Comments
PLANNING WATCH - A neighbor posted a sign on his lawn imploring people to vote, assuring them it will make a difference. Despite this unsolicited advice, the cynic in me asks, “How much does voting really impact local policy issues, or, for that matter, national and international issues?”
As a veteran City Hall planner I doubt that most local issues can be resolved through voting, except for ballot measures. In Los Angeles Tuesday’s ballot had 18 separate measures, some with misleading ads, such as Measure 33. In its case a YES vote meant the California cities could NOT adopt stronger rent control ordinances.
Ballot measures, such as 33, allow for direct democracy, a legacy of the Progressive Era (1896-2017). Unfortunately, this legacy faces three barriers:
The first barrier is why there are so many ballot measures. Successful candidates often fail to implement campaign promises. For example, Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign emphasized that he was for peace, while his opponent, Barry Goldwater, was a war-monger. Nevertheless, Johnson quickly escalated the Vietnam War. Within one year he sent 184,000 US soldiers there. By 1968, he sent 536,000 US troops to Vietnam, 58,000 of whom never came home.
The second barrier is the enormous expense of gathering signatures to place a measure on the ballot, then to campaign for it. In this election cycle, the California Apartment Association spent $131 million.
The third barrier is that most ballot language and advertisements are deliberately misleading. The measures’ backers believe that duplicity is necessary to gain support from voters.
Without deep pockets, it is nearly impossible to place a measure on the ballot. This is why so many pressing issues are ignored by elected officials and by groups that want voters to directly decide important policy questions. This is especially true for three critical planning issues: homelessness, climate change, and infrastructure.
Homelessness is a chronic problem in American cities, especially in California, and voting cannot end it. Who can you vote for to restore Federal housing programs and raise wages, the main causes of the housing crisis? Likewise, who could you vote for to stop such bogus solutions to homelessness as upzoning. Or, who would you vote for to clamp down on corporate owners of housing who rely on computer programs to maximize rents?
Climate change: The centrist Democrats who dominate LA’s City Hall are not overt climate change deniers. Instead they are climate change ignorers. For example, after two years in office, Mayor Karen Bass still turns to a 2019 climate change executive document prepared by her predecessor, Eric Garcetti. It had no public hearings or adoption votes. It isn’t monitored or provided an implementation budget. More specifically, the answer to these climate-related questions remains an emphatic NO.
· Are LA’s sidewalks and bike lanes kept in decent shape so residents can walk instead of drive?
· Is expanding LA’s (shrinking) urban forest a City Hall priority, to reduce rising CO2 levels responsible for climate change.
· Is transit properly funded in LA, like Kansas City, where it has been free since 2021?
These questions lead to depressing conclusions. There aren’t any local candidates or ballot measures you can vote for to seriously counter climate change.
Decaying Infrastructure. While Los Angeles has many new, expensive apartments, the infrastructure to serve them is old and often fails. In Los Angeles the adopted General Plan elements for Public Infrastructure and Public Services are 55 years old, incomplete, without any monitoring or update process.
Furthermore, despite frequent earthquakes and devastating storms, the LADWP depends on overhead wires to distribute electricity. They, too, often fail, leading to frequent blackouts.
Last but not least are broken water mains, a critical component of LA’s aging infrastructure. I am at a loss to tell readers how voting for candidates or measures can reverse this situation.
Conclusion: These critical issues reveal that only a few City departments, especially the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), are well funded. The remaining City departments are underfunded through the City’s budget process. These misplaced priorities force the quality of life of Angelenos to decline, without voting able to offset this development.
(Dick Platkin is a retired LA city planner, who reports on local planning issues. He is a board member of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA). Previous columns are available at the CityWatchLA archives. Please send any questions to [email protected].)
