The Politics of Inertia

CityWatch, Aug 26, 2011
Vol 9 Issue 68

RETHINKING LA - One of the most important City Hall survival skills is the artful dance of inertia, the ability to steer clear of any responsibility for progress while maintaining the appearance of support.

For the City Councilmembers, this skill is best demonstrated by their enthusiastic response to literally any proposal or proposition when it’s introduced. Then the Politics of Inertia takes over and departmental reports are ordered, cost impacts are studied, staffing requirements are analyzed, and eventually any good idea dies of old age in a dusty stack of council committee droppings.

For the departmental staffers, this skill requires the artful avoidance of “yes” and “no” answers, all while maintaining a flurry of activity that includes scurrying from meeting to meeting with the obligatory beleaguered look on the face and an armload of reports and charts as evidence that an important mission is underway.

Staffers typically invoke three specific tools of inertia in their commitment to avoiding progress; budget impacts, security concerns, issues of liability.

As for budget concerns, we get it. The real question is “Does City Hall get it?” The public knows that things have costs, that everything has an impact on the budget. Yet when it comes to establishing priorities and engaging in oversight and accountability, the crickets chirp. Until the public asks for something and then the first line of defense is “Well, you know, we’re in a budget crisis!”

Security is a concern to everybody but it also turns into an obstacle that is used to restrict access, not facilitate public participation. It’s easier to for the public to get into Sacramento’s Capital Building than into LA’s City Hall, as if it’s the public that should be feared. Meanwhile, the most recent murders on city property have been at the hands of city employees and the most recent acts of sabotage were city staff labor actions directed at the LADOT.

The City of LA has armed guards in charge of dispensing visitor stickers, demonstrating that the illusion of Security trumps the limits of Budget at the “Department of No!”

Liability is the last line of defense, used when all else fails as a way to avoid progress and now synonymous with the “ability to lie.” Community members advocating for progress find it hard to overcome the “liability” objection, after all, it sounds so “responsible.”

If liability was really a concern, the City of LA would stop rejecting transportation innovations requested by the public and start restricting the actions of the Mayor, the City Council, and the LAPD.

LA’s City Council just got taken to task in the California Court of Appeal for exceeding its authority, resulting in a court reversal and the Judge's opinion that “the City Council abused its discretion by failing to proceed in the manner required by law.”

The LAPD was taken to task by U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson who ruled that the “Superheroes” on Hollywood Boulevard had a First Amendment and Fourth Amendment right to remain on the public sidewalk free from LAPD persecution.

As for the Mayor, the City Attorney failed to impress on him the danger in accepting free tickets from companies with lobbyists in City Hall or contracts with the City. While the public clearly understands the liability involved when one attends a taping of American Idol or a Spice Girls concert, the Mayor didn’t and it resulted in California's political watchdog recommending the largest combined ethics fine in the agency's history.

Pound for pound and dollar for dollar, objections of liability are typically the line of defense as City Hall defends the status quo and fights to avoid progress.

Professionals in all endeavors must contend with the limitations of budgets, with obligations to provide a safe and secure environment, and requirements to conduct business legally and responsibly so that there are no issues of liability. But at City Hall, they’re not standards for performance, they’re tools for avoiding responsibility and sidestepping progress.

The Mayor rises above the fray with a unique strategy that trumps the simple bureaucratic tools of those in City Hall’s hamster wheel, he employs the most powerful weapon of inertia, “Press Conference!”

Villaraigosa’s twist on Burnham’s “Make Big Plans!” directive is to make really big plans, plans so big that the responsibility for actually delivering on them will fall on those in the next generation.

Villaraigosa has bounced from promise to promise, assuring Angelenos that LA is the Greenest Big City, the land of Sustainable Industry, home to a million trees, and just recently he discovered the entertainment industry and now he has a plan for supporting film production!

You can’t turn a ship that isn’t moving and Villaraigosa is currently at the helm of the Capital of Inertia, a city so stuck in the quagmire of bureaucracy that even with his muscle behind a Mayoral Directive, simply implementing LA’s Bike Plan with paint on the street won’t be complete until he’s 93 years old. Of course, that’s only if it doesn’t run into budget restraints, security and safety concerns, and liability issues.

