NEIGHBORHOOD EMPOWERMENT - It was on Saturday in May, 2005 when Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas came to a meeting of the Los Angeles Citywide Alliance of Neighborhood Councils to speak to neighborhood council leaders about his bill, AB 1314.
His proposed legislation was far from controversial, but easily misunderstood by anyone who wasn’t paying attention.
He agreed with neighborhood councils in his district that the state’s Brown Act needed to be tweaked regarding the councils.
Little has been done to modernize the landmark “open meetings” law since it was adopted in 1953.
The neighborhood councils felt that their subcommittees shouldn’t have to meet the same time-consuming requirements that apply to legislative bodies.
They argued that before bills or motions reach a legislative body, staff has engaged in countless private discussions in order to present something of substance for the meeting.
But they pointed out that neighborhood councils don’t have staff. So forcing them to develop positions from the ground up in public meetings was an unreasonable impediment to their primary purpose of eliminating roadblocks to public participation.
The councils explained that once a proposal was developed, it would be subject to full public scrutiny following public notice rules that go beyond what is required of the city council.
My guess is that Ridley-Thomas expected the alliance meeting attendees to thank him for trying to help the neighborhood councils. Instead, about half of the eight or nine speakers told him that they didn’t want neighborhood councils to get out from under the Brown Act.
Of course, that wasn’t what the bill was about.
I had mentioned to him several other inequities in the act that I felt would be helpful, but understandably he wanted to start with baby steps.
The bill just disappeared.
The Neighborhood Council Review Commission agreed that there are inequities in how the state’s Brown Act, Public Records Act, and Political Reform Act affect the councils, so it began work on a local Sunshine Law that could replace the three state laws. Its work remains unfinished.
The plan was, and still could be, that a local law that took the best parts of these laws, and removed the unfair ones would allow the city council to ask the state legislature to exempt neighborhood councils from the state laws.
Now the environment to resume that effort is riper than ever.
The city cannot legally enforce these state laws. The District Attorney and State Fair Political Practices Commission had decided from the state not to enforce them due to a lack of resources to even chase after the baddies in Vernon, Cudahy, and the like.
Given the current fiscal situation, I’m sure that the state and county would want to get out from under the nuisances that the neighborhood councils create.
The Brown Act has created an uneven playing field for the councils. Its members are prohibited from having private communications with a majority of the City Council while lobbyists have an unrestricted ability to do so.
The fear of the criminal penalties that could be imposed on neighborhood council members who violate these laws is held by the city as a huge hammer over the councils’ heads for even the most minute possible violation.
Not long ago, pressure from the city attorney’s office caused the Park Mesa Heights Neighborhood Council to cancel a meeting at the last minute because the event was to be held in a community building about 20 feet outside its boundaries.
That’s not quite as bad as London city officials shutting off the microphones of Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney mid-concert, but it’s in the same category.
(Greg Nelson is a former general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, was instrumental in the creation of the LA Neighborhood Council System, served as chief of staff for former LA City Councilman Joel Wachs … and occasionally writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 58
Pub: July 20, 2012