Perspective-2008
By Ken Draper
This column should probably contain a warning label. If you’re the kind of soul who has trouble getting through the day without opining on the faults and failures of neighborhood councils, the stuff I’m about to write could permanently damage your psyche.
 If you’re among the folk, who about this time of every year, feel the
need to rebroadcast the now tired clichés on councils … “neighborhood
councils are at a crossroads” or “this is a make it or break it year
for neighborhood councils” or “this is the year the neighborhood
council system will be tested” … you’re in for some severe pain. I
suggest you stop reading immediately before any further damage accrues.
One of the problems with assessing the well being of neighborhood councils is that we don’t all share the same expectations. Neither do we share the same neighborhood council experiences or knowledge. Or, for that matter, biases.
But I’m here to make the case that if you think that neighborhood councils are not successful … that the experiment is not long since over … that councils are not here to stay … you’ve been absent from class. We’re not watching the same game. You’ve been smoking that Kona Gold again.
Neighborhood councils have been voices of influence and change for some time now. Including on land use issues. They have inserted themselves into the community and political fabric of the city and they are making a difference. Councils have led the way … or made serious contributions … on everything from the rehabilitation of downtown to delaying … who knows, maybe even defeating … the DWP rate increases.
A few weeks ago, the City Council was considering a Planning and Land Use committee approved variance for a Venice landlord. He wanted an extra three and a half feet above code to install solar panels. His property was ‘going green.’ What’s not to love about this?
With the help of Councilman Bill Rosendahl, Challis MacPherson, the Venice Neighborhood Council Land Use Chair, made her case: the variance approval would be precedent-setting and nothing in the approval prevented the owner from one day deciding to send his solar panels to storage and replacing them with something else. Convinced, the City Council reversed the variance approval.
Last fall, in a disagreement with Home Depot on the interpretation of the Foothill Area Plan, the Sunland Tujunga Neighborhood Council collaborated with other community activists, engaged Councilwoman Wendy Greuel’s help, rallied neighborhood councils citywide for support and convinced the City Council to reverse the Area Planning Commission’s decision to let the HD project go forward without an Environmental Impact Report. Home Depot will now have to adhere to the conditions of the Plan.
Similarly, NCs were involved in the Home Depot decision to withdraw from building in the Glassell Park community.
Neighborhood councils negotiated a Pilot Program with the City’s Planning Department. The program went into effect this year. As a result, among other benefits to councils, developers must automatically supply NCs with the same plans and paperwork that goes to city commissions.
As an example of neighborhood councils taking the lead, the Pilot Program Oversight Committee will facilitate Planning and Land Use schooling for NC board members and stakeholders. The program is intense and features instruction by professionals.
Most City Planning Commissioners now take neighborhood council recommendations seriously. To the degree that some of them delay final decisions until they have heard from the NC in the area.
From San Pedro to Universal City to Sunland, councils have been … or are …influencing land use decisions. With out voting power. Just empowerment.
So, I take issue with LA Times reporter and columnist Steve Hymon and his claim in Wednesday’s edition that neighborhood councils are not influencing land use decisions. Or, for that matter, the claim that NCs have long coveted the ability to vote on land use issues.
Some do. Many don’t. That subject was debated at length by the Charter Reform Commissions and, more recently, by the NC Review Commission. The answer is still the same: a) advisory works and, b) the fundamental changes councils would have to make to be able to vote on things like land use matters are not worth it.
Besides, voting or advisory is not the issue. It’s about understanding and using empowerment. Some of the greatest change-makers in history … Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez are examples … never had a vote nor were they ever elected to anything. They understood empowerment, organization and mobilization as tools of influence.
I also find Hymon’s summary of neighborhood council progress disingenuous: “Although some of the 89 locally elected councils can point to worthy community projects and slick websites, others have been branded as petty and bumbling.”
It’s true. Some neighborhood councils have yet to figure it out. And, they are in distress. But that can be said for states, counties, cities, city departments and city electeds.
California is $16 billion deep in red ink, the result of bad decisions and poor planning. San Diego has been on the brink of bankruptcy for years. Orange County experienced the embarrassment of actually bankrupting.
Some city council offices and city departments are more effective and efficient than others. The LA City Council has a few moments of pettiness and bumbling on its record.
LA’s popular Mayor spent the summer in a political and personal pickle. The result of bad judgment.
The list is longer than space will permit here. But, it does prompt a question: why is the bar for neighborhood councils set at such a lofty level? When do we un-tilt the playing field?
As for the success of councils being reduced to “worthy community projects and slick websites,” I ask again: are we watching the same game?
The Downtown LA Neighborhood Council has made serious contributions to the rehabilitation of the city’s center with members serving on the Grande Avenue project, engineering a revival of Broadway, negotiating the refocus of the fashion industry and energizing the Art District.
LA’s police and fire departments are prepared for terrorists and disasters. LA’s neighborhoods are not. Neighborhood councils are leading the way … citywide … in emergency preparedness. One Valley council committed its entire $50,000 annual funding to EP.
Commissioner Mike Woo’s Reduced Parking ordinance was sailing quietly through the system and under the radar until neighborhood councils put the brakes on.
The NC Congress has formed an Economic Development Committee … with a fiscal plan for the city and a Committee Chair with the knowledge and contacts to get a City Hall audience and make their case for making change and paying for city services without taxing businesses into extinction or the public into bankruptcy.
The DWP rate increase proposal will get modified and there will be a Rate Payer Advocate bill approved by City Council. The reason? Two words: neighborhood councils.
The stuff I’m watching just looks like more to me than a few “worthy community projects and slick websites.”
Former Councilman Joel Wachs made neighborhood councils a plank in his 1992 run for mayor. He later wrote and introduced the motion in Council that created neighborhood councils. When he introduced the motion in 1996, he said that the public was tired and cynical about government. “They don’t believe anyone is listening,” he said. Wachs believed that neighborhood councils would be the boombox that would amplify those public voices. Would get them, finally, heard.
Neighborhood voices are being listened to … and heard … more than ever before. In fact, the success of neighborhood councils has helped enhance the voices of other community organizations and activists.
Imagine the thunderclap of advice and influence when councils master the art of collaboration … communitywide and citywide … as the Sunland Tujunga folks and the NC/DWP Oversight panel managed during this past year. Or, when neighborhood councils figure out how to influence the vote on ballot measures and the city’s electeds.
Neighborhood councils are a success. The proper question is: how much more successful can they become? _
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