Recently in The Valley Category

Come with me back in time a decade ago and listen to the story of San Fernando Valley secession and what we learned about the rights of the people who pay the bills.

Quite siimply, we learned that all the streets and sidewalks, all the sewers, water lines, power poles and lines, all the the municipal buildings, all the parks, everything that a private individual or business doesn't hold the deed to belongs to the legal fiction known as the City of Los Angeles, Inc.

None of it belongs in any sense to the people, the people who create the government to serve them -- of, by and for them -- and who pay the taxes, fees and rates that paid for the city and support it with their money. So when breakup was the issue, we were told the Valley as a city -- the nation's sixth largest, richest, safest and most intergrated big city -- owned nothing.

Everything public would belong to the City of L.A. even though it was not in L.A. but in the wannabe City of the San Fernando Valley.

Now it's 2008, and the city can't afford to maintain its property except  for coming up with $300 million to turn City Hall into a palace of  gold and marble and $500 milion to build a new police station to beautify downtown for skyscraper developers.

The property issue of the moment is sidewalks. The city ended its policy of fixing sidewalks just about the time the official policy of City Hall became giving every dollar available to pad the salaries of city employees' paychecks and grease the palms of developers and contractors.

The result is a 75-year backlog of broken and crumbling sidewalks that are hazardous to your health and lead to numerous claims and lawsuits.

Enter Assemblywoman Audra Strickland, a Republican from Westlake Village where the sidewalks and streets are in perfect condition She has proposed AB 1985 that would "hold the owner of the property on which the sidewalk is located liable for the repair and maintenance of the sidewalk."

Those are the words of L.A.'s Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller and his assistant Roslyn Carter Phillips who last week sounded the alarm that City Hall's right to ownership without responsibility was under siege.

UPDATE: I haven't been able to connect with LAUSD on the subject but I'm told that despite what the website says about non-profits only, the district has permitted developers and other commercial interests to use school sites in the past. And that's my point public rules for the public and private rules for special interests is the hallmark of LAUSD and City Hall for that matter.

It has been a long-standing policy of the LAUSD to allow the use of public school facilities after hours only to non-profit organizations.

That's why the Sunland-Tujanga community got so aroused when it found out Mt. Gleason school was being turned over to Home Depot for a community meeting June 24 to win support for its effort to convert a closed K-Mart into one of their stores.

They started an email campaign that inundated school officials this week with complaints that giving a permit to one of America's most profitable companies violated the district's own rule.

Whatever you might think about the community's years long fight to keep Home Depot out of Sunland-Tujunga, you should be concerned about how LAUSD solved the controversy.

This is what they put up on district's website today:

Civic Center Permits

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The major function of the Civic Center Permit Office is the issuance of the appropriate permit to allow for the use of school facilities in conformance with the California Education Code mandate and the Board of Education rules, which require that each and every public school facility be made available as a civic center to members of the community and non-profit organizations for supervised recreational activities, meetings and public discussions, when regular school activities are not disrupted.

To qualify for a permit:
A group must be non-profit.(Incorrect)
Updated 6/12/08: The activity requested must be not for profit.

Poof, the problem is gone. Just change the rules. And for that I think the district with an unbroken record of failing millions of students for 30 years deserves the Chutzpah Award for pure blatant utter contempt for the public.

You got to give the bloated, overpaid and incompetent bureaucracy credit for nakedly showing exactly how they deal with all kinds of problems. Cross out the wrong answer and put in the right one. In a word, cheat.

That's exactly why the district fails. It gets the answers to problems wrong every day but instead of learning from its mistakes and getting better, it simply crosses out failure and writes in success That way there's no accountability, no growth.

And that's exactly why the people of Sunland-Tujunga feel that no matter what happens, the Home Depot store will be shoved down their throats Their experience with the city is no different than with the schools and that's what I'm hearing from people all over the city.

For my money, there is only one answer and that's to change tactics and to stop playing by the rules of a rigged game.

So if you care about the schools or the quality of life in your neighborhood or any other issues that affect your life because of local policies, join me and other community activists in a protest at City Hall on July 14, Bastille Day, the day the French Revolution began.

Ellen  Vukovich
Community Correspondent
 

I hate to admit it, but I still like living in Los Angeles.

Well, not exactly Los Angeles, but the San Fernando Valley, primarily Sherman Oaks.  That's why I volunteer my time to help keep my community a nice place to live and work in. 

