Why a November Road Repair Tax Can't Pass: LA's Failure to Plan

ALPERN AT LARGE-Dear Mr. Mayor (or Mayor Garcetti, or Eric, or however you prefer to be addressed): 

Two events occurred in the past week that have confirmed my doubts that a November half-cent city ballot initiative to fix our roads and sidewalks cannot pass:  my collection of signatures to run for another two years as a Neig  hborhood Council Boardmember in Mar Vista and Westside Village, and my participation at a Westchester NC Affordable Housing/Planning panel at Mike Bonin's Westchester office. 

My take-home messages from both experiences have confirmed my long-held that transportation planning and City urban planning are irreversibly entwined, and that a failure to plan will--at this particular juncture--put a halt to your effort to get back to "the basics" of City government, Mr. Mayor. 

I'm not just talking about a failure to do proper urban planning (such as updating decades-old Community Plans and affirming that the City will abide by its own laws), but a failure to plan to restore City credibility, and a failure to plan for proper budgeting and a "new world order" of the 21st Century to plan for an Internet-enabled, DIY-minded electorate the ability to participate in a transparent and sustainable budgeting process. 

Despite some excellent recent outreach on your part, Mr. Mayor, there remains a lingering "hangover" after a once-heady Villaraigosa Era that has smashed City credibility when it comes to spending and budgeting--a result of the poor decisions, the blatant backroom deals and the disempowering the grassroots of that Era--that is as profound and durable as was the lack of Washington credibility after the departure of George W. Bush. 

Think about how your still-recent election to Mayor was so closely tied to an electorate that HAD it with a DWP and associated IBEW union, and how Wendy Greuel's political future is potentially annihilated because she was so tied to the DWP/IBEW and was once part of a powerful Greuel/Villaraigosa/Jack Weiss troika...and you know what I mean. 

My biased, limited but probably accurate feedback to date is that Angelenos LIKE you, Mr. Mayor.  I'm not sure if that sentiment extends to Council President Wesson and the rest of the City Council, but Angelenos are willing to let bygones be bygones from that era when YOU were City Council President, because you appear to want to "make good" for LA and have this City succeed...and they DO want the City to succeed. 

The recurring theme I keep hearing from otherwise-loyal City residents is the concern that a passed November half-cent sales tax will NOT augment transportation spending altogether, but will divert currently-allotted transportation budgeting into the general fund, where spending will be...well...not so great. 

The fear is that this tax increase would enable the City to keep spending poorly and to not stay within budget. 

Furthermore, Mr. Mayor, the feedback I keep getting is that--beyond repaired roads and sidewalks--we also need alleyway, median, bikeway, crosswalk and parking infrastructure to be upgraded as well. 

And would the new transportation money be spent as inefficiently as we see current City transportation money being misspent today? 

Furthermore, there is a need to upgrade our City's Community Plans that allow for residential, commercial and industrial zoning that creates sustainable, livable environments that provide for jobs, open space and a quality of life for individuals of all ages and their families. 

The November half-cent sales tax does NOT fund any updating of the decades-old Community Plans that are so overdue for their legally-required updating, making it easy for a cynic to conclude there will be NO formal Planning in this City, and NO laws for developers and special interests to obey as we create one environmental nightmare after another. 

I'd be all for a City-wide kick in the rear where EVERY Community Plan upgrade was funded, but had only 6-12 months to be upgraded--quite a chore for City Councilmembers, their staff, City Planning and Neighborhood Councils, but enough is enough!  We MUST be a City that has laws and guidelines for everyone to follow, and for the City Planning Commissions and elected power structure to adhere to. 

Furthermore, the otherwise-venerable goals of creating Affordable Housing and Transit-Oriented Development have been obscenely exploited to promote overdevelopment, and with the result of less, not more, affordable and transit-friendly places to live and work in our City. 

The growing cynicism of otherwise liberal, progressive individuals to trust our City, which all-too-often uses Affordable Housing and Transit-Oriented Development as Trojan horses to overdevelop and create environmental, economic and mobility nightmares, is a cynicism that this proposed November ballot just does not plan for. 

