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Councils Now Talking the Talk |
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Tracking NCs-2007
By Mark Elliot
2007 has been a year of turbulence and transition for neighborhood councils. It began inauspiciously even before January 1st when City Council pushed through Measure R with hardly a nod to the neighborhoods. What advisory capacity? The so-called ‘ethics’ reform and term limits extension initiative was a reminder (if any was needed) that despite Charter reform, power in Los Angeles remains concentrated in few hands.
 The real sign that NCs would have to earn their keep came shortly afterward when City Council let languish a proposal to allow neighborhoods to open a council file. In denying them an opportunity to shape the city’s legislative agenda, City Council not only offered symbolic comeuppance (punctuated by an in-Council tirade) but effectively consigned councils to a reactionary posture.
Closing the year was the tragic passing of Carol Baker Tharp, the department’s newly-appointed general manager and ardent supporter of local empowerment. Enough can’t be said for the demise of hope and promise that Carol’s appointment suggested for councils. Her premature departure not only stunned friends and family, but it left the system without an impassioned advocate as City Council takes up proposed reforms next year. With Review Commission recommendations pending and DONE department changes in the works, the future, as the Magic 8 Ball™ says, is hazy. Add a darkening municipal fiscal situation and deep cuts in city services (to say nothing of NC funding) there is ample cause for concern. Uncertainty comes at a difficult time for the system.
The past year marks a transitional period for neighborhood councils in our nation’s greatest experiment in local governance. The system itself has entered adolescence, and growing pains are the rule as councils range in health from deathwatch to robust partner in municipal governance. And like many adolescents, councils must feel their way along with haphazard guidance from above. As our Neighborhood Participation Project June release of findings indicated, extensive variation in neighborhood capacity to govern precludes sweeping generalizations about the system. Yet emergent trends over the past year can be identified.
Communication is a signature achievement of 2007. Two-thirds of councils (70%) have established an effective presence on the Internet, and their websites are more effective at communicating with stakeholders than ever. Posted agendas, issue information, and invitations to participate proliferate, and most of the websites suggest a high standard of usability and utility. More than the medium, though, it’s the message: insightful analyses and cogent position papers put to shame many a PR-flavored City Council website. Neighborhood councils have also progressed in personalizing that message. Town hall meetings fill the void in representative government. More boards have recognized that the town hall format backgrounds bureaucracy and foregrounds active involvement.
What’s more, online website tools (including free hosting) and hand-holding consultants mean that every council can have a website. Neighborhood councils have begun to co-publish newsletters and they are beginning to network and share best practices. Consider that 2008 can be even better. Because many City Council members loathe dirty hands, there is an opportunity for neighborhoods to fulfill the void by taking a close reading of constituents. With greater stakeholder input, elected boards will continue this year’s increase in community impact statement filings. It’s up-by-the-bootstraps work.
This hybrid representative-advisory system was designed to fail, some have said. Yet many councils make it work through do-it-yourself initiative. They partner with community organizations, for example, and it’s having an effect. Sunland Tujunga NC partnered with the No Home Depot Campaign to dispatch Home Depot to a dreaded EIR process. The take-away is not merely that David slew Goliath, but that Wendy Greuel went to City Council with the community’s hard work and STNC’s imprimatur to argue her case.
More recently, a coalition of neighborhood councils and resident associations mounted an ad-hoc media campaign to rebalance the power and influence equation in Glassell Park. Home Depot backed off rather than be limited by a new land use policy. Score another for David. In fact, it’s gotten so bad for Home Depot that they’ve sued the city alleging (according to plaintiff) that Wendy represented her stakeholders’ interests too well!
But wait, there’s more. Soledad Garcia almost single-handedly organized 72 neighborhood signatories on the DWP memorandum of understanding. Robert and Jacque Lamishaw (late of Winnetka NC) wrangled almost three dozen NCs to convince City Planning to participate in a Planning Pilot Program. (The most effective land use training this city has seen starts in February.) In El Sereno, activist Elva Yanez partnered with Hugo Garcia and Jimmy Dichirico (both from LA-32) to turn back the Elephant Hill Pueblo Avenue subdivision. In the Harbor, Diana Nave and her Northwest San Pedro NC has encouraged the Port of LA and Target to be better corporate citizens. There are many others. If the activities of private citizens is the measure of the health of democracy, as Alexis De Tocqueville said, then it is alive and well in City of Los Angeles.
Which reforms are in the offing this coming year for a system wrestling with the growing pains of adolescence? That’s the challenge for 1,600 informal neighborhood lobbyists, city policymakers, and elected officials. Neighborhood councils may test boundaries and sometimes stumble awkwardly, but too often City Council stands idly by like an inattentive parent. While some NCs appear jerry-rigged just to keep running, the more ambitious among them are ready to open the throttle. The year’s early setbacks are a reminder that City Council still holds the keys to the family sedan with a tight grip, however. Why? Is it because their memories of adolescent misbehavior are still too fresh? Or because the pleasures of incipient adulthood are too long ago? (Mark Elliot is a Graduate Researcher at the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.) _
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