Comments
DEEGAN ON LA—I heard the election results news when I was in a graveyard. An eerily ironic location because I was attending the funeral of a very passionate community activist that quarreled often and vigorously with and about the just-deceased Mid City West Neighborhood Council board. Most of the incumbents had been voted out in an election a few days before.
Standing among the tombstones, I wondered if the departed activist would have known the news of the demise of the board she so disliked before she left us.
A leader of a neighborhood homeowner association reacted to the election results by saying “Isn’t it wonderful! That entire group is gone. I and many people I know are thrilled! No more board members who didn’t care what the community thought. They were hostile to the people who live here! It was all about Abundant Housing and bicycles. Nothing else mattered. Sounds like they didn’t turn out the troops. Maybe they got complacent”.
Another neighborhood association leader, an incumbent that was not re-elected, said “I think the reason so many of us lost was that the homeowners of Beverly Grove organized in response to the limitations the board placed on their request for license plate readers”.
According to an incoming board member, “The old board pissed lots of people off. The board got out of touch with what the community wanted which was action. When they went to the board asking for grant of $2K to fund license plate reader cameras, the board rejected the request”.
They continued that “The rejection of the Beverly Grove homeowner group’s request was the tipping point that led to action. As the board election came closer, we put a slate together consisting of homeowners, the Jewish community, and the business community to run and had some success”. Beverly Grove leaders opted out of speaking with the press.
Outgoing MCW board chair Sara Griebe confirmed that “The license plate issue may have galvanized some voters. I wish the board had been more clear about rejecting the request for plate readers while voting to support three out of the four requests in the letter from the stakeholders. Thao Tran was the CD5 field deputy during that time. She advised the board that it was a city issue, that cameras were not the priority due to legal and logistical limitations, but that improving lighting and an increased LAPD presence as well as having more detectives to follow the evidence after a break-in happens was the priority since CD5 could immediately act on those requests”.
Two key issues repeatedly cited in interviews that may help explain the election are that the board didn't listen to the community, and that the board was badly organized and unprepared for the election.
What this appears to be is a case of the neighborhood council taking themselves seriously, but not taking the community seriously. There was a disconnect in the equilibrium point where the politicos’ action x-axis met the constituent service y-axis.
The incumbent and very pro-development Mid City West board had been mostly swept out of office by a community of constituents that had had enough.
Several community activists, neighborhood association leaders, and former and incoming MCW board members shared their thoughts with CityWatchLA on the condition that they would not speak for attribution, although a few did speak on the record. Considering the rage neighborhood politics can activate, and the current political divide where half the country hates the other half, it seemed better to accommodate their wishes than start another argument.
A flash point that came up often in interviews was the dispute over license plate readers. Proponents were looking for a way to track neighborhood traffic for what they saw as a rising crime rate in the Beverly Grove neighborhood of Mid-City West.
Opponents rallied against the proposal as a form on LAPD intrusion into private lives of citizens.
An incumbent that was re-elected added that “The existing board didn’t listen to stakeholders who began to feel board visits were a waste of time. Eventually the community came together to fix it”.
Newly elected incoming board member Hilary Delaney told CityWachLA that “I ran for a seat on the neighborhood council board after spending nearly two years raising concerns with Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky (CD5) and her field deputy Thao Tran. It was close to two years of causing havoc and gaslighting by the deputy, who was often contentious and ineffective about complaints and concerns from me and others in the community”.
“As I spoke about this, I found that I wasn’t alone. Lots of community individuals organically found each other and shared our concerns about how the Councilmember’s staff was treating us, and how the neighborhood council was not helping us. A grass roots group of us shared our issues. The straw that broke my back was a violent home invasion of my property one afternoon while I was home alone. It was my call to action”.
“We were not a secret society or trying to fly under the radar. Our group has shared values and ideals. We came together to work with the community in a polished and professional manner”.
How they voted was just one side of the double-edged sword that slayed the board. How they organized themselves for a re-election campaign was just as damaging.
A former board member analyzed that “They didn’t organize well…there was no door-to-door canvassing…the other side was very motivated…the incumbent board members didn’t hustle. A block of people that are NIMBY (not in my backyard) and conservative, and not into progressive transportation and public safety, were elected and they want to maintain the status quo”.
Speaking about the election turnout, outgoing chair Griebe pointed to the record number of votes for all MCW candidates, which she called “almost double” of the previous election. “I’m proud of the number of votes” she said.
She added that “more than 1,000 ballots were requested, but only 461 counted. The gap of 539 ballots that weren’t received, or received after the voting deadline was challenged by MCW, but the city clerk denied a request to extend the vote deadline”.
An incumbent board member that lost their seat described it as “it looks like the progressive slate got pretty well crushed. I think the long and short of it is that we just got out-organized, which did come as a surprise because whatever organizing the other candidates were doing flew completely under our radar. I know some of the winners, they will fight tooth and nail against much-needed housing development and think more police are the answer to every societal problem we face”.
It was not so much ideology as it was simple math. The results show that one slate of candidates netted more votes than the opposing slate. The key to that imbalance may have been “missing ballots” or MCW’s apparently weak GOTV (get out the vote) program.
The new Mid City West NC board begins its term in July. Field deputy Shannan Calland will work with it on behalf of CD5. Former field deputy Thao Tran has been moved to a slot as business development deputy for CD5.
(Tim Deegan is a former board member of the Mid City West Neighborhood Council for five years, ending in 2014. Also, he served as Transportation Committee Chair, and Second Vice Chair on the Executive Committee, and Board Chair. Tim’s Deegan on LA weekly column has been a feature of CityWatch for over a decade. [email protected].)