LA’s future belongs to the bold, to those who are willing to confront mediocrity and to challenge the veracity of the objections that get thrown at the feet of progress. It’s up to the public to reject false obstacles and to demand progress.

(Stephen Box is a grassroots advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at: Stephen@thirdeyecreative.net.)

CityWatchLA - LA: Complaint-Driven City

CityWatch, Feb 18, 2011
Vol 9 Issue 14

The City of LA is one of the greatest cities in the world but it is also one of the most dysfunctional, one where the delivery of city essential city services is driven by complaints, not a commitment to performance standards that the people of LA can depend on.

Councilmembers position themselves as gatekeepers who fill potholes and install speed humps as if they were personal favors bestowed upon the select few who have access to the council office.

This “pothole politics” approach to running the largest city in the most populated state in the most powerful country in the world takes place while the budget deficit spirals out of control, while our infrastructure is collapsing, and while development runs amok.

It simply isn’t working. You shouldn’t have to go to your council office to get smooth, safe, well-lit streets that move traffic and get you where you need to go. You shouldn’t have to call 311 to state the obvious, that the large hole in the street appears to be...gulp...a pothole!

The simple reality is this, the city knows where the potholes are. They are measuring outrage and they are limiting liability.

The City Attorney regularly pays for damages caused by potholes, if the pothole had been reported before the incident. Your 311 calls don’t help the city find the potholes, they help the city absolve itself of responsibility and liability for the potholes not reported.

The Bureau of Street Services not only knows where the potholes are, they know where the new ones are likely to appear. BOSS surveys 69,000 street segments with a van that is loaded with video, laser, and computer equipment in a data collection process that takes three years to complete. They have the data.

What they don’t have is the support of City Council on simply moving forward with an aggressive and comprehensive plan for repairing our streets and sidewalks.

There’s no mystery as to the location of the potholes and broken sidewalks. The missing element is simply political will, the commitment to craft a budget that supports the Great City mandate.

Public Safety, Public Works, Public Health, and Public Education are the cornerstones of a Great City and it is imperative that the City of LA craft a budget that is balanced for the long-term and matches our long-term commitment to a well-planned and well-funded city.

The City of LA is bleeding money on short term fixes while ignoring the need for long term solutions.

The era of pothole politics is over.

Now is the time to demand a standards-driven city, one where our city administration delivers services according to standards that the people of LA can depend on!

(Stephen Box is a grassroots advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at: Stephen@thirdeyecreative.net. Disclosure: Box is also a candidate for 4th District Councilman.)

CityWatchLA - The Mythology of "Full Cost Recovery"

CityWatch, Dec 14, 2010
Vol 8 Issue 99

To call the City of Los Angeles "Penny-Wise and Dollar-Foolish" would be an insult to those who are actually good with pennies.

The City's current assault on community gardens is the latest evidence that the Mayor's ongoing "Full Cost Recovery" marketing campaign falls far short of addressing the systemic economic problems that are responsible for LA's current and projected financial woes.

Community Gardeners are the latest victims of the "Full Cost Recovery" shakedown and their plight has prompted the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition to call on the Rec and Parks Commission to rescind a plot fee rental increase of 380% that is scheduled to take effect in January of 2011.

During the most recent Commission hearing, it became apparent that the Department of Recreation and Parks doesn't know what costs are involved in operating community gardens yet it has set its sights on the people of LA and is about to pull the "Full Cost Recovery" trigger. When a Charter Department is unable to account for its responsibilities, its areas of oversight, and its expenses, it becomes evident that all the talk of cost recovery is simply a smokescreen.

If the City of Los Angeles is going to have a discussion of cost recovery, it must start with an honest audit of the real costs of each department and of each service. Regardless of how the "Full Cost Recovery" debate plays out, the benefits of open and transparent operations are tremendous and would provide the first step to real accountability at City Hall.

It has also become apparent that the Department of Recreation and Parks doesn't know what costs would be incurred if LA did not have community gardens operating in different areas of the city. In some cases, the community gardeners provide services to the city by maintaining common space that would need to be serviced by the city if the gardeners were gone.

In other cases, blighted land was cleaned up by community gardeners and their presence results in a public safety savings. Another garden was built as a water reclamation project to save a hill that was eroding, resulting in a public works savings and demonstrating again that the presence of a garden can cost less that the absence of a garden.

If the Los Angeles is going to have a real discussion of cost recovery, it must include an honest evaluation of costs and benefits of LA's programs and services before bureaucrats are able to simply refer to everything as a liability and an opportunity to start dispensing invoices.

Through it all, it is apparent that the Mayor's "Full Cost Recovery" plan is responsible for generating false revenues as city departments charge each other and count as revenue the circular exchange of services and goods that all belong to the City of LA.

The plight of LA's Community Gardens remains to be resolved and the issue is working its way through City Hall. Through it all, the Rec and Parks Commission has directed staff to develop an inventory of assets, an accounting of real costs and benefits, a comparison to the expenses of other cities, and a real analysis of the economic impact of community gardens on the department and on the city.

Community Gardeners are simply fighting for their gardens but in doing so, they have triggered a process that could set a standard for City Hall access, transparency, and accountability that could have greater positive impact on LA's financial woes than any "Full Cost Recovery" invoice.

(Stephen Box is a grassroots advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at: Stephen@thirdeyecreative.net. Disclosure: Box is also a candidate for 4th District Councilman.)

CityWatchLA - The Politics of Liability

CityWatch, Nov 12, 2010
Vol 8 Issue 90

Community members working to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods encounter many obstacles but none is as insurmountable as City Hall’s arbitrarily imposed threat of municipal liability.

City Council recently convened a joint meeting of the Rules & Elections Committee and the Energy & Environment Committee, opening itself up to concerns over a potential Brown Act violation which was handily sidestepped by issuing a public notice declaring the event a Special Meeting of the City Council. Liability? Protests were summarily dismissed. The single topic meeting addressed several topics including Charter Reform, Citizen Commissions, Representative Government, LADWP Oversight, LADWP Reform and Governance, LADWP Board composition, the creation of the LADWP Inspector General / Ratepayer Advocate position, and a budget to support the Office of Public Accountability.

Current City Council actions related to the upcoming DWP Reform Ballot Measure include stripping the original proposal of its budget commitment and any obligations to perform. The neutering of the Ballot Measure was justified with the explanation that “The City of Los Angeles might get sued! If a promise is made then the city is liable for its performance.”

When City Hall is committed to acting, liability is rarely a concern and legal standards are apparently negotiable.

But when City Hall wants to say “No!” but without the bitter aftertaste, they say yes and smile affirmatively then invoke the well-rehearsed “We’d love to help but concerns over liability prevent us from moving forward.”

When newspaper racks appear overnight and block access to the sidewalk or other street furniture, the public is told that to restrict the distribution of newspapers is to violate the 1st Amendment, opening the City of Los Angeles up to liability.

Community members advocating for traffic calming measures such as roundabouts, bulbouts, and refuge islands, are told that such innovations could confuse motorists, opening the City of Los Angeles up to liability.

Cyclists advocating for the Cyclists’ Bill of Rights experienced rejection, hearing from the LADOT that references to the 1st and 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution “fall under the federal purview” and that interfering with the federal government opens the City of Los Angeles up to liability.

Liability is no longer a legal standard in LA, it is simply a tool for imposing insurmountable obstacles on the public while liberating City Hall of a reciprocal commitment to performance.

Los Angeles will be well on its way to becoming a Great City when liability is no longer a political tool but an element of accountability that is used objectively and fairly to ensure the equitable and fair delivery of City Services to the people of Los Angeles.

(Stephen Box is a grassroots advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at: Stephen@thirdeyecreative.net. Disclosure: Box is also a candidate for 4th District Councilman.)