ValleyVote Update for 7-6-01 |
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JIM Hahn formally takes the reins of Los Angeles city government today, facing monumental challenges.
Hahn might owe his start in politics to his father's legacy and name recognition, but becoming mayor was very much his own accomplishment. It was the product of hard work and a skilled campaign team that won him a mandate to put the people of Los Angeles, their neighborhoods and interests first.
Hahn now has the opportunity to reshape the face of city politics and make Los Angeles a great city -- or to take the blame for breaking it up into pieces that empower people and run municipal government for the benefit of the community and not special interests. The key to success is not forgetting the "little people" who got him where he is today.
Like all political victories, Hahn's ascension rested on his ability to forge a successful coalition of diverse voters that together compose a majority. The crucial component of that coalition was the San Fernando Valley, where Hahn won an impressive 57 percent of the vote. It was the city's moderates and conservatives, its dwindling and disaffected middle class, that propelled him to victory, along with the deep support he inherited from his father in the African-American community.
Unfortunately, the millions of dollars that financed his campaign came from a vast array of special interests that have corrupted City Hall and ruined Los Angeles in their greed. Hahn must choose between the voters who elected him and the special interests who think they bought him.
To unify Los Angeles and stave off the various secession movements that engulf half the city, Hahn will need to be the mayor of all of its communities -- especially those which City Hall has long neglected. He can begin by funding and empowering neighborhood councils and seeing to it that each community gets its fair share of city services.
Staples Center expansion might be the buzz downtown, but it should not come before overdue redevelopment in North Hollywood and the Northeast Valley and literally hundreds of projects small and large in all corners of Los Angeles.
The success or failure of Hahn's administration will largely be measured by simple and straightforward criteria: the number of potholes filled, the number of sidewalks paved, the relative safety of the streets, the regeneration of the neighborhoods and the empowerment of ordinary people.
Angelenos are tired of a city government that exists to serve itself. They are fed up with the secrecy, the back-room deals and overweaning but unresponsive bureaucracy. Alienated though they are, they have entrusted Hahn with the job of cleaning it all up. That's a tremendous honor -- and an awesome responsibility.
Hahn brings experience and a mandate, as well as a comprehensive understanding of City Hall's inner-workings. He has connections throughout the top echelons of city politics and support at the grass-roots level. But his assets can easily become liabilities, as they have for many other city politicians before him.
Throughout his tenure, Hahn will be besieged by requests for paybacks and favors. Unions, politicians and lobbyists will pressure him to maintain the self-serving status quo. The interests that bankrolled his campaign will regularly conflict with the interests of those who elected him to office.
His hopes for making history could easily be derailed by the temptations that come with power. To steer clear of that sad fate, he will need to tune out their siren song and stay focused on improving the quality of life for all Angelenos.
If he builds on the best of the legacies of Tom Bradley and Richard Richard and governs for the people, he could be the city's greatest mayor. If not, he will be last mayor of Los Angeles as we know it. Hollywood, San Pedro and the Valley voters are prepared to give L.A. one more chance -- and Hahn is it.
If he lives up to his potential and honors his promises, he can unite L.A. and deliver it from decades of corruption and mismanagement. There's no limit on his potential, except for his own courage, discipline and imagination.
Lead us to the promised land, Mayor Hahn.
Re "Houses, not horses," (June 28):
This just reinforces where the priorities of our City Council lie. They were elected to support the citizens of the city of Los Angeles, but in reality, they are supporting the developers who pay big campaign donations to get them elected.
No wonder the Valley voters want to be a separate city. They are not being represented, they are being run over by a bulldozer. I can foresee another mass exodus to Arizona and Nevada.
Linda Carroll Sylmar
I attended a City Council meeting on June 27 regarding the Chatsworth-Topanga land zoning issue. It was appalling to see how the council members treated everyone who spoke. There was absolutely no interest from them. They wandered around, had private conversations, and some even went in and out of the room.
They treated everyone with the same rudeness and disrespect, from the dignitaries from Jamaica to us, the lowly peons fighting for our community to maintain our RA zoning and provide safe equestrian routes. When votes were asked for, almost no one was at their seat, which means they voted before they listened to our issues.
Charlotte Brodie Mission Hills
If you want a convincing reason why the Valley should secede from Los Angeles, this latest episode, "Twenty-one home Chatsworth Project OK'd over neighbors' objections," (June 28) should do it. You have a City Council overriding a mayoral veto on a 12-0 vote, plus Ted Stein, the developer, and his influence on the council members and what you have is a done deal against the will of the people.
As long as we are a part of Los Angeles, these problems will arise continually. Our only solution is to govern ourselves and get away from a corrupt City Council and administration.