However, I feel like vultures are circling around us like downed prey. I realize that our relatively traffic-less part of Ventura Boulevard and laid back Valley lifestyle could soon be devoured by a pro-development City Hall. 

Of course, we will fight to keep that from happening. The Valley has long been known for active community involvement but, that's no excuse for sitting on the sidelines, no matter where you live and work.  

Frankly, our generally great So Cal weather almost makes for a good trade-off between our worsening traffic congestion, and degradation of a once-affordable quality of life.

For those yearning to escape into a swimming pool, our mostly sunny days means we actually get to take pleasure in doing something the City does right.  Namely, taking a swim in a nearby Olympic-sized swimming pool owned and operated by LA.

The fact is this City run facility works very well -- clean and clear filtered water, hot water in the showers, and convenient hours reminds me that Los Angeles is still capable of doing something beneficial for the public, at a relatively modest cost to them.

And, yes, I do take note that I am a contradiction -- I spend more time out of the water stating what needs to be fixed in Los Angeles than remembering to say some parts do work well, such as non-toilet water filled swimming pools. 

It's a small world isn't it, small and funny and fine -- at least for people in the tight little circles of influence where opportunity to reward friends and punish enemies abounds.

Take the case of Northeast San Fernando Valley Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes who, while nobody was watching largely because he has been so invisible, took steps to strip the City of L.A. and its citizens of their basic right to decide land use issues by letting developers do almost anything they want like tear down houses and put up apartments.

It should be noted that his skullduggery was aided and abetted by the fact the Daily News no longer has anyone in Sacramento and the Times still doesn't care about such mundane matters as the well-being of the city.

But word does get around and on Friday Rick Orlov reported Fuente's deceit and a brushfire of outrage quickly spread across the city.

(Strike up the appropriate music by clicking here to get in the right mood for what follows)

With a little help from his friends, Fuentes has concocted a measure, AB212, that  "would limit the ability of the city to make zone changes in areas where the community plan is not consistent with the general plan," according to Orlov.

That lack of consistency is everywhere since the general plan is a fraud and the community plans outdated.

Fuentes' goal is affordable housing -- a code word for taxpayer subsidized housing for the poor and densification of neighborhoods all across L.A.

Now I don't know at this point who would get rich from Fuentes' effort to strip the people of L.A. and their government of control of land use but an examination of how he came to be an elected official and how this legislation came to be might be instructive.

For starters, you need to know Fuentes is a tool of City Councilman Richard Alarcon and former City Council President Alex Padilla, who is now a state senator.

As I've watched the circus that passes for politics in L.A. over the years, that phrase often has popped into my head so it was amusing when I heard someone near me last night at the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association meeting murmur a similar sentiment.

It was near the end of Councilwoman Wendy Greuel's talk and she was answering a question about why for so long garbage collection was provided out of taxes like police and fire services, a basic commitment of City Hall to the people, and now the city is recovering the full cost of garbage collection.

Now here's the most capable member of the City Council talking gibberish as if no one in the room is smart enought to know the simple truth: The city squandered all its tax dollars and has no chance in hell of getting two-thirds of the voters to approve higher taxes so they're charging for services that have long been free.

That way the public doesn't get a say, which is the point to be sure. The less say the public has, the easier it is for the mayor and council to have sweetheart deals with city unions and sweetheart deals with Arab oil sheiks who want to profit from city-subsidized developments.

 

Oher videos of Councilwoman Greuel's talk to SOHA at http://www.youtube.com/user/ronkayela

By Ellen Vukovich

Sherman Oaks activist

One thing I have learned is that City Hall underestimates a rule I call "The Power of One." 

It only takes one person to effectively and consistently stand-up for a neighborhood when demanding action from the City. 

An effective powerful "one" is one who has a computer, loves nothing better than to write emails, track emails, make telephone calls, send letters, circulate petitions and never let up the pressure on City officials, departments, etc., when seeking to resolve a problem.
 
Case in point is a fellow activist who recently wrote me about something dear to our mayor's heart -- potholes.
 
Apparently, my friend's street has not been slurred or paved for nearly 28 years thus earning the dubious distinction by the Department of Street Services as a "failure." 

He stated that "we have about 14-16 potholes each month which the city fills." However, there is one slight problem -- many of the new ones fail thus causing a vicious cycle. 
 
So what keeps him from being discouraged? His neighbors understand and apply the power of one theory.  According to my friend, these neighbors do "love to mix it up, complain, and boast how they are going to do this and that, but in the end...they do push me to lead and get those holes filled for them."
 
