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Power is Going to Have to be Taken |
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What People Want
By Ron Kaye
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."
Orlov quotes one participant in the study as describing life in L.A. as "enjoyably frustrating," which certainly captures the experience of most of us succinctly.
Greg Parston, director of the Accenture Institute, said what was "surprising was that in every city there is an appreciation for the need for public service but also a sense that they want government to be fair...there is this sense that government services are more available to people with knowledge of the system."
OK, so what are we going to do about it? It should be clear by now that the power structure of L.A. has no intention of sharing power, that nothing is really going to change just because it's the right thing to do.
Power is going to have to be taken and the ordinary people across the city are going to have to organize and mobilize to do it.
Neighborhood councils, residents groups, civic and social groups of all kinds are going to have to talk a common language, find the common ground to develop an agenda and reach out to their communities to form an army of activists.
The mere existence of such a coalition will bring the political, business and labor elites to the table to talk about how to partner to solve the city's problems from gangs to traffic congestion.
So the point of what I'm saying, the point of what I'm trying to do, is this: It's up to each of us individually to get involved and do something about what's so frustrating about living in L.A.
It's not going to happen because the mayor wakes up and remembers what he believes in or because your council member gets speed bumps put on your street. It's going to happen because we seized the moment and created an alternative political force that had to be reckoned with. (Ron Kaye is the former editor of the LA Daily News. This column was published first on his blog: www.ronkayela.com)
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 38
Published: May 9, 2008
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