The Valley: May 2008 Archives

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That lack of consistency is everywhere since the general plan is a fraud and the community plans outdated.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

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."