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As the City Implodes Does the Secession Dream Revive? |
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CONSIDER THIS …
By Doug Epperhart
 Last spring, when the midnight raid of Greig Smith sought to cut neighborhood council funding to the bone, more than a hundred community activists stormed city hall and stopped it. Not only did this army of citizen volunteers get the $45,000 per council annual allocation, it kept the previous years’ “rollover” money.
That was then. This is now.
Poised on the brink of bankruptcy, the city government is bleeding red ink at a record pace. At Monday’s budget and finance committee meeting, pleas to save anybody who doesn’t ride around in a black-and-white car fell on mostly deaf ears. Actually, committee chair Bernard Parks wants to go after that sacred cow, too.
After months of pretending things would get better, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his administration are forced to propose drastic measures so it will be able to pay whatever employees are left after early retirements and layoffs take effect.
In order to keep his 10,000-police officer promise, Villaraigosa is willing to sacrifice 1,500 city workers, departments providing cultural, environmental, and human services, and much of the neighborhood council system. We’re talking about $200 million in a $7 billion budget. That’s about $50 per LA resident.
In my comments to the budget and finance members, I suggested LA create a program offering low-denomination bonds to those willing to keep the city afloat long enough to create a plan not driven by panicked politicians and bureaucrats.
Obviously, establishing a program and collecting enough to make a difference can’t be done overnight. But, a simple proposal such as this shouldn’t take more than month or so to implement. Borrowing money from the people who have the greatest stake in the city’s success—its taxpayers—is preferable to selling off city assets at fire-sale prices.
I know. I’m dreaming.
Therein lies the rub. Even though neighborhood councils were created by the city charter to provide grassroots organizing to advise the politicians and monitor the bureaucrats, they are universally ignored. The hundreds of people who give their time and expertise to serve their neighbors have many good ideas to make government more responsive, efficient, and effective.
Yet, their voices are not heard by the politicians.
Last year, I asked the budget and finance committee members to consult the neighborhood councils about their finances rather than ambushing them with last-minute proposals for deep cuts. I said we would work with the mayor and council to agree on an appropriate level of funding that took financial realities into consideration.
I know. I was dreaming then, too.
So, once again we are fighting to save what we can because the people elected to represent us have forgotten there was once a serious movement to break up Los Angeles. Are we better off now because that movement failed? As the city government implodes, does the secession dream revive?
(Doug Epperhart is a publisher, member of the Coastal San Pedro NC board and is a contributor to CityWatch. He can be reached at
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CityWatch
Vol 8 Issue 10
Pub: Feb 5, 2010
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