NEIGHBORHOODS LA- In my last article we discussed problems the 2020 LA Commission identified in their report. None of them are startling or new. The second part of the project is a report called, “A Time For Action”. This report proposed solutions to nine major challenges out of the forty plus problems they discovered.
The report was formerly presented to the LA City Council last Tuesday. The solutions were not a secret, since local papers had preview copies, but this was the formal presentation. All City Council members were present except for Paul Kerkorian. LA 2020 Commission Co-Chairs Mickey Cantor and Austin Beutner, as well as several commission members were also present.
I expected the chambers to be packed, since this was a really important presentation.
Austin Beutner had addressed the LA Neighborhood Council Coalition (LANCC) at their last meeting and had urged everyone to attend. In reality, only four people from the NC system (including me) showed up. Frankly, I was embarrassed! Some of us had complained that the NC’s should have been represented on the Commission. I myself raised the issue when the Commission was first formed.
This was a great chance to participate in the public comment part of the session. I fully expected our “leaders” to have read the report, discuss those things they felt were important and how the NCs could be involved. Is there a leadership vacuum in the NC Hierarchy? Not one member of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) showed up. How can we expect to be treated as serious counselors by local government entities when we are deafeningly quiet about the important things?
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Obviously the BONC meeting in Wilmington that same night was deemed more important than the Los Angeles 2020 Commission. What subject brought out all of these NC activists? A vote on the “posting” policy was on the agenda. Some of my colleagues are raising their voices in protest at meetings and in CityWatch- liking the latest decision to “fascism” because the NC’s now have to post in one public place instead of five; post on their web site; and send an agenda notification to the EmpowerLA office.A little explanation is in order. Because NC’s are covered under the Ralph Brown Act (the source of another article), NC’s had to post all meeting and committee agendas in five public places which may be seen 24/7. One has to remember that this law making government actions transparent was passed before the advent of the Internet, fax machines etc. For communities that have lots of pedestrian traffic, it is probably effective. In communities where people drive everywhere- it is not.
So BONC changed the rule to one public posting. One would think that the sky has fallen and the NC system is falling apart because EmpowerLA needs to post a copy of each NC agenda on their web site, just in case someone wandered onto the page and was interested in attending a meeting. Those without a website still need to post in five public places.
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I have previously discussed “Founders Syndrome”, where the charter and founding members of an organization want to keep it the same, regardless of the changing times. This idea that the NC’s are supposed to be completely independent of the City government and of each other is unrealistic! Sure in an ideal world where everyone put the welfare of their stakeholders in front of their own particular agendas, did not tolerate financial laziness, verbal abuse, cronyism and all of the other peccadilloes that affect NC’s ….it might work. Notice I said might. I am not convinced that is the best way for an NC to be effective.
What is definitely not effective is to make a big brouhaha over the posting and ignore addressing an important document suggesting major changes in how Los Angeles will operate in the future. Where are the priorities folks?
For those of you who have not read the report (link: www.lacity.org), here are my thoughts on a couple of the proposals. The 2020 group selected three out of the nine suggestions to discuss at the Council meeting. Council President Wesson was unusually generous with the time limitations and allowed the Commission to answer questions posed by the Council members. It’s probably a little harder to limit the comments from City leaders than it is from John Q Public, or Neighborhood Council spokespeople.
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Tourism is one of the largest employers and income (tax) generators in Southern California. However, there is virtually no collaboration between the cities, resulting in fewer tourists, fewer jobs serving tourists and less tax revenue to the region from sales and occupancy tax paid by tourists. The one proposal that seemed to have universal Council member approval was the formation of a regional tourism office to promote Southern California as a whole. Anaheim, Santa Monica Long Beach, LA, Beverly Hills, etc., each have their own individual tourism departments or agencies. LA has offices overseas, as do some of the others.
The idea of a regional destination is especially aimed at international visitors, who spend an average of five times as much as domestic travelers.
The report pointed out that New York’s tourism numbers were back to pre-9/11 levels in 2005 while LA's numbers didn’t recover till 2011. NY’s international tourism has increased by 129% while LA has seen marginal growth. Establishing a regional tourism authority with public-private participation, using an integrated marketing approach should help increase international visitors.
LA has so much going for it. Most air travel from China, Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia stop in LA first. Unfortunately, many of those passengers use LA just as a connection. We need to give these tourists reasons to stay here for a few days of their vacations.
AEG has taken over the management of the Convention Center. I was one of the first show organizers to use the new Convention Center in 1973 and we lost most of the large convention business because of lack of hotel rooms. I also think it was because we had a political appointee as General Manager and he never participated in recruiting exhibitions to LA. For many cities the exhibition and conference business is worth millions of dollars. LA never had a really good program.
The second suggestion from the Board is to hold municipal elections the same time as State and Federal elections. What a great idea! Only 21% of registered voters cast a ballot in last year Mayoral and Council Elections, while 51% voted in the Presidential election. One of the reasons given for holding municipal elections away from the Federal and State is that the ballot would be too long. Do we really think our electorate has such a short attention span, that they won’t take an extra ten minutes? Perhaps it will force voters to do some research and fill out sample ballots before entering the voting booth.
San Diego recently consolidated their elections – going from 39.3 % in their stand alone primary June 2012, to 69.4% turnout in November 2012. Our turnout is so poor that it certainly deserves further study.
The third and among the most controversial is the proposal to establish a separate independent department called the “Office of Transparency and Accountability”. That seemed to go over like a lead balloon. Some Council members resent the NC’s from making suggestions. Can you imagine how thrilled they would be to have all budget, services and related operations analyzed and presented to the media and general public by a completely independent office?
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This “Time for Action” report provides the perfect opportunity to “bring stakeholders closer to local government”; and gives NC’s ammunition to make a Community Impact Statement (CIS). Contact your Council members and hold a Town Hall with some of your neighboring NC’s and find out what your stakeholders think. In my opinion that is a far better use of time than raising a ruckus and expending all that outrage about a posting notice.
I’m really interested in your comments!!!!
(Denyse Selesnick is a contributor to CityWatch covering the activities, policies and foibles in NC Land. She serves as co-chair of the program committee for the September LA Neighborhood Congress and is a long time stakeholder and former Board member for the Tarzana Neighborhood Council. She can be reached at [email protected].)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 39
Pub: May 13, 2014
