Perspective
By Ken Draper
One of the rallying anthems of the activists out forming neighborhood councils eight years ago called for changing the way City Hall does business. We all know that hasn’t happened. Worse, much of the neighborhood council system is creating itself in the image of City Hall.
As a case in point, I give you Monday’s meeting to plan the next Congress of Neighborhoods.
The loudest and most often heard criticisms of the City’s council, commissions and committees are the limited time allotted citizens who take time off from work and travel from the outer reaches of the city to speak their minds and the all too often occurring fact that no matter how many voices rise opposing or supporting an issue, the electeds and the appointeds vote their own agendas anyway.
There were 40 or 50 NC board members and stakeholders at Monday’s Congress planning meeting. Thirteen of the participants made up what is called the Congress Planning Committee. Some of these folks were selected by fellow stakeholders at the first planning meeting to represent one of the seven planning areas. Some were actually recruited by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.
The City had a handful of representatives, managers and sublevel coordinators in place and the rest were NC board members and stakeholders.
The first 40 minutes were spent deciding how the anointed committee would make decisions. They decided on a three-step format: take a straw poll of the audience, try to reach a committee consensus and if none was reached, decide by committee vote.
The committee got to test their decision-making format with the first agenda item: deciding whether the Mayor’s Budget Day and this year’s Congress should be combined.
DONE’s GM BongHwan Kim told the gathering that he should not have implied that a decision to combine the two events was etched in stone and that in fact NCs could make that decision.
Stephen Cheung spoke for the Mayor’s office and reiterated: even though it might be more efficient and might save some money, the Mayor’s office was not trying to impose their will on the neighborhood councils. They could combine … or not combine … as they chose.
Now comes the ‘I’ve had this dream before’ part.
There was much sentiment out amongst the people in the straw poll section … most of it clearly and thoughtfully articulated … for separating the two events. Feeling was that they were both important and both needed their own time. Then they expressed their feelings in a straw poll 10-5 … asking that the two events be held separately.
That was step one of the decision format. Then some of the Committee offered views and engaged in discussion but not much effort was made to execute Phase Two of the decision format: reaching consensus. They moved quickly to Phase Three … the committee vote part of the decision format … and promptly voted seven to three to do exactly the opposite of what the straw poll people had asked for. They voted to combine the two events.
Ironically, some of the straw poll people were folks who just a few days earlier had helped appoint the now in-power Planning Committee … to, many of them thought, represent their wishes and vision at the planning table.
Felt a lot like … smelt a lot like … a city PLUM Committee or City Council meeting. Those short shrift, minute to speak, got our minds made up anyway meetings hosted by City Hall that these same appointed Planning Committee members have complained about themselves …. when they were on the other side of the table . Out with the straw-poll people.
I offer it as Exhibit #1. NCs are not much different than the City Hall they, at one time, felt destined to change.
Members of the Planning Committee: Ruben Chavez, Lincoln Heights NC; Phillip Trigas, Central San Pedro NC; Marlene Savage, Del Rey NC; Lewis L. Wong, Arroyo Seco/Historic Highland Park NC; Reatha Simon, Empowerment Congress West Area Neighborhood Development Council; Adrian White, Harbor Gateway North NC; Jimena Toscano, Central Alameda NC (Co-Chair); Jennifer Gill, MacArthur Park NC; Manuel Negrete, MacArthur Park; Paul Perner, Mid Town North Hollywood NC; Terrence Gomes, SORO NC (Co-Chair); Cindy Cleghorn, Sunland-Tujunga NC; Mark Seigel, Sunland-Tujunga NC; Al Abrams, Tarzana NC
The Planning meeting provided other exhibits that neighborhood council thinking imitates the very government system they were created to hold accountable and to evaluate.
1) An inordinate amount of time was spent on internal stuff. Like getting organized. Discussing how to make a decision. Between four and six hours of meeting time so far and only one serious decision has resulted: to combine events … in spite of what the public wanted.
2) Since the Committee had only been relieved of the obligation to combine events at mid-meeting on Monday, they could not have had time to canvass the areas they are supposed to be representing. Thus, their decision to contradict the wishes of the gathered stakeholders had to have been their own personal views. Not the wishes of their constituencies.
Feels like City Hall to me. Couldn’t be neighborhood councils because they are sworn to amplify the voices of the people. Not contradict them with their own personal agendas. As Committee member Adrian White noted when he cast one of the three votes that supported the straw poll.
4) You can click here to “Planning Meeting Press Release” and read the DONE’s press release … or summary, as Coordinator Tom Soong calls it … on the meeting. See if that report looks anything like my account.
The straw poll people don’t exist in the press release. Their views, their vote, their wishes, their presence purged from the collective memory. The content of their message missing from the record as though they never spoke.
Only the Committee is mentioned. And their vote that mocked the voices and the contributions and the wishes of the non-appointed people was called “flexing their muscles by taking on big issues and making major decisions related to some of Los Angeles’ most important community events.”
Sounds like City Hall talk to me. Smells like City Hall sugar coating to me.
But perhaps it’s appropriate for a neighborhood council system that seems more and more inclined toward dedicating its time to the cloning of the City Hall they were created to change. (Ken Draper is the editor of CityWatch. He can be reached at
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
) ◘
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 66
Pub: August 15, 2008
|
