Moving LA
By Ken Alpern
 This recession has been a never-ending nightmare for most of us—even those of us with a job are feeling nervous and abused at work, have “survivor’s guilt”, fear when it’s our turn to be axed, or both. For those of us without a job, and either have lost or might lose our homes, it’s been hell on earth (hopefully, health and good cheer are still there for all those reading this).
Still, there are some golden opportunities that we can give thanks for as we struggle our way through the months and years to come:
1) We can finally cut the parasites out of the education bureaucracy that’s plagued us for years, and renew the partnership between teachers, their students, and the taxpaying parents
Hopefully, now that the budgetary situation is so dire, the leaders of the LAUSD will be forced to let go all the layers of middle management, ivory tower do-nothing academics and agenda-driven contractors that have sucked the productivity out of the LAUSD well before this economic downturn.
It’s not new news to learn that attendance is DOWN at the LAUSD and throughout California’s public school systems, so let’s take advantage of it. Give a few bright and hard-working teachers a small raise and let them do the work that overpaid full-time bureaucrats now do—it’ll be done better and for a whole lot less money.
Virtually ALL educators need to be on the front lines teaching, and at sustainable salaries, and those who’ve been “promoted out of the classroom” should be considering a new line of work.
Now that the donation hat is being passed around to the parents, let them have a greater say on school facilities, school security, and for Heaven’s sake open up more facilities (even if it’s for a nominal fee) so that our park-poor City can enjoy access to the playground and recreational facilities that our taxes paid for!
2) We’ve got an army of volunteers in the City—can we please put their efforts to good use?
To some degree we already do, with the Mayor’s Day of Service, but this untapped resource remains an opportunity that we squander all year long. Whether it’s a school that needs repairs, a sidewalk that needs to be made safe, trees that need to be trimmed, etc., we need to have a “New Deal” with our contractors and union workers that are too few, and too expensive, to cost-effectively take care of our needs.
I’m aware of the legal and safety limitations to allowing anyone and everyone to operate machinery for public works projects, but there are those with skills, and there are very low-tech tasks, that can be assigned (with the right legal waivers) to these projects under the supervision of City trained workers.
There is no shortage of examples of Neighborhood Councils doing projects for tens of thousands of dollars less, and years sooner, than if local residents had just waited for the right governmental entity to do the job.
In other words, City public works projects need to be done with greater cooperation between government and citizens who recognize that “sweat equity” can fix a problem faster, cheaper and better than our current policies dictate. We need more City supervisors, and fewer unskilled or low-skilled City workers, when we can do the grunt work ourselves.
And for those City bureaucrats and politicians who are too concerned or too beholden about union contracts to let the residents take greater control of their neighborhoods, I hope that YOU’RE the ones included in the next wave of City layoffs and elections.
3) Transportation and infrastructure projects can finally be done right in an affordable manner
For those of us Westsiders who should be elated about the completion of the latest 405 freeway widening, but are just sick that it took about 2-3 years longer than it needed for Balfour Beatty to do the job that Caltrans paid them for (but were given too many concessions because labor and materials costs were so high), we can relate, can we not?
The era of contractors singing the usual song about how expensive it is to build a major project is over; we don’t have to hire anyone who does shoddy work, and who takes too long to do that work.
I’m still not thrilled that we have to go with the “low bidder” process that forces us to go with known losers, but we CAN ask for the following:
• A quicker timeline to finish the job (with exceptions, of course, for technical and other surprises that unexpectedly prolong a project, and for which informed and reasonable taxpayers will never quarrel with if the contractors are honest and open)
• A demand that the contractor regularly meet with neighboring communities to get the job over with as soon, and as painless, as possible
4) We can actually take some time to do some real planning
As a neighborhood council boardmember, I’m appalled at the amount of time and energy needed to defend against the City-manipulated and State-manipulated weapons that are being aimed at our neighborhoods.
Do the City Planning, Transportation and other Departments note how transit advocates are aghast at L.A. City “transit-oriented developments”, how affordable housing advocates are aghast at L.A. City’s allowance of variants based on S.B. 1818, and how neighborhood councils throughout the City are alarmed at the incredible (and unsustainable) upzoning throughout Los Angeles?
Before we drive away the residential and commercial tax base that drives our fair City of the Angels, can we at least just obey the freakin’ City Charter and recognize the paradigm of “laws are made to be broken” has its limits?
5) Maybe … just maybe … we can get a more representative City government
With fewer dollars available to developers who sway or own the City political elites, the ability to overdevelop the begeezus out of Los Angeles (in ways we’d never see in neighboring cities) has been sharply limited. While I have grave doubts that the current elected City representatives can control their urges to create feel-good policies that do nothing of the sort to improve the quality of life for City residents, we can at least slow things down enough to talk more.
To begin with, we can start with the understanding that neighborhood councils’ desire for neighborhood preservation and proper planning is NOT premised on bigotry, cruelty, elitism or lack of caring.
Never was. Never will be. Los Angeles is a City of laws, within a state of laws, and within a nation of laws. It is neither open-minded, compassionate, environmentally-sensitive, child-friendly or health-conscious to spend money, make foolish contracts, and bend or break laws against the will of the electorate.
We’re in a hellish economic downturn of historic proportions … but that doesn’t mean that the adults in the room should forget that sincere dialogue, the ability to listen, the willingness to proceed cautiously and the fortitude to do the right thing for the taxpaying and voting majority…is entirely free.
Even during a recession—and for the opportunity to fix our longstanding problems … we can all give thanks.
(Ken Alpern is a Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) and is both co-chair of the MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee and past co-chair of the MVCC Planning Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and also chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at
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The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.) -cw
CityWatch
Vol 7 Issue 98
Pub: Dec 1, 2009
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