AT LENGTH-I am thinking today about the famous Paleolithic cave paintings in Altamira, Spain. I think about the exquisite images of extinct steppe bison, horses and deer, then wonder if the cave dwellers of that era had the same problem we have today discussing our environment. I mean did they sit around the cave and argue about how many bison there were and how they would be depicted? Was it as contentious as, say, the Gaffey Street Conceptual Plan or the Waterfront Development meetings?
I have said it before: Our capacity to communicate has evolved because of technology. But our ability to understand hasn’t changed much. Which isn’t to say that “modern” men are a bunch of knuckle- dragging Neanderthals, even though I admit to knowing a few.
These ancestors of Altamira, as well as Lascaux, France were probably as socially evolved and intelligent as we are today, given their circumstances. I am thinking here about the power of images to communicate more than words can explain. And I am pondering how tribes or villages come to consensus.
The other day, the Great Street consultants were back in San Pedro explaining their vision of Gaffey Street improvements on the cave wall. A hundred or more villagers gathered round to listen, absorb and then comment. The equation is still skepticism versus trust. Do we trust the guy explaining his vision on the cave wall or do we not?
The same was true when Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, came around to explain his vision for the Waterfront Investment Plan using a PowerPoint presentation. A few more pictures would have helped explain his graphs and charts, but in the end it came down to whether the village trusts the guy explaining the cave painting.
However, the problems of Los Angeles are a bit more complex than the problems faced by early man in the cave at Altamira 35,000 years ago. The cave and the village have become far more abstract. In fact, much of what separates us as a community is invisible to the average modern cave dweller.
Take, for instance, voting precincts. The entire city is divided up, as is the entire state by voting precincts. Unless you’ve walked the one in which you reside, I’d bet you don’t even know its boundaries.
The voting precincts don’t align strictly to neighborhood council districts nor to Los Angeles Police Department patrol areas. They don’t adhere to any natural community borders or to anything more practical like the electrical grid. The layers of maps it takes to explain this complexity can be found in various places like the city engineer’s office, the city and county clerks’ offices or at LAPD headquarters, just not all in one place. And definitely not commonly known or on public display.
Even the boundaries of San Pedro’s three neighborhood council districts are more a divisive political abstraction than a tool to empower or unite the community. This strategy only works if we treat these divisions as real, rather than just another layer of civic dysfunction that keeps us from thinking as one community.
It is an even greater abstraction when you think about how Council District 15 is bizarrely connected to the rest of the city by a shoe-string strip, which is then divided into seven neighborhood council districts.
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What works for the neighborhoods and what will work across Los Angeles is to conceive of and work within “natural” communities, and work in alliance like we did when Port of Los Angeles advanced its Draft Waterfront Spending Plan. The cooperation and collaboration between the neighborhood councils in Wilmington, Harbor City and San Pedro, and chambers of commerce in the same areas brought about an almost unheard of unity from this region.
And what’s more important, the port got the message that this is one waterfront. Wilmington and San Pedro won’t be pitted against each other like football teams and there should be some equity in spending on both ends of this harbor plan.
To further the success of this recent cooperation, I propose that the harbor region neighborhood councils join together and hold an annual neighborhood summit, and begin to address the issues that connect us as one community and address city agencies with those grievances with a single, undivided voice.
You might say that what I’m suggesting is a redrawing of what’s currently on our collective cave wall!
(James Preston Allen is the Publisher of Random Lengths News, the Los Angeles Harbor Area's only independent newspaper. He is also a guest columnist for the California Courts Monitor and is the author of "Silence Is Not Democracy- Don't listen to that man with the white cap on he might say something that you agree with!" He was elected to the presidency of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council in 2014 and been engaged in the civic affairs of CD 15 for more than 35 years. More of Allen … and other views and news at: randomlengthsnews.com where this column was first posted.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 19
Pub: Mar 6, 2015
