ALPERN AT LARGE-The initial report of the Los Angeles 2020 Commission, created by Council President Herb Wesson after voters rejected a half-cent sales tax increase to help balance the city budget, has not yet released its solutions to the problems, but at least it got the attention needed to have Angeleno citizens and their electeds stop pretending that LA is "just fine". It's time for the answers ... but those responding to and voting for the Commission need a collective gut check.
Unfortunately, the creation, makeup and response to the Commission is filled to the brim with its share of hypocrites. Herb Wesson may have had the best of intentions when he created the Commission, but was that Commission a cover for his ill-thought out and unnecessary sales tax instead of the honest apology he should have given the voters?
And having "fair-minded and just" folks like Brian D'Arcy on the Commission, with a reputation that is one of the most despised in the LA area and whose affiliation helped confirm Wendy Greuel as the wrong candidate for LA Mayor? Hypocrisy in action.
Ditto for the Times, whose editorial "How Grim Is LA's Future" stated things pretty well (good to bring up the reality that there IS a problem with LA, but solutions are by far more helpful); yet its editorial staff continues to attack law-abiding Angelenos for not paying enough taxes, and for being "NIMBYS".
And the electorate of LA is also to blame with its own hypocrisy, in that "clean sweeps" and reform of City Hall continues to be bandied about yet we've imported enough career politicians (and from the dysfunctional, imperious Sacramento political elite, to boot!) that clearly the voters ACT like everything is juuuuuust fine.
But we DO have some home-grown folks, such as Mayor Eric Garcetti (whose overseen much of the mistakes yet is probably quite open to admitting a learning curve and willingness to change), new CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin and new Controller Ron Galperin.
Especially Bonin and Galperin--Bonin's working alongside City workers and doing everyday jobs our City civil service does, and Galperin's openness and fight for honesty/transparency in City government, provides the model for Angelenos to look within, and start from within, in order to save and reinvigorate our City.
So let's fire away with some questions--tough, painful questions--and allow yet another CityWatch writer (we don't get paid for this, by the way, so there's no conflict of interest) to throw out a few potential answers.
1) SHALL EMPLOYER PROFITABILITY AND JOB CREATION BE GIVEN THE SAME PRIORITY AND HIGHLIGHTING AS THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A LIVING WAGE?
I like the term "independent wage" much more than the term "living wage", because I like the idea of being independent from government subsidies more than I like the idea of being told by the government how much a person can and/or should live on. Still, any reasonable person gets the point--life is hell without enough money for food, health care and rent, and a good job should do just that.
Still, part-time and entry-level jobs like fast food and other employment, once held primarily by teenagers and college students looking to make a few bucks, is not the same as a true-blue "career". Being a barista isn't anything to be ashamed of, but one shouldn't expect to feed a family off of that job.
A "career" is one that is often really NEEDED by society for the long haul--even a job such as a janitor or maid is that sort of job, a tough job that helps society, carries risk and responsibilities...and therefore should be respected with honor and a solid wage befitting of that tough job.
So the City of the Angels needs to make darn sure that employers (particularly small employers) are NOT taxed to the point where they have to go to the minimum wage--and if they must it should be with the understanding that the employers will not have to close their business down (or sharply reduce staff), and that minimum wage hikes should be hand-in-hand with tax cuts for ALL businesses. (More on this below!)
2) SHALL THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL CREATE AN ALLIANCE WITH THE LAUSD AND TEAR DOWN PUBLIC SCHOOL FENCES AND GIVE CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES ACCESS TO THE OPEN SPACE THAT TAXPAYERS PAID FOR?
The Mayor and City Council can and should proclaim that these schools are OURS, and that some if not all public schools were paid for but yet closed to us (and for those of you who hate carpool lanes, then this REALLY should get your gander). Our children have less open space to play in, and it sucks to be an Angeleno child with no place to run around in, bike around in, and exercise in.
Put up the signs proclaiming a freedom of legal liability, pass the right laws (do we want to end obesity or not?) and team up with the LAUSD to make sure that the LAUSD gets better library funds from the City, and the City gets more public park/open space from the LAUSD. Our children have a lower quality of life than we do, and this must END!
3) SHALL THE LA MAYOR AND CITY HALL FOCUS AS MUCH ON AFFORDABLE ENERGY AND AFFORDABLE FOOD FOR ANGELENOS AS THEY DID PUTTING AN END TO PLASTIC BAGS?
The plastic sediment and resultant bacteria at the bottom of the ocean is reason enough for me to switch to paper bags--sorry, folks, but those "Salmonella Shopping Bags" concern me as a physician--we don't reuse gauze and bandaids, and we shouldn't reuse shopping bags...or assume that everyone will dutifully and responsibly wash their shopping bags.
