cityWatch / The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Budget
"Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition (LANCC)
January 2, 2010 discussion and action planned:
What will be the “new” role of Neighborhood Councils with the City in the new era of massive layoffs and severe budget constraints.
(Such considerations, however, didn’t stop the City Council from authorizing bonus and pay raises for the DWP employees for the next five years. Nor prevent the Mayor from gallivanting around.)
Will neighborhood councils continue, as most are, to just be concerned about activities such as redecorating a median strip or giving away money to non-profits –activities not mentioned in the charter or neighborhood council plan as required activities, such as:
1.Collaborate with the Mayor on Budget
2 Be the voice of your neighborhood
3 Increase civic engagement.
4.Monitor the delivery of services and hold city hall accountable.
-- The next LANCC meeting is scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 10, @ 1PM, Location TBA
Check back later for announced location.
All neighborhood councils and the public are invited to attend.
---Michael Cohen
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The City is projecting a $3 billion deficit over the next four years. We have a pension deficit of $11.5 billion. Our infrastructure is crumbling and needs massive investment. DWP Rate Payers are experiencing Rate Shock. And we have massive unemployment.
And yet the Mayor is staying in fancy hotel suites costing over 1,000 euro a night, flying in the front of the plane, and dining in Michelin rated restaurants with exquisite wine lists.
--Jack Humphreville
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Coalition Calls Emergency Meeting of LA’s NCs
Will discuss City’s financial and services crisis and lack of NC action
By Ken Draper
Los Angeles is in the midst of the worst financial crisis in its history and its neighborhood councils are MIA. Missing in action for the acronym impaired.
LA’s Fire Department has instituted rolling closures for fire stations.
The Planning Department lacks the personnel to create a Granny Flats ordinance.
The Department of Transportation has lost 160 employees so far, will likely lose its regional offices and lacks the personnel to implement a Memorandum of Understanding with NCs if they had one.
Lines for building permits has lengthened. Services that once took a week now take months.
Councilman Parks says the City is running out of money and is likely headed for bankruptcy.
Word is that another 2,000 city employees will be laid off. 2400 employees have been nudged into early retirement … costing the City uncountable years of experience and institutional memory … and another 300-plus have applied for the early retirement package. More furlough days will be required and more city phones and emails will go unanswered.
Whole departments are going to be cut, departments may be privatized and some departments may be merged. Services will continue to dwindle. Some will disappear.
The City will … say experts … face a coming budget gap of more than $500 million. Could be closer to $1 billion. (See Jack Humphreville’s CityWatch account -
citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3060
As LADOT GM told some neighborhood councils leaders last month: “The City will never be the same.” (Video of her blunt and straight forward remarks here .)
citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3045
And yet, to date, not a single neighborhood council has agendized this crisis or made an effort to ensure that NCs are at the table when the reshaping of their city is addressed … or made plans for informing and energizing their stakeholders of the seriousness of the City’s financial meltdown and its consequences. This despite the fact that providing their communities with a voice at City Hall is the principal reason neighborhood councils were given birth.
The LA Neighborhood Councils Coalition (LANCC) voted on Saturday to call an emergency meeting of LA’s councils for this Sunday to attempt to extract their brethren from the headlights they appear to be caught in.
LANCC Chair Len Shaffer says, “We will have an emergency meeting next Sunday to discuss the financial and service crisis facing the city. I expect this to be the first of a series of meetings to address this subject.
“I think the Sunday meeting should concentrate first on making NCs and stakeholders aware that there is truly a crisis situation (they've become desensitized over time to "budget crisis") and then to start the process of determining how NCs get a seat at the table where the hard decisions are going to be made.”
Neighborhood councils have … for reasons hard to comprehend … continued their new found purpose … doling out city funds to neighborhood causes … as though nothing has … or will … change.
Councils will be affected directly. NC funding will be slashed in the upcoming budget … so there will be very little to dole out. There is little doubt that the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment will again experience personnel and dollar cuts. Perhaps a reorganization if some City Council members have their way.
More importantly, neighborhood councils were created … and overwhelmingly supported in 1999 by the voters of LA … to give voice to their stakeholder’s concerns, beliefs and dreams. To hold City Hall accountable. To collaborate on the City’s budget.
This isn’t an option. It’s not an opportunity. It’s a responsibility.
As the city’s financial mess swirls down the toilet bowl, if LA’s neighborhood councils do not step up and fulfill their mandate it is likely that among the changes LA’s future will experience is the diminished perception of the significance of these same neighborhood councils.
If NCs are not here to represent and inform their communities when the hard stuff hits the fan. Why are they here?
NCs need to step up to their mandate. Help save the City. Help save themselves.
INFO
• Emergency Meeting of Neighborhood Council Representatives and Leaders
Hosted by the LA Neighborhood Councils Coalition
Sunday, January 10 (1:30pm)
Location to be announced.
More info: Len Shaffer ( lenjs@earthlink.net
(Ken Draper is the editor of CityWatch. He can be reached at editor@citywatchla.com
CityWatch
Vol 8 Issue 1
Pub: Jan 5, 2010
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EMERGENCY MEETING – SUNDAY JANUARY 10TH
LOS ANGELES IS IN THE MIDST OF A FINANCIAL AND SERVICES CRISIS
Our city is facing a financial crisis and its citizens are seeing drastic reduction in services.
As Rita Robinson, GM of the DOT said at a meeting in December, this city will never be the same again. It’s time NCs and their stakeholders became aware of just how deep this financial hole has become. This isn’t the “budget shortfall” of years past. There is no more street down which to kick the can. We’ve reached the end. So, just what is it NCs intend to do about this situation? We can sit back and watch everything, including our newly found influence go up in smoke or we can determine that something needs to be done and we need to be a part of it. We need to determine how we communicate our needs and the needs of our stakeholders to those in power. We need to formulate a plan which allows us to take our place at the table. We need to determine how we want to be represented when the tough decisions are made. We need to be there when the city is reshaped to fit these lean times. We will not always agree on the solutions, but we need to agree to be part of the process. If we can’t agree on that, then we might as well decide how to make our exit from the scene in the most gracious way possible. Next Sunday, January 10th we will meet at the Hollywood Constituent Center (Hollywood City Hall), 6501 Fountain Avenue Los Angeles 90028. The meeting will start at 1:30p.m. sharp! We will have some preliminary discussion to help everyone become aware of just how bad things are financially (where the money isn’t and how much we really have to put out) and the depth of the crisis in city services (layoffs, furloughs and ERIP). Then we will look at how the NCs can be part of the solution; how we can be at the table and how we can be represented. This should be the first of a number of meetings we hold to determine what our city will look like tomorrow and in the future.
Leonard J. Shaffer
Chair, LANCCoalition
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