CityWatchLA - Five Signs LA is a DIY City

CityWatch, May 17, 2011
Vol 9 Issue 39

BOX SOAP - The City of LA’s self-crippling budget crisis gives new meaning to the phrase “If you want something done correctly, do it yourself.”

Consider these five examples of Do-It-Yourself management initiatives sponsored by the people of Los Angeles in response to the failings of City Hall.

1) The Inspector General for Revenue Collection, as proposed by the Commission on Revenue Efficiency (CORE), is a position that will have the authority and staff to collect the revenue owed to the City of LA.

The Byzantine structure of LA’s government has resulted in billing collection redundancies that leave individual departments responsible for collecting revenue but with little incentive or oversight. Focused on headcount and generating billing, department heads have allowed the actual collections to fall between the cracks, resulting in $541.1 million in bad debt.

When CORE released its 107-page Blueprint for Reforms of City Collections and the 67 specific recommendations including the creation of the Inspector General position, Chairman Ron Galperin pointed out "The City has no real centralized billing and collection process and systems are woefully outdated."

2) The DWP Ratepayers Advocate, as championed by neighborhood council leaders such as Jack Humphreville, President of the DWP Advocacy Committee and CityWatch columnist, and as approved by 80% of the voting public who voted for Measure I which authorizes the Office of Public Accountability and the Ratepayer Advocate, to be effective July 1, 2011.

The movement to forge a relationship with LA’s Department of Water and Power, a Proprietary Department, was motivated by the failure of the Mayor and the City Council to control the nation's largest municipal utility, owned by the people of LA but operating as if the relationship were reversed.

Responsible for delivering reliable, safe water and electricity supplies to the 4 million residents and businesses in Los Angeles, the DWP has also delivered controversy and drama that has resulted in a revolving door of General Managers and recent ballot measures that attest to the failure of City Hall to control this city asset, placing the responsibility on the people of LA.

3) The City Prosecutor is a position that would require bifurcating the City Attorney’s office, creating a position that would actually represent the people of Los Angeles. The current scenario has the City Attorney representing the City of LA as the client, while the people of LA are forced to provide their own legal representation.

The absurdity of the current one-sided legal arena was most recently demonstrated when Barry Sanders, Chair of the Rec and Parks Commission and retired Latham & Watkins Partner, appeared before the City Council in defense of his park advertising scheme.

Sanders complained that the City Attorney’s office should stop raising legal objections based on LA’s sign ordinance to the Parks Foundation sale of advertising in city parks and should instead be looking for ways to legalize it as “Government Speech” on behalf of the Commission.

Sanders singlehandedly made the case for the creation of a City Prosecutor for the City of LA.

4) Community leaders have long held that as long as the citizen oversight of the city’s departments comes from people appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council, the people of LA are not represented and there is no real accountability.

LA’s Commissions range in effectiveness and power, some meeting for mere moments on an irregular basis to approve consent agendas while others meet regularly and exert significant influence over city policy and operations.

Joe Barrett of Sunland Tujunga made it a campaign issue in the most recent elections that the people of LA should have a seat on each Commission that is filled by the neighborhood councils.

This would require a Charter amendment and a campaign to get a neighborhood council sponsored initiative on the 2013 ballot must start immediately.

5) Task Forces consisting of both city staffers and community leaders have stepped up to fill the void left behind as the city has bogged down in the budget crisis, demonstrating an effectiveness and agility that has raised the bar.

Under Chief Beck’s leadership, cyclists and the LAPD formed the Cyclists/LAPD Task Force and now work together on policy and programming, resulting in an educational program that is ahead of the state standard.

DONE’s GM, BongHwan Kim, points to the work of the Elections Task Force and the By-Laws Task Force as examples of community members partnering with city staff to move quickly and to maximize results.

Kim has long advocated for neighborhood councils to go beyond simple “median strip beautification” projects and to use each action as an opportunity to fulfill the City Charter mandate “To promote more citizen participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs.”

The East Hollywood Neighborhood Council took a simple constituent complaint about blight and formed the Route 66 Task Force, committed to engaging the people of the community and the city departments in a campaign to reconnect Santa Monica Boulevard with its Route 66 legacy.

PlanCheckNC has picked up the slack with City Planning, the Budget Advocates have made great recommendations on the Budget, and the LA Bike Working Group took the Bike Plan where the LADOT and its consultants were afraid to ride. Through it all, LA’s Task Forces are demonstrating that the future of LA lies in partnerships.

At this past Saturday’s GM Roundtable, Amir Sedadi of LADOT and Ron Olive of Bureau of Street Services both indicated that the most effective way for neighborhood councils to work with the departments on the delivery of city services is to engage the community, establish priorities, and communicate clearly on behalf of the neighborhood.

The people of Los Angeles have an opportunity, to get lost in the budget drama and the debates over “budget dust” or to seize this opportunity of crisis and to use the energy to fight for systemic change.

Now is the time for the people of LA to work together to bring the offices of the Inspector General, the Ratepayers Advocate, and the City Prosecutor to life, complemented by an initiative to create a “People’s Seat” on each City Commission and supported by Task Forces that address the ongoing power vacuum in Los Angeles.

