Neighborhood Councils

"Governing Los Angeles Requires Flexibility" (Commentary, June 15) throws out several red herrings in stated opposition to neighborhood councils, and then the authors state their real concern: Neighborhood councils won't "balance" land use discussions, i.e. they won't be as friendly to developers. The authors suggest that politicians will voluntarily surrender power without being forced to by charter reform. They say that a new level of government, closer to the people being represented, will somehow alienate voters.

One of the animating forces behind reform of the City Charter in the 1990s was widespread frustration that the city did not effectively encourage or permit communities to participate in setting policy. In the San Fernando Valley, the harbor, Hollywood and other areas of Los Angeles, voters were so angry that they flirted with secession as a way to take control of the decisions that affected their futures. One result was the creation of a system of neighborhood councils. Today, those entities, which voters approved as part of a larger package of charter reforms in 1999, are something less than their most ardent advocates once wanted but also something less than their detractors once feared.

Los Angeles police are investigating a community activist and convicted felon accused of misusing tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars while serving as chairman of his neighborhood council. The case of James Harris is just one of six involving neighborhood council treasurers or chairmen who are believed to have misspent as much as $250,000 in city money. The investigations have raised questions about the city's financial oversight of the volunteer community groups -- for example, none of the treasurers were subject to credit or background checks.

They've been dubbed "Starbucks stakeholders," derided as modern-day carpetbaggers because they vote in Los Angeles neighborhood council elections even if all they've bought in the area is a cup of coffee, rather than a house or a business. Although the term is fairly new in Los Angeles' political vernacular, the concept has become the focus of a decade-long debate over just who the city's nearly 100 advisory councils represent, and how vulnerable they are to special-interest "takeovers.

David Rockello doesn't live in Rampart Village, and he doesn't own a business or property there. But he's president of the Rampart Village Neighborhood Council, elected in part by voters he recruited ? people who, like Rockello, neither live nor work in the area. Rockello didn't break any rules to get his post. In fact, he followed them to the letter. And that has some people worried. The point of neighborhood councils, as envisioned by the charter reformers who designed them, was to provide a way for the city's many distinct communities to have a voice in planning decisions and other policies that affect them.

Five feet tall, with dangly purple earrings and funky sneakers she decorated with a marker, Rachel Lester is one of the city's newest elected representatives. At 15, she's also the youngest. Rachel trounced her competition in this month's South Robertson Neighborhood Council election, pulling in 144 votes. Her opponent, a man with two children and a college degree, mustered only 13. When she begins her two-year term speaking for District 1 in June, she'll have to hitch a ride from Mom to the monthly council meetings.

Concerned for the safety of several witnesses, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office obtained a grand jury indictment last month of a former Los Angeles neighborhood council president who had been charged in October with misappropriating city funds. James Harris, who headed the Empowerment Congress Southwest Area Neighborhood Development Council in South Los Angeles, is the fifth neighborhood council leader to face criminal charges involving misuse of taxpayer funds.

An appointee of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa assigned to oversee dozens of neighborhood councils resigned after FBI agents raided his home looking for evidence that he or others downloaded child pornography. Last Friday, investigators took a computer and other evidence from the Tarzana home of Albert Abrams, who until this week had been president of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, a seven-member panel of mayoral appointees. Abrams, 63, submitted his resignation Wednesday and said he did not know whether he was a target of the investigation.

Tensions between neighborhood leaders fighting a surge in medical marijuana dispensaries and the industry's increasingly assertive supporters spilled into neighborhood politics over the weekend in a bitter contest for control of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council. The fight featured fliers that promised free medical marijuana to those who cast ballots, powerful labor union backing of pro-dispensary candidates and a flood of voters from outside the neighborhood. In the end, only two of the dispensary backers won spots on the council, which advises City Hall on local issues.

Les Butts of Woodland Hills was walking his dog earlier this month, which can be a dangerous activity in a city with nearly 5,000 miles of ruptured sidewalk. Butts, a musical instrument salesman, hit a patch of uneven pavement and took a tumble, falling onto his shoulder and scraping his knee. "I'm not one to file frivolous lawsuits," said Butts, whose knee was swollen for more than two weeks. But not everyone is as willing to turn the other cheek in a city where the sidewalks just keep getting worse.

Rob McFarland was in his florally vivacious backyard, tending his vegetable plot, when he noticed some honeybees buzzing around a tree. A few minutes later some bees had become tens of thousands. "The sky was sort of darkened out," he recalled. "It was kind of a presence that I couldn't ignore. " McFarland, a social media entrepreneur and avid gardener, was intrigued by honeybees and aware that hives have been dying from a mysterious cause labeled colony collapse disorder.

When neighborhood councils emerged from the Los Angeles charter reform movement in the late 1990s, they were the subject of that effort's greatest hopes and most serious anxieties. Supporters viewed them as a vehicle to engage participation in government and to make government more effective and representative. Critics worried that the councils would become obstacles to efficiency and growth, prone to NIMBYism and interposing yet another barrier in a system already better at saying no than yes. It's been 10 years since the first of the councils rolled out, and they have yet to prove either as revolutionary as their backers hoped or as obstructionist as their opponents feared.

Last week, with a warm sun pouring into his sitting room and an ocean breeze rustling the chimes on his porch, Robert Farrell and I talked about his candidacy for the seat Janice Hahn recently