Johnny Rotella Van Nuys
Charles Thomas (Public Forum, June 5) is right that trying to get city service in Sun Valley is impossible. I have called animal control about unlicensed dogs -- no response; housing department about more than one family in R-1 properties -- no response; tried to get police to come to Sun Valley for a disturbing the peace with gunshots -- they don't show up.
There ought to be an investigation into this.
David A. Edwards Sun Valley
As a longtime resident and taxpayer of Los Angeles, let me see if I've got this straight. The city does not have sufficient funds to enlarge our Police Department, to pave our streets or to repair our deteriorating sidewalks.
Yet somehow the city wants to give away 75 million-plus tax dollars to a
couple of billionaires to encourage them to build a privately owned,
profit-generating, fun complex around Staples Center. Before you act on this
ridiculous proposition, please look at a Webster's Dictionary and find the
definition of the phrase "common sense."
Lawrence Keller
Van Nuys
Don't count on officials at the city's Animal Services Department to keep tabs on all the stray dogs roaming around Los Angeles. They're having a hard enough time keeping tabs on their stray employees.
According to an audit from City Controller Rick Tuttle, the department was unable to account for nearly one-third of its field officers on any given day. "As a result," the audit diplomatically notes, "city residents may not be receiving the level of services consistent with the number of animal control officers."
Maybe that's why there are reports of dog packs roaming the Valley and other parts of the city. The animals have truly taken over the zoo. Like several other city departments, Animal Services is seemingly too mismanaged, too disorganized and too inefficient to get the job done right.
That's the story of L.A. government. It's why the city has potholes that are never filled, sidewalks that are always crumbling and apartments that don't get inspected. It's why after two years and $2.3 million, the Woodley Golf Course in Sepulveda still has no new clubhouse.
It's the reason why there aren't enough cops or paramedics, and emergency-response times are so slow.
And it's not a matter of money.
Animal Services has seen its budget rise steadily over the past two years. Yet, somehow, the quality of its services continues to disappoint. As usual, the poor service seems to affect some neighborhoods worse than it does others. Tuttle's office found wide discrepancies in the response rate for calls made to Animal Services' six different offices.
Service was worst in South Central -- where calls go unanswered 48 percent of the time -- and the West Valley, which had a nonresponse rate of 44 percent. In other words, if you're getting attacked by stray dogs, you better hope you're on the Westside, which of course gets much better service.
It's not the big things, but the little things that are pushing Angelenos in the Valley, San Pedro and Hollywood to seek secession. L.A.'s public services simply aren't commensurate with the taxes its resident pay for them.
A city that can't even control its employees -- let alone its stray dogs -- has little hope for keeping itself together.
The lame ducks who make up the outgoing City Council have given residents of Los Angeles yet another reason to be glad there's less than a month left in the current term.
In a last-minute payoff to the billboard companies that donate so generously to local political campaigns, the council has given preliminary approval to a plan that would add yet more danger and congestion -- as if there weren't enough already -- to L.A. freeways.
Last week, the council backed a measure that would allow as many as 70 giant billboards to go up along L.A. freeways.
That means that L.A. commuters will get to navigate their way through as many as 70 more distractions -- eye-grabbing monstrosities that might cause a driver whizzing along at 65 miles an hour to momentarily stop paying attention to the road ahead. Of course, 65 miles an hour is a practically unheard of speed during daytime hours in Los Angeles. But even at rush hour, the additional billboards will no doubt invite some distraction and lead to more fender-benders that slow traffic further.
The council defends its vote by pointing to a provision in the measure that requires billboard companies to take down as many as 4,000 illegal signs posted on streets throughout the city in exchange for the 70 they'll get on the freeways.
This is the City Council's idea of getting tough: offering bribes in exchange for following the law.
If the council were serious about combating blight, it would have started enforcing billboard laws already on the books that require outdoor advertisers to provide permits for all their signs -- without the freeway giveaway. Like slum housing laws, business tax laws and many others, the city has failed for years to enforce the laws so it invents a new law to conceal its past failings. Perhaps it's just coincidence that every time it goes after an industry, the campaign coffers of politicians fill to the brim. Maybe the goal is to shake down businesses rather than fix the city.
Cleaning up L.A.'s billboard mess is a good idea, but it's the sort of issue that should be left up to neighborhood councils, whenever they're finally established. A better approach would be to let local communities keep the permit fees for new billboards, and then decide for themselves if the money is worth the hazard or the blight.
The decision has no place in the hands of discredited politicians -- especially the flock of lame ducks on the outgoing City Council.
Re "Officials seek return of anti-graffiti group" (Jan. 31):
Where were these two politicians (Joel Wachs and Laura Chick) two years ago? It never fails how career politicians pull up these hot election topics. Throw money at it, they say. It's too bad they really don't mean what they say.