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

CityWatchLA - LA’s DIY Bike Plan

CityWatch, Nov 3, 2009
Vol 7 Issue 90

The City of Los Angeles took another swing at the public hornet's nest when it released LA's Draft Bike Plan, a 563 page document that cost $450,000 and took two years to complete, stirring such public contempt that the cycling community simply put down the protest signs, formed the LA Bike Working Group (BWG) and set out to draft "LA's Best Bike Plan" in open workshops around the city.

The first challenge to the efficacy of LA's commitment to mediocrity came when LABikePlan.com appeared, hosting the same Draft Bike Plan as the city's LABikePlan.org website and the same opportunity to submit comments to the city, but also offering links to articles that criticize the Draft Bike Plan process and content.

The second challenge came when cyclists met in Hollywood to dig into the city's Draft Bike Plan, breaking it up into manageable chunks, a process made necessary by the significant size and the limited comment period of 42 days. (It ends on November 6, 2009)

It took a couple of hours but there came a point at which it became obvious, the best place to start is at the beginning and for the Bike Plan, that meant a do-over, this time a DIY (Do It Yourself) do-over!

The third and most recent challenge came when cyclists met downtown this past weekend to refine the many contributions from the diverse group of participants into a focused vision that would serve as the foundation for LA's Best Bike Plan.

Embracing a democratic and participatory process, the work product of four groups was refined into 23 points which were simmered down to a foundation of three that serve as the platform for LA's Best Bike Plan.

1) "Consider every street as a street that cyclists will ride."

2) "Build a Backbone Bikeway Network as the engineering focus in the immediate future."

3) "Los Angeles must commit to the implementation of key measures within 2 years."

In the time it took the staff of City Planning and the Department of Transportation to organize its out-of-town consultants and to stage the four Draft Bike Plan workshops, the LA Bike Working Group had gathered input from the community, established teams with specific focus, and positioned a platform based on equality.

This may seem like a "Bike Culture" victory that benefits the few but it represents much, much more and it benefits the city as a whole.

City staff dismiss critics as "trashtalkers" and argue for mediocrity by pointing out that "not everybody is an angry cyclist." This demonstrates the cavalier manner in which our city is (mis)managed. As Laura Chick pointed out "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention."

Today it's the Bike Plan, tomorrow it's your Community Plan, last week it was Cloud Computing, next week it'll be Golden Parachutes. The bottom line is this, the leadership of Los Angeles is counting on our indifference to maintain the status quo and to avoid accountability.

Whether you ride a bike or walk or take mass transit or ride in a car, we all benefit from citywide support of cycling as a transportation solution, as an environmental solution, and as a community building solution.

Great Streets are well maintained, they're shareable, they have moderate traffic volumes and speeds, they result in lower crime rates, and they benefit local businesses, resulting in healthy, sustainable and complete communities.

If you believe that Los Angeles should be a Great City, it is imperative that you join with other constituent groups such as the cycling community and support their pursuit of greatness. After all, this is Los Angeles, why settle for anything less!

This isn't the first time that the DIY movement has been active in Los Angeles. Past efforts have resulted in Sharrows (shared-lane markings) in Echo Park and in Highland Park, a DIY Bike Lane on the Fletcher Bridge and a community park at Wilshire and Vermont.

In other cities, the Official Urban Repair Squad (OURS) has taken to improving the streets of Toronto, leaving behind a Bike Lane in their first engagement and a note saying "Our agents inform us that your city is too busy patting self on backside about 2001 bike plan that they don't bother to make any bike lanes. We come to make roads safe for citizens of Toronto. We hear city is broke. We fix. No charge."

Residents of Hawaii's Kauai island reacted to the government's $4 million and two-year long plan for the repair of a vital road as unacceptable and so they fixed it themselves in eight days for free. Their livelihood was threatened, their intelligence was insulted and their spirit of self-sufficiency was engaged.

As for LA's Draft Bike Plan, the apologists stand in the background and murmur "it's not that bad" and "there's some good stuff in there" and the cloud of mediocrity just gets thicker.

LA's Bike Plan is part of the Transportation Element of the city's General Plan and the current Bike Plan was drafted in 1996, readopted by City Council in 2002 and again in 2007.

Many funding sources, from both the federal and state levels, require that proposed bike projects be part of a City Council approved Bicycle Transportation Plan.

This enthusiasm for plans is motivated by the desire to qualify for funding and then the enthusiasm fades. The current Bike Plan is effective until December of 2012.

In the last 13 years, LA has spent $65 million of Bikeways funding which has produced 13 miles of Bike Paths (one mile per year!) 54 miles of Bike Lanes (four miles per year!) and one mile of Bike Route (136 yards per year!)

Critics charge that the money has also funded the LADOT's Bikeways Department of a dozen people who are best known for their "Why You Can't Have What You Want" PowerPoint presentation which positions cyclists as adversaries with other modes rather than as a "Common Ground" transportation solution.

As for next steps, the bureaucrats are off in search of rubber stamps while the LA Bike Working Group continues to work on "LA's Best Bike Plan."

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

RELATED STORIES

● “Bikes and Cars: Can We Share the Road?” – LA Times LINK .
cydo