid the fines in good faith be allowed to petition for reimbursement?
I’m one of those poor saps who dumbly paid the $450 for a camera light ticket. Damn, who knew you could just ignore the ticket and still get your vehicle registered. I heard in the minority communities council members told DOT to disconnect the cameras. That would be interesting to investigate if true.
i’m sorry to say but i believe that the writer missed the mark on this one. is it really great that police no longer consider red-light cameras effective at providing public safety. really? it would seem that discrediting the camera systems would benefit police hiring because we need more cops to ‘protect our streets.’
the red light cameras have nothing to do with public safety, fairness, or revenue. just look for the money and keep following it until you get the real story.
and didn’t the city, months ago, state that zero fatalities have occurred at intersections with cameras. and while some have had more fender-benders because of driver confusion about whether to run the light or hit the brakes hard….it is certainly in public interest to reduce traffic fatalities. i guess police commission disagrees.
and what the hell? cops get a ‘get out of jail card’ for their first drunk driving offense. that’s both a blatant disregard for public safety and the law.
ending on a lighter note, i like the idea of painting all guns pink….even issuing cops pink guns. and why not pink squad cars, too.
Red light cameras are a revenue generator for cities and nothing more, except our dumb city can’t seem to make money from them. Typical of everything the city does where it enriches private parties while impoverishing its citizens. As for hiring more cops, we have one too many. The force needs to be scaled back.
And just recently, lest we forget, the LAPD decided “undocumented” drivers, who really should not be driving on any street, receive a “get out of impound” special treatment.
All tickets, all citations, all code enforcement should be eliminated. Who needs stinking laws? Let’s all play by the rules of the jungle.
What City of LA really needs is a Human Resources Department which is allowed to act independently, without interference from management. Making this even more realistic is passing a law which would make it a crime for a supervisor, or management to interfere in an HR investigation, when a complaint is filed. This would help prevent management from protecting friends in trouble, and also, can help remove the fear of retaliation to an employee who filed a complaint. Of course in the case of the Police Department, Internal Affairs would be involved where applicable.
I know of someone who got a ticket from a camera in another city in 1996. He was wearing sunglasses and argued (in court) that it was not a picture of him, that someone else drove his car that day.
He got this advice from someone else. It worked.
The point here is, it’s clear there are ways out of paying the ticket without ignoring the bill.To do this means to tie up the courts while getting away with lying.
My guess is there were enough stats handy to warrant never installing these lights from the get go.
I know a young man who got a ticket for running a light. The camera caught the license and the image of the driver.
My young friend went to appeal the ticket. He showed the photo and said – “this is not me”. They asked who it was – and he refused to answer. I believe this lead to several visits to court. I am not sure how it ended.
The bottom line is that the cameras may prove as evidence in an intersection – when there is an accident – what driver was doing what and when.
Personally, I would like to be more like England and have more cameras – especially downtown – for our public safety. I just don’t know who should be monitoring them – and if this form of security could be utilized as a “Homeland Security” tool.
This is 2011, there is a lot going on in our world, and I think we are so busy focusing on budget, we don’t discuss the importance of all
LAPD, General Services officers, LAFD, 911 operators, and all of the emergency departments that serve our City.
Instead of focusing on what each community’s disaster preparedness plan is, we are more involved in discussing how many we move to another department, cut the pensions and benefits, who got ERIP, who was transferred to what special fund.
We have a real problem with short term memories -the 1994 earthquake, annual fires, floods, wierd weather patterns all over the U.S. By the time we are done cutting what engine is in what station – who is going to be there for us when we really need a paramedic or a fire engine?
Hello – anybody listening?
Finally, the city council did one little thing right and voted to end the red light camera program along with the ongoing annual loss of funds as the city pays the camera contractor to keep this mess running.
When one study after another across the country shows that red light cameras don’t reduce intersection accidents but trade one kind of accident for another, every municipality should be listening.
I know, it’s hard to give up the cash cow, except in the case of Los Angeles, there was no cow, just another black hole where money disappeared regularly.
One of the best things DOT has done is install the Walk/Don’t Walk signals with the countdown timer display. An attentive driver can see when the light will change as they approach the intersection.
I wonder if the contractor will now remove the red light cameras, or if they will remain as yet another eyesore on the city’s landscape, forever reminding passing drivers of this boondoggle.