By Brady Westwater

For the Neighborhood Councils 2006 was the worst of years – and the best of times.
We discovered who are friends are – and exactly who are enemies are.

And enemy “#1” turned out to be – DONE; the presently ironically misnomered Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.

Headed by Lisa Sarno and Arturo Pina, DONE in late 2006 degenerated into a full time search and destroy mission against the NCs complete with secret documents, enemies lists and back-stabbing typical of the Nixon White House during Watergate.
 

So at the top of my Christmas Wish List is the hope that by January 30th a new GM and Assistant GM will be in place and that the new management team will do some house cleaning and put an end to the nightmare of the past six months.

Number two in the ‘let’s destroy Neighborhood Councils movement turned out to be city council member – and would be city attorney – Jack Weiss. He left no stone unturned or slur unsaid (such as falsely stating publicly that one NC had passed an anti-gay resolution and then refusing to properly apologize in public for that slur) in his battle to emasculate NCs.  Hopefully, Santa - or a smart campaign consultant - will explain to him that when running for a city wide office, basing your campaign on making enemies of the almost 90 Neighborhood Councils might not be the best political move.

Not all of the items on the Brady’s Wish List were dark and cranky:

For long time NC supporters Janice Hahn and Wendy Greuel – third terms to better watch our backs.

For Dennis Zine and Greig Smith - the continued political courage to stand up when all others disagree with them.

For the USC research folks - a little perspective and the ability to judge participation in NCs by the same standards as other elected organizations and not just theoretical standards.

For USC’s Mark Elliot – his very own amanuensis to prevent him from getting carpal tunnel syndrome after taking notes at countless NC meetings over the years.

For BONC – a better understanding of what their job is – and isn’t – when it comes to dealing with little green frogs sitting at the bottom of a well.

For the city council as a whole – to better reach out to the NCs to prevent national embarrassments such as banning palm tress from the streets of Los Angeles for totally specious reasons.

For the Mayor – an understanding that when it comes to his so far nimble balancing of ideology and pragmatism,  the Councils could be his best allies if some - though not all - of his staff did not treat us as if we were his worst enemy.

For Eric Garcetti – better haircuts and continuation as city council president.

For LA Times - a new ownership structure to allow the recent increase of local coverage to continue. For too long, what happened  in Uzbekistan was better covered than what happened in Arleta or Ladera Heights. It’s ironic it took two guys from Chicago to bring the local back into local coverage to the point  that  even LACowboy recommends reading the new LA Times.

For the LA Weekly’s David Zahniser and Alan Mittelstaedt, Christine Peliser, Daniel Hernandez and Jeffrey Anderson (among others) – bullet proof vests to protect them as they dig into the less savory side of local politics.

For Laura Chick - enough money and staff to audit everything that needs to be audited at City Hall before she gets termed out.

For Richard Alarcon – a life time supply of Dramamine to keep from getting air sick shuttling back and forth from City Hall to Sacramento

For Planning Director Gail Goldberg – The key to the city as she continues to demonstrate that too-good-to-be-true need not always be… true.

Lastly, for the ACLU, which has seemingly lost its way on the yellow brick road. Please send them – and ACLU president Ramon Ripston --a heart, a brain – and a little courage.
 
A heart so that they will care more about the homeless than in wining ideological points behind closed doors; a mind that will tell them that handing over the homeless to drug dealers, rapists, pimps and murderous thugs is not a good thing; and finally, the courage to admit they were wrong and to drop their lawsuit and work with the social service community to solve this problem and not exasperate it.

And to all, a good night! (Brady Westwater is a downtown political activist, Chair of the LA NC Congress and sometime contributor to CityWatch. His blog is: LACowboy.blogspot.com .)