ValleyVote Update for 6-8-01 |
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Los Angeles voters spoke loud and clear Tuesday in choosing pothole politics -- in which problems are fixed rather than ignored -- over ideological vision. If only by narrow margins, the election represented a repudiation of the kind of social engineering City Hall has engaged in for a generation.
All six candidates endorsed by the Daily News won election as voters chose more moderate candidates in James Hahn for mayor, Rocky Delgadillo for city attorney, council members Jack Weiss and Dennis Zine from San Fernando Valley districts, Marlene Canter for the Los Angeles Unified School District board and Nancy Pearlman for the community college board.
The message to elected officials should be clear: Pragmatism takes precedence over politics. Provide public services more fairly and effectively and govern from the center instead of the fringes. The mandate for the new members of the City Council is to deliver on their commitments to fix the Police Department, paramedic corps, streets, sidewalks, sewers, garbage dumps next to homes and schools -- and the long litany of failing basic services.
It is not to perpetuate the utopian, symbolism-over-substance politics of the outgoing City Council. The council's new members should start by taking an oath to end back-room deals and illegal closed-door meetings, and to abolish deceit from the conduct of the city's public affairs.
But that won't happen as long as the master of manipulation, Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton, is ruling the roost. The council needs a public servant to assist it, not a master who controls it. A high priority must be massive reform of the city's campaign finance and ethics laws, which were completely trashed by labor unions, political parties, billionaires with private agendas, influence peddlers and special interests of every stripe.
We urge the new council members to take back the city for the people who elected them, pay them a handsome $130,000 a year and bestow perks and honors upon them that are rarely deserved.
The people of the Valley in particular have a right to expect that council districts will be drawn to reflect communities of interest, as state law requires. That means giving the Valley five full seats instead of carving it up into pieces to weaken the power of the city's middle class.
Nothing less than dramatic progress starting from day one, July 1, when the new government takes office, will head off secession movements in the Valley, Hollywood and Harbor area that could cut Los Angeles down by half.
The council's foot-dragging in creating the advisory neighborhood councils must end immediately and a crash program must be initiated to involve the people of communities all over the city in the processes of government.
Los Angeles is at a crossroads. City Hall's war against the middle class [Of all, races and colors] must end. The long slow decline of Los Angeles into a "Blade Runner" city of only rich and poor has reached the crisis stage.
The victims of this ideology-driven reign of terror are most of all the poor, subjected to slum housing because basic laws aren't enforced, rotten schools, crime-ridden streets and low-paying jobs.
Clean up L.A. -- or let its people go!
I sympathize with the residents along West Park Drive in Valley Village who had to endure the loss of those grand old eucalyptus trees in the park.
How those people must be missing the shade of those lost trees. With separate cityhood for the San Fernando Valley, hopefully, residents will have some input about what affects their neighborhood.
Ronald R. Rushton North Hollywood
Re Philip Wilt's "Secession" (Public Forum, May 21):
As a Valleyite voter, I too, love the Valley and look forward to our divorce from the dysfunctional marriage with Los Angeles. Although the Valley would have to contract with L.A. for Department of Water and Power services, LAFCO has the power to order L.A. to provide services to Valley customers at the same rates it charges L.A. After all, our (Valley) tax money has been used through the years to develop and support the DWP.
As a separate city, we will be the sixth-largest in the nation, yet we have no Valley music center (note that L.A. has two within walking distance of each other), no cultural arts complex, museums or stadiums, no public auditoriums. Our transit system is appalling.
I do not wish to be part of a city whose governing body tolerates a Police Department that a U.S. District Judge has ruled can be sued as a racketeering enterprise under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Jan Holle North Hollywood
I will not be
exercising that right in the coming election. I refuse to hold my nose to vote
for either candidate for mayor. Give me a real choice and let me vote for Valley
secession!
Matthew Schaaf
Granada Hills
City workers have started moving back into Los Angeles' restored City Hall so it seems an appropriate time to marvel at the beauty of the rotunda, the murals, the bronze-and-steel vintage elevators. The 1928 building clearly is L.A.'s most-noted landmark, used in many movies and TV shows, like "The Adventures of Superman" and "Dragnet," to symbolize a great metropolis.
That said, the $299 million restoration cost embodies everything that is wrong with the priorities of the politicians and bureaucrats who soon will be operating again out of City Hall.
In a city with so many neglected needs that half its residents are on the brink of seceding to form their own local governments, City Hall is the crowning symbol of the self-indulgence and self-serving of America's highest-paid officialdom.
City Hall could have been restored to make it safe in a major earthquake and partially restored for one-third of what was spent. It could have been torn down and a new City Hall built for roughly half what was spent.
The savings could have been poured into the neighborhoods for streets and sidewalk repairs, redevelopment, and youth and public safety programs.