While it takes a three-man crew to fill potholes, it's still a patch job. Yet, seeing any job through only takes "one" strong leader. 

By Ellen Vukovich

Sherman Oaks activist

Driving south on Woodman Avenue in Sherman Oaks recently, I tried to avoid the congestion around the 101 Freeway so I turned onto Riverside where I was greeted by absolute gridlock .

I looked to my left and saw the cause for the traffic: Los Angeles City Street Service workers are repaving a portion of Riverside. It was obvious that these repairs were scheduled on a Saturday in an attempt to avoid congesting streets during a workday in front of an already high traffic generating area -- Westfield's Fashion Square Mall. However, the repairs were scheduled the day before Mother's Day when last-minute shoppers needed to make a hasty trip to the local mall to find a nice gift for Mom.
 
When I finally made it home, a headline in the Daily News caught my eye about traffic. So, I sat down and read all about all of the taxes and fees which are on the drawing board in Sacramento and Los Angeles to alleviate future traffic congestion. 

Naturally, I also thought about what happened. While I certainly appreciate the need to think ahead and plan for future growth, I get the feeling that our elected officials haven't learned that they can't lose sight of the need to solve our current problems. 

I think if the City took a lesson from Cal Trans, who repairs our freeways while we sleep and on early morning weekends that would be a huge improvement, signaling a shift away from entrenched bureaucratic practices and thinking.  In other words, it's time to get creative. 

Frankly, I think the true traffic experts in Los Angeles are you, the public. It's too bad that the City of Los Angeles doesn't take advantage of the wealth of ideas all of us have to offer since we pay for so much already with the hope services will improve.

We can still get their attention at the ballot box, provided that we can make it home in time to vote.
 

Antonio Villaraigosa was his usual charming self last night when he dropped by the latter-day secession group Valley Vote to spend 90 minutes or so auditioning his re-election pitch and addressing concerns from overdevelopment to overpaid city workers.

He even said nice things about me even though we disagree on a lot of issues. I got to chat with a lot of these truly concerned citizens who have worked long and hard for a better city whether it's L.A. or the Valley.

Before the mayor arrived, I got a chance to make my own pitch which is that nothing great will happen unless business, civic, social groups of all types across the city unite around a handful of core issues -- like quality schools, safe streets, healthy neighborhoods and good jobs -- and become the third force in city politics equal to the unions and developers/contractors/lobbyists.

Both Antonio and I were warmly received which tells you a lot about the decency of these people and their eagerness to embrace anyone who offers any hope at all at making L.A. a better city.

What intrigues me about everyone who lives inside the bubble of City Hall -- is how the world they operate in makes such perfect sense to them when it seems so corrupt to me. This is true of every politician and staff member and bureaucrat I know even ones who are cynical about what's going on.

Somehow, they can't see that inflated salaries and benefits, civil service rules that reward and protect low achievement and sloppy contracting practices that give away fortunes are the problem.

The mayor is certainly no exception.

His scheme to raise taxes, fees and rates while cutting services almost seems to make a kind of insane sense when you listen to the innocence with which he says that every new dollar he takes in from the public, he'll reduce services by $1.50. He blithely explains away giving pay raises that far exceed inflation even as the economy was sinking, even blaming the economists for not predicting things would be as bad as they are.

As always, he rests his case on the reduction in crime and makes the city's new plans for massive development without community input sound like smart growth.

I'm not going to belabor the point because I'm putting up video of the event. It's the first time I ever tried to shoot with a video camera or post it online. So it'll be pretty amateurish at best. Click here for his answer to a question on city salaries, the Tennie Pierce case is here and here for the first segment of his talk, Part II is here, Part III is here.

Ask people in L.A., Madrid, Paris, London, Sydney, Berlin, New York and Singapore what they want from city government and you'll find the answers are similar around the world.

Better services, a fair share of services, empowerment, accountability.

That's the finding of a recent global study of those eight cities by Accenture management consultants.

If that sounds a lot like what drove the Valley secession movement a decade ago or what is stirring the citywide discontent today, it is.

Rick Orlov in the Daily News on Monday characterized the L.A. segment of the study this way: "Most Los Angeles residents love the city but are troubled by the high cost of living, the lack of government accountability and a widespread sense that no area is getting its fair share of services - the same sentiment that fueled the San Fernando Valley secession drive."