CityWatchLA - After Years of Budget Rehearsal, Time Now for LA’s Mayor and Council to Act

CityWatch, Mar 25, 2011
Vol 9 Issue 24

It’s Budget Season in the City of LA and the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) has fired the first shot, declaring this the “age of permanent fiscal crisis" and subtly shifting blame for the city’s budget crisis from the captain and crew of the good ship Los Angeles and placing it firmly on the turbulent seas that lead us to the iceberg. (Link) Miguel Santana’s 219 page report acknowledges LA’s 14.4% unemployment rate and a projected budget deficit for 2011-12 of $350 million, but softens the message by pointing out that the federal, state, county and surrounding municipalities are also in dire straits, “struggling to find ways to fund even the most basic programs and services the public expects.”

This message of normalcy may be diplomatic but it’s not quite accurate. While the economic storm is turbulent for everybody, the City of LA is faring worse than the others that sail the same seas. It is imperative that the CAO address the emergency with the sense of urgency that it deserves or the City Council will simply continue to hide crew and pet projects in the DWP’s stateroom.

To Santana’s credit, his message has been and is consistent with his goal of a long term balanced budget based on a framework of four strategies: Responsible Management and Fiscal Practices, Focus on Core Services, Alternative Service Delivery Models, and Maintaining a Sustainable Workforce.

Complementing the CAO’s report and call to action comes the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates and their recommendations for the Mayor as he prepares to release the Mayor’s Budget on April 20 to the City Council. The NCBA’s presentation also consisted of four strategies: Increasing Efficiency, Generating Revenues, Structural Changes, and Reducing Expenses. (Link) [[[

Both the CAO and the NCBA’s agree that escalating pension and health care costs are responsible for driving the city’s budget up by more than 50% over the last decade, a period of time in which the size of the actual workforce has declined.

This unsustainable business model has reached the crisis point and it is incumbent on the Mayor and the City Council to forgo the “Wait it out!” strategy of past years and to address the situation as an actual crisis that demands a comprehensive and systemic commitment to a long term solution.

Missing from the CAO’s report and the NCBA’s recommendations is any mention of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and the $1.3 Billion that was just shuffled from one stateroom to another. The Budget Advocates addressed the CRA last year but apparently the CRA is off the radar this year. This is hardly consistent with the “Everything is on the table!” mantra the public hears when the budget scythe comes whacking at the community gardens.

Through it all, there appears to be movement in the ongoing discussions between City Hall and the unions, at least some of them. As of yesterday, the Coalition of LA City Unions has reached a tentative agreement that is touted as “a major deal that could save LA $400 million over the next four years, resulting in the suspension of furloughs and the need to lay off 600 employees.”

The Coalition of LA City Unions represents about ⅓ of LA’s union workforce and as they take the deal back to membership for a vote, the potential for this Mayoral press conference victory party to resonate throughout the City of LA workforce is significant.

Meanwhile, there is much budget balancing work to be done.

This is the fourth year in a row that the Mayor and City Council have allowed LA to drift through the budget crisis.

Santana’s recommendations are painful, they offer highs and lows of projected impacts, all of which are dependent on some hard commitments and some even harder choices. At the end of the day, they offer a choice between barely balancing the budget for the short term to balancing for the long term and replenishing the reserve. All that’s missing is the resolve to do it.

The Mayor and City Council don’t need to hunt any further for budget solutions, they have the CAO’s report, they have the Budget Advocate recommendations, and they have grassroots support for decisive action.

What they lack is the ability to let go of the ill-conceived hope that the economy will flourish, the seas will go calm, the iceberg will melt, and we’ll all sail off into the sunset.

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

Metro repeats the TOD mistakes of the past

LA's cyclists just got snubbed by the Metro again, this time at the Metro's Westlake/MacArthur Park Transit Oriented Development (TOD) which broke ground on Monday, promising safe and affordable housing, economic development, improvements to the subway station and nearby streets, sidewalks, curbs and gutters, street trees and underground utilities. Whew! Where will all of this goodness end?

Missing from the long list of elements, including 172 units of housing and 30,000 sq. feet of retail is any hint of accommodation for cyclists. No Bike-Room, no Bike-Repair, no Bike-Share, no Bike-Shop, no Bike-Lockers, no ride-your-bike-home if you live here, ride-your-bike-to-the-station if you take the Metro, no ride-your-bike-to-the-stores if you shop here, nothing.

The basic tenets of TOD projects are simple. 1) Accommodations for cyclists and pedestrians. 2) Connectivity and traffic calming. 3) Balanced mix of housing, shops, schools, public services. 4) Parking Management strategies to reduce land allocation to automobile parking. 5)  An environment that is convenient, comfortable, and secure with features including common space, washrooms, vendors and Wayfinding and multi-modal navigational tools.

