Let Us Have Faith That Right Makes Might. Motto engraved on the Los Angeles City Hall.
When the concept of neighborhood councils was made a pillar of charter reform in 1999, I imagined they would be a radical break with the city’s past. That of all the reforms in the charter, neighborhood-based councils would do the most to give Los Angeles a real civic culture. I even optimistically hoped that elected council members – once envisioned to become more than a thousand strong – would learn sufficient cunning to face up to the malignant politics of city hall.
Skepticism should have restrained my usual optimism. Not because the councils haven’t been making progress. Ten years after voters reformed the city charter, there are about 90 Neighborhood Councils. And not because the councils are ineffective. (And yes, some council members could be more disciplined and some councils could be better led.)
In fact, the councils actually have begun to reshape the city’s lifeless political landscape – but incrementally and far too slow for some. (See, for example, Ron Kaye’s current series of posts. Or the post by Greg Nelson, former general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, the body that oversees neighborhood councils.)
I thought that the councils – framed as a compromise to a borough system – were shielded by the charter consensus. But in bringing political life to the level of neighborhoods – if only in the earliest stages of that life – the councils have been targeted as a threat. Even as they were patronized, marginalized, and occasionally humiliated over the past decade, the councils were rightly understood by city hall be too important not to kill.
And city hall has struck, proposing in the name of fiscal austerity that council funding – a nominal $50,000 per year for each – be drained to about $11,000. Call it the “Dracula Defense” against what the council might become.
As Ron Kaye notes: “By slashing funding for (Neighborhood Councils) by 80 percent in the name of ‘shared sacrifice,’ Bernard Parks' committee – Bill Rosendahl, Greig Smith, Jose Huizar and the absent City Controller-elect Wendy Greuel – has challenged NC activists to accept their irrelevance in the minds of city officials and provoked a discussion about whether this experiment is a failure and should be abandoned.”
On Tuesday (May 12), the City Council Budget and Finance Committee is scheduled to take it final votes on recommended amendments to the mayor's budget, including the recommendation to bleed white the Neighborhood Councils.
If you think that politics in Los Angeles can still live, it would be a good day to visit your city hall.
The image on this page was taken by Flickr user Kansas Sebastian. It was used under a Creative Commons license.
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I will have to confess that I have never been to a council meeting, although I will try to make it tomorrow on your suggestion!
In a typically self-absorbed way (and thinking back to earlier conversations about community and the interwebs) your post reminded me of this recent quote by David Simon, creator of HBO's The Wire:
"The day I run into a Huffington Post reporter at a Baltimore zoning board hearing is the day I will no longer be worried about journalism."
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=05&year=2009&base_name=the_future_of_journalism_panel
Maybe we should start sending him your posts!