If they really wanted to stop this blight, they would tell you that we really need to change the soft laws on graffiti. The animals that are doing this need to be taken off the streets! We should never tolerate graffiti in our city.
Paul Guidry North Hollywood
Absolutely unbelievable. It is one thing to say, "I will not be a part of an organization that does not hold my values." It is completely different, however, to say, "A private organization that doesn't hold my values should be booted from my city." That is bigotry and intolerance.
The action taken by the L.A. City Council borders on religious persecution. The Boy Scouts of America simply holds the same values as those who first stamped "In God We Trust" on our money, and penned the words, "one nation under God" in our pledge of allegiance. And for that we punish them? Angelenos seriously need to wake up and take note of what the likes of Jackie Goldberg are doing to their city, and take action before it's too late.
Kim Gentry Santa Clarita
Building new animal shelters is a bad idea. It would be better to take the same money and spend it on a required spay-neuter program. This would attack the problem at its source and prevent the need for more shelters. It doesn't make sense to let victims be born only to shelter them briefly before the kill.
Shelters should be nothing more than a haven for accidentally lost animals waiting for their owners to pick them up. As a former sworn humane officer for 28 years, I would volunteer free assistance in working out the details of this program.
Max Goar Northridge
Aside from the lack of good customer service -- four of 12 employees not replaced -- how about the actual response to residents calling in to report potholes? I called one in over a month ago -- no action.
William T. Child Chatsworth
City OKs Most Ambitious Repair Plan in Decades
By PATRICK MCGREEVY, Times Staff Writer
The Los Angeles City Council agreed Friday to launch its most ambitious sidewalk repair plan in two decades, despite complaints the plan is still grossly inadequate and uses a formula that may unfairly penalize more affluent areas of the city.
The city plans to spend $9 million to repair about 46.5 miles of sidewalks this year, even though about 4,600 miles of sidewalks are in disrepair. At that rate, it would take the city nearly 100 years to fix all of Los Angeles' crumbling and buckling sidewalks, officials noted.
"It's a drop in the bucket," Councilwoman Laura Chick said. Added Helen Norman, president of the Tarzana Property Owners Assn.: "It's just ridiculous, especially considering they just gave $4 million [Actual cost to the city taxpayers 35 Million +] to the Democratic National Convention."
Even so, Councilman Mike Feuer said the repairs planned for this year are a break from "20 years of failure to deal with this issue," during which the biggest chunk of general fund money set aside in any given year was $750,000.
Feuer and others said they had pushed for more money but had agreed to compromise with the mayor on this year's budget with the understanding the program could be increased next year. "It's just a very bare beginning," Feuer conceded, adding: "I am absolutely committed to assuring that as we go into the next budget cycle . . . that we make every effort to expand that amount of money."
In addition to concerns the amount budgeted is inadequate to tackle the problem, some council members also questioned the formula proposed for allocating the work, saying it is unfair to more affluent parts of the city.
The city has set aside $4.9 million in general fund money for sidewalk repairs, which the City Council agreed Friday to divide equally among the 15 council districts, repairing about 1.7 miles in each district.
An additional $4.1 million in federal funds was to be distributed based in large part on the amount of low-income census tracts in each council district, but the council voted Friday to have a committee reconsider how this money will be allocated.
Under this formula, Chick's West Valley district would get 1.7 miles of sidewalk repairs from the general fund and none from the federal funds, while Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas' South-Central district would get 4.9 miles of repairs when the two funds are combined.
"I definitely have questions for my district knowing that I have at least two [low-income] census tracts that would qualify" for federal funds, Chick said. "My staff has gone out and looked in those areas. We have some pretty horrific sidewalks."
Chick said another option floated by the Street Maintenance Bureau would have allocated higher levels of general fund money to districts receiving fewer federal dollars so every council district would get 3.1 miles of repairs.
But Councilman Alex Padilla of Pacoima, whose district would get 3.2 miles of repairs under the proposed formula, opposed what he said would be the "manipulation" of the combined funds to ensure each council district receives an equal share.
"What I felt that did was not only compromise, but really do away with the spirit and intent of the [federal funds] we receive to have funds going to needy communities to offset the conditions that take place there," Padilla said.
Even so, Padilla agreed to a request for the federal funding allocation to be reviewed in committee after Councilman Mike Hernandez also voiced concern some council districts with impoverished census tracts are not getting federal dollars.
The failure to fix broken sidewalks carries a price tag of its own. The city paid $2.7 million in trip-and-fall claims last year, according to Mike Qualls, a spokesman for the city attorney's office. The majority of that amount was paid out in cases involving broken sidewalks, according to city records. [pay now or pay later]
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