After all, the wonderful new Expo Line that myself and others have fought for over the years (and, for some, decades), is a nice addition to the I-10 Freeway corridor that will transport 70-90,000 commuters a day...but is NOT a 300,000 passengers/day Subway, and not a vehicle that will transport residential neighbors everywhere they need to go. 

Furthermore, there's been a failure to plan for those who do NOT have good bus or bicycle access to the Expo Line--which is as close to commuter rail (i.e., Metrolink, where far-flung commuters from within and outside of LA County park their car next to a station and catch a train to their destination) as the Westside and Mid-City will ever have in the near future. 

That means Parking.  Ditto for business/shopping-bound commuters who have no choice to park on major surface streets on dangerous streetside parking...or in the adjacent residential tracts of homeowners who do not deserve that inundation of cars next to their personal property. 

But ... isn't Parking expensive? 

Well, by-gum-by-golly-by-George-by-goodness, it sure is...and we've been diverting funds for the creation of new parking structures (to get people out of their cars and onto sidewalks and mass transit) to the general fund for decades!  And now there are many taxpayers who cannot and will not reliably be able to access the new light rail lines (like the Expo Line) they paid for. 

And NO, it's not their fault.  Some folks have small children, some folks are NOT next to a nice and speedy bus route with lots of buses running every 5-15 minutes, and some folks are just physically unable to bicycle to their nearest transit line--and we've now virtually ensured that they will NOT be able to access and use light rail or other mass transit. 

So while City Hall and City Planning keep inundating us with "the-commuters-should-take-buses-or-bicycles-to-their-rail-line-and-not-use-their-cars-so-much-and-more-parking-only-discourages-transit-use" lines again and again and AGAIN...all the citizenry keeps hearing is: 

"We're going to cheap out and not fully invest in a proper transit system for our widespread City and its daytime work-residents (who commute from all over Southern California), and we just don't have the guts or decency to demand the variance-demanding, corporate-welfare-enriched megadevelopers throw the tens of millions of dollars towards Parking and other mitigation that we used to demand they pay for." 

The result is that--from the very liberal to the very conservative--a FEAR exists among Angelenos that the City will allow its infrastructure to fall into disrepair as a way to arm-twist tapped-out and fed-up residents to pay more taxes to insufficiently and inefficiently pay for something that has been underfunded for decades...and which will continue to be underfunded and underprioritized if a November sales tax initiative passes. 

We're just not planning for all this, Mr. Mayor, despite the fact that our roads, sidewalks, alleyways and the like have fallen into an embarrassing and dangerous state of disrepair that undoubtedly needs correction. 

But the proposed sales tax, with a "pay as you go" approach and with a shared sacrifice that involves ALL individuals who live and work in Los Angeles, IS a step in the right direction...and maybe some of this revenue should instead be voted on as part of a proposed Metro sales tax in 2016. 

Yet the failure to plan, the failure to predict that an angry electorate is still upset after years of ineptitude, complacency and ignoring the taxpaying public, and the failure to ensure that a November tax initiative will truly augment and improve efficiency of what we spend on transportation infrastructure, will result in this sales tax failing in the same manner that the last proposed sales tax hike did. 

You remember that last sales tax, right, Mr. Mayor?  The one supposed to enrich our general fund, and which proved unnecessary despite the fear-mongering that we would lose our ability to sufficiently fund our first-responder and other emergency services if it failed?  And which the voters rejected despite a lack of funded/organized opposition? 

Has City Hall failed to plan for the likelihood that the voters will view a November sales tax hike "to fix our roads" as just the latest pitch-line to pay for an inefficiently-budgeted general fund?

Please, Mr. Mayor--you're into outreach, and you're into trying to do right for the City and by the voters.  Take a deep breath, and PLAN a better approach to City government that only has the right amount of revenue asked for of the voters, and that it will be spent the right way. 

Don't fail us on the need to fix our infrastructure in the right way and by the right process, Mr. Mayor...and please...pretty please...don't let this proposed November sales tax hike get hung around your neck as YOUR failure.

  

(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 does regular commentary on the Mark Isler Radio Show on AM 870, 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 25

Pub: Mar 25, 2014