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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Why is a report on what sections of the City Charter would benefit from reforms that would affect the Neighborhood Councils being submitted without ANY prior consultation with them from the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment which was established to empower them?
For that matter, why would the City ask the Department designated to serve the interests of the Neighborhood Councils and not any of the people elected by Los Angeles stakeholders to represent them?
That the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) would tag a request for “[e]ngaging Neighborhood Councils in the process [to] ensure that their unique perspectives and insights are considered” at the end of this report without having demanded that the City Governance Committee immediately approach Neighborhood Councils (NCs) directly or, at a very minimum, reached out herself for their input is continuing evidence of the failure of leadership within the Department.
This whole process is an insult to the system that it purports to empower, and a continuation of the high-handed power-tripping of prior DONE leadership with its total disregard of democratic and collaborative participation which did more to destroy the system than almost a quarter century of hard work by dedicated individuals united across the City.
This is not to say that DONE’s suggestions are all bad – most are heading in the right direction – but it totally eviscerates the intention of the purpose of Section 900, taking the power of the people away from them and turning it over to a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that provides increasingly mediocre support to the NCs.
The NCs had hoped that the Mayor in removing the previous General Manager, had seen the light and was moving to protect the NC system and not further empower the disingenuous power-grabbing by the Department.
That this report could claim that DONE “remains dedicated to fostering active civic participation and empowering residents to directly impact their communities” while steamrolling over NC voices is an affront to democratic process.
If, as this report states, “The Charter recognized the importance of local empowerment and sought to decentralize decision-making, allowing communities to have a direct say in local governance,” WHY is the bureaucracy set up to serve this purpose arbitrarily and without any modicum of consultation high-handedly submitting its opinions?
WHY did the City Council not reach out to the elected officials of the Neighborhood Council system in the first place?
Do they want to believe that DONE is in charge of managing NCs?
How disrespectful.
Under the Charter, NC Board members are elected by Angelenos in the same way that Councilmembers are.
Does the City Council think the City Administrative Officer, the City Attorney or any other City department should have the right to manage them?
That is not to say that the bureaucrats at DONE should not have a place at the table but that the NCs established and empowered by the 1999 City Charter should have been the first people consulted.
NC representatives have been in constant communication with Jared Rivera, the Deputy Mayor of Community Engagement virtually since his appointment and he is very much aware of their concerns. Clearly the City is continuing to suffer from the siloization that has been rendering its government increasingly ineffective for over a decade if not more.
It’s not that the City was unaware of the dichotomy between the failing bureaucracy of DONE and the NCs it purports to represent. And the reference in the report to the lack of meaningful participation in some – make that most – communities within the City is a direct reflection of DONE’s ineffectiveness.
And the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee might be surprised with the implication that the NCs don’t have robust input into the City’s budget – despite concerted attempts to hinder and squash the Budget Advocates by the previous General Manager. Continuing to try and control the NC process by forcing its alliances under the aegis of the Department does not serve the best interests of the Interim General Manager.
The monitoring of City Services is not a problem of the NCs; many have tried for years to obtain consistent relationships with City entities. And brings up that DONE has been derelict in not addressing other sections of the Charter that directly impact the operation and effectiveness of the NCs.
The onus is on the City to insist that every entity prioritize appointment of a point person for NC issues and enforce complying with requests which must be addressed elsewhere in the Charter.
These include interaction with the City Attorney, the City Clerk, General Services and others.
Additional concerns are that the report moves beyond its purview, calling for increased funding for DONE to further perpetuate a department that is failing to fulfill its function, something that should be left to the incoming General Manager to assess and prioritize.
The report culminates by DONE patting itself on the back saying that this “collaborative approach reflects our commitment to democratic governance and active community participation, aligning with the principles of transparency and responsiveness in local decision-making” – something that they have clearly circumvented in its submission.
Furthermore, it appears that DONE’s leadership did not even give the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners the courtesy of advising them before submitting this report.
And if the scuttlebutt is true that, after almost a year of claiming that she does not want the position, DONE’s Interim General Manager, whose name appears as signatory on the report, is being considered to take over formal leadership of DONE, then this report and its end run around the NCs could be considered an egregious example of self-promotion unavailable to any other candidate.
Which brings up the lack of transparency in the long-delayed appointment of the new General Manager for DONE.
Those who have suffered the most from the Department’s poor management have the most to say about the direction of DONE moving forward and then, far more than a questionnaire where the results can be read and discarded without any ability to enforce real improvements, should have been integrally involved in every step of the process. All applications, certainly with names and identifying information redacted, should have been available for anyone to review. There should not be curated involvement by parties unknown.
This is because it’s the NCs – their board members, committee members and stakeholders – who are most affected by the choice of General Manager. And after the disastrous reign of Raquel Beltrán, it is even more important to select someone who not only has the experience and people skills, but also the trust of NC board members and stakeholders.
While some board members were invited to attend the final interviews last time around, multiple people pointed out that many of those NCs felt were the most qualified applicants had been previously been culled out, leaving a choice between bad and worse. From today’s vantage point, it would have been a blessing to have selected worse.
This MUST NOT HAPPEN AGAIN if the NC system is to survive with its credibility intact and not be whitewash wasting people’s time in pointing out the failings of the City government. Not to criticize but so they can make improvements.
NCs want and deserve better. More than any group in the City, they deserve to know both the parameters the Mayor’s office is employing in the search and the qualifications of the applicants. Or, in a number of cases, issues that should disqualify them right off the bat.
Hearing that at least one of the latter is being considered while others, perhaps more qualified have not been invited to interview, is the basis of legitimate resentment and the feeling that this administration is just continuing down the road of appeasing those whose actions NCs challenge.
The Neighborhood Council system was created predicated on the need for communities across Los Angeles to hold their elected officials and government accountable. If any entity is charged with managing the City’s government, this is it.
DONE most certainly does have a place in the NC system. To empower the NCs, not try to control them. DONE exists to support the NCs, not suppress their voices.
To the Mayor and City Council, to Jared Rivera and the Members of the Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform: please reach out to the NCs, directly and through LANCC and the various other pan-City Alliances to obtain the input of the entities for which DONE is supposed to work.
No more placating, we want action.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