That said, the environmentalists in our City have presumed that everyone has $50-75,000/year income or more, and don't spend much thought or energy on how to make energy AFFORDABLE. "Swelter and sweat and deal with it" appears to be the law of the land, and so long as a few connected "greenies" just HAPPEN to make a lot of money off of solar and environmental policy, then we're stuck with a lower quality of life.
Complain and you're called an "earth hater", a "polluter" and all kinds of names that doesn't reflect the fact that virtually all human beings want a clean community and nation and planet (except those cretins who litter--what's with that, anyway?). Solar energy is too damned expensive for the average Angeleno, and even just ordinary food and medicine is too damned expensive.
Suggestions and deals made for manufacturing and jobs of foodstuffs and solar panels should be available for dirt cheap, and an effort to make sure a family can eat affordably doesn't appear to be something that the City Council is spending too much time on. Ditto for proclaiming the need for medication/health care costs to go down.
Let's NEVER forget that the flip side of a "living wage" is that food, energy and medications/health care reduces the need to keep raising wages for all just to keep up. It's NOT just ordinary inflation, and to hell with the contrived and politically-derived "economic data"...food, energy and health care is too expensive for the middle class!
Cheap and healthy food, medicine and energy is "news that Angelenos can use"...so where is the time and focus of the Council to allow middle class families the ability to affordably eat and enjoy energy in a modern, 21st century world?
4) SHALL MANUFACTURING AND MIDDLE CLASS JOB CREATION BE GIVEN THE SAME TAX CREDITS AND SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS AS BIG HOLLYWOOD?
Our society, aided and abetted by a host of creepy developers and a Planning Politburo that has virtually destroyed our City, has decided that industrially-zoned land is ugly. We've decided that we all need places to live, but aren't so certain where we'll allow people to work and support themselves.
The term "we" and "our society", of course, refers to that intellectual elite that believes it knows more than the rest of us. That "ugly eyesore" of a factory employs people who work hard every day to feed their families, and if it weren't for unincorporated areas of the county then it would be nigh impossible for ordinary Angelenos to find a job.
The need for affordable medications, affordable solar panels, bus, rail and other manufacturing jobs still exists--and if we give the same priority to all big employers the way we do to the Hollywood elite, we'd have more jobs, prosperity and a balanced City budget. Attracting ALL employers by focusing more on income tax than on taxing businesses (other than roads, infrastructure and the like...see below) is the way to create more JOBS.
5) SHALL ROAD, RAIL AND INFRASTRUCTURE UPKEEP AND UPGRADES BE PAID FOR THE DEVELOPERS AND SPECIAL INTERESTS WHO ARE BANKRUPTING OUR CITY, OR SHALL THE TAXPAYERS BE PERPETUALLY ASKED TO PAY FOR THE ENRICHMENT OF A FEW?
This is the one thing that--arguably--developers and employers need to cough up the big bucks on. Our City's original transportation and other infrastructure was paid for by the same folks who now demand WE pay for the infrastructure for THEIR projects.
If a developer wants a megavariance and a huge building permit, who wil pay for their required infrastructure costs? Where is the parking, the funding for buses or for rail construction? Why must the Special Parking Revenue Fund get raided and diverted into the General Fund and have businesses direct their customers to using adjacent residential streets to access them?
The electorate might have to pay for roads, sidewalks, etc., but perhaps it would only be $1 billion (not $3 billion), or maybe nothing at all if developers and businesses were required to pay for adjacent roads, alleyways, etc.
The money does exist to build this City, but the taxpayers have the right to feed tapped out...particularly since laws continue to be broken on a regular basis by City Hall and City Planning in "the interest of the greater good", and despite the fact that only a few really prosper by shredding and ignoring City law.
THE BIG ONE: SHALL THE 1% BE HELD TO THE SAME STANDARDS AND LAW-ABIDING BEHAVIORS AS THE OTHER 99% OF LA, OR SHALL THEY BE CATERED TO LIKE HIGHER LIFEFORMS?
We just want a City willing to live within its means, follow the law, and demand that both well-heeled and ordinary Angelenos alike do the right thing, without cheating...and without an enabling City Hall. There should be one group of laws for all of us, and the "1%" who make millions every year should be required to abide by the City Charter.
A developer wants to build something twice or more as big as legally allowed? Fine...then they can come up with $100 million to pay for our City's infrastructure and services if they're making $250 million from their requested variances. Ditto with any other bigshots that City Hall caters to while ignoring the little guy.
To conclude, we need a City Council and Mayor with credibility, and we need an electorate that will vote in leadership to demand more from all of us. Decline IS avoidable, if the legal and moral habits our City has adopted for decades is put behind us, and never returned to, in this City of the Angels.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected] . He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us . The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 4
Pub: Jan 14, 2014