Such a course of action would have shown the commitment of the city's leaders to respond to the outcry from communities all across Los Angeles for a government that responds to their needs, respects their values.
But that was not to be.
Feeding at the trough of power without regard to anyone or anything else is such a way of life for the downtown power structure that the idea of sharing the wealth with the neighborhoods remains as unthinkable today as it has the past 100 years.
Mayoral candidates Antonio Villaraigosa and James Hahn have both promised to listen to the neighborhoods and change the way City Hall operates. Yet, they have set records taking money from the same old special interests that have run the show for so long that only the most optimistic people hold out much hope that those operating from a restored City Hall will really be much different than those in the old, run-down City Hall.
It will take a political earthquake to shake sense into the city's leadership -- which perhaps is why they poured 30,000 cubic yards of concrete and installed 16 million pounds of steel to make their palace to power as impermeable as is humanly possible to hearing the cries of the people for a better government.
Let's see. Who am I going to vote for? Hahn? Villaraigosa? Hahn? Villaraigosa? Well, after much consideration -- although I wasn't too thrilled with it before -- I'm voting for secession.
Richard Smith Reseda
Your editorial "Field of Dreams" (May 2) implies that a Major League Baseball training facility in Hansen Dam would be a boon for Northeast Valley youths. This backroom deal was negotiated in secret by billion-dollar sports businessmen and politicians, without public input. It would spend millions in public funds and appropriate 21 acres of public land to benefit a mere 150 teens quarterly bused in from inner-city neighborhoods, including a few from the East Valley.
I agree that this is a worthy project, but Major League Baseball is not a
sport, it is a megabucks business, and should not expect to feed at the public
trough. What is more responsible use of public funds: a training facility for
a select few, or a recreational facility for all our children?
-- Sheila Mears
Lake View Terrace
Please add my name to the list of those Valley residents who support the Valley having its own school districts. It is time that the Valley separated from the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Dolores Lefevre Canoga Park
Currently the state Board of Education has a petition from the San Fernando Valley for a vote on whether to separate from the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Last Thursday [March 8], the state Board of
Education granted parents in the city of Carson the right to vote on whether
they want to separate from LAUSD.
We need the same positive action from the state
board for the parents of the Valley--if it is the right way to let the parents
have a decision in whether their children should be educated in a smaller school
district that can be managed properly.
SYDELLE ROTHSTIN
Chatsworth
For three years city residents battled LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks over his decision to scuttle the senior lead officers, a program that generated more goodwill in neighborhoods than almost anything else City Hall has ever tried.
Angelenos won the fight last week when Mayor Richard Riordan and Parks announced the program would be fully restored.
To his political detriment, Parks had refused to listen and respond to repeated and passionate outcries to restore the one program that people felt good about, that they connected with and that made them believe in neighborhood empowerment.
To a degree, Parks was correct -- the SLO program was better public relations than policy. He believed that the entire force of 9,000 officers -- not just the 176 senior leads -- should be involved every day in "community policing." Of course, officers should know their beats, be courteous to residents, answer complaints and respond to petty concerns, in addition to laying their lives on the line every day.
But the senior leads became a symbol of the disconnect between City Hall and the neighborhoods -- where people feel isolated in their homes and apartments and abandoned by their elected government.
A sharp, well-trained cop who came to community meetings and was the person to turn to with law enforcement problems represented one of the few times city government came to the people. Officers got to know residents, where they lived, worked and went to school. And residents had a face in the system who guided them through the maze.
SLO's were the "go-to" people for Neighborhood Watch commanders, church leaders, homeowners associations, community activists and plain citizens.
The reality is that if the mayor and the City Council want Los Angeles to work, they need to get every department to have senior leads assigned to every neighborhood. (And the departments certainly have enough employees to do this without adding staff.)
If Riordan wants a lasting legacy, he will use this powerful and effective tool to launch neighborhood councils in a way that could revolutionize Los Angeles and make it a true 21st century city. With one executive order, Riordan could demand that within 30 days, all city departments designate SLOs for each community. [And now Hann]
It could be the first step in building true neighborhood councils. And it doesn't require reinventing city government.
Imagine one go-to person from parks, from building and safety, from traffic and transportation, from the City Attorney's Office who would be designated to meet with Neighborhood Watch groups, church groups, homeowners and renter groups, and business organizations.
If Riordan or his successor wants to bring government to the neighborhoods, the LAPD's community policy program could be the model. It isn't just the LAPD that's broken. Almost every department at City Hall has serious flaws, the most common being indifference to the public.
SLOs assigned to communities throughout Los Angeles could work with residents to create dynamic communities.
City government at the local level. Radical responsiveness. True empowerment.
One small step for residents, one giant leap for Los Angeles.
So we ask Riordan and the candidates running for mayor: Will you pledge to demand senior leads from each city department for each community?
The voters await your answers.
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