It's very simple.  With a budget of $45 million there is no excuse for the Metro to fall so short and yet, once again, it does. Phase I of the MacArthur Park Metro Apartments project promises 100 automobile parking spaces for the Metro passengers alone. This in addition to the parking provided for the tenants and the merchants and the shoppers. Yet, nothing for the cyclists?

This significant failure is disturbing for several reasons:

1) It furthers demonstrates the need to overhaul the Metro, to engage in a bit of silo-shaking and to get the Metro's Real Property Management, Operations, Planning and Executive Departments in sync. The Real Estate department repeatedly enters into uninspired relationships and leaves it to Operations to make it happen, a scenario that recently failed miserably at the Metro's Hollywood & Vine project. The Metro's Bike Manager is in the Planning Department but based on the implementation of bike facilities Hollywood & Western or on the Eastside Extension, it's evident that Planning is far from relevant. Through it all, the Executive Department rides herd on departments who love press conferences and ribbon cuttings but who play hot-potato with the street level responsibilities and accountability.

Metro: Bike Parking is the standard. Put out a new press release, this time replacing "100 parking spaces for Metro customers" with "Secure Bike Parking for 100 Cyclists!"

2) It demonstrates the need for the Metro to get in touch with the community. This neighborhood, as much if not more than others, needs safe and secure bike parking. To fail to recognize the demographics of MacArthur Park is downright cavalier. To fail to understand the needs of the neighborhood is simply irresponsible. Dan Koeppel, in his insightful Bicycling Magazine "Invisible Riders" article, takes the reader on a journey into the lives of cyclists who simply ride to stay alive, to earn money, and to support their families. These days we call them the Workforce Cyclists. Koeppel visited with them in MacArthur Park as he researched his article. They die on the streets in numbers greater than any other demographic. They ride bikes that are the key to their economic survival. They need safe and secure bike parking.

Metro: Know your neighborhood. Revise those Phase I plans and make sure there is a home for cyclists at the Westlake/MacArthur TOD, both casual and membership.

3) It demonstrates the need for the Metro to develop standards. Somehow, real estate deals get brokered, developers partner up, plans get drawn, contractors get hired, materials get purchased, projects get built and somewhere long after the ribbon cutting, the Metro's Bike Planning department comes wandering along asking "Is there any room left for the cyclists?" First and foremost, any Metro projects need to include cyclists and pedestrians as the premiere user groups, not motorists. From the beginning, there must be standards for accommodations that specify ingress, egress, storage for casual, membership, and long-term bike parking, and security standards that include basic Crime Prevention Trough Environmental Design (CPTED) standards.

Metro: Develop and Implement design standards. Lose the ineffective one-sheet and develop robust design standards and requirements that apply to all Metro projects.

4) It demonstrates a need for the Metro to account for its choice of partners. MacArthur Park Metro Apartments is a joint venture between Metro, McCormack Baron Salazar, Los Angeles Housing Partnership and Polis Builders. McCormack Baron Salazar also developed the Hollywood & Western TOD project with the Metro, a project that still has 50% vacancy on the ground floor five years after completion. The recent brouhaha over the homeless encampment, the lack of supervision and maintenance, the empty Metro Bike facility and the missing bicycle racks leave one wondering "What does it take to ruin a relationship with the Metro?" Perhaps its not the choice of partners but instead the lack of oversight, either way, surely the hope of the future is not more of the same.

Metro: Develop and Implement oversight standards for property management. Real Estate to Planning to Operations to Partners to Executive, there must be some accountability.

5) It demonstrates clearly the need for the Metro to take responsibility for its impact on our communities. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) is responsible for much, much more that transportation. The Metro's every move sends a ripple through our communities with tremendous land use impact. It is imperative that the Metro accept this huge responsibility and use its financial gravitational pull to draw the many agencies, authorities, departments, developers, and constituent groups into its sphere of influence so that we collectively work together to not only move people but to add character and substance and value to the places we enjoy at the ends of our journeys.

Metro: Be a good Steward! You own the land, you move the people, you control the money, and you have the authority. With all of this power comes equal, if not greater, responsibility.

This is an incredible opportunity for the Metro to establish a commitment to greatness, to pause and to reevaluate the Westlake/MacArthur TOD, and to reconsider the omission of cyclists in the planning mix. It's a small but significant adjustment that sets the tone for the future. Opportunity taken, we're established a standard for excellence; opportunity passed, we've cast the die for mediocrity.

It's up to the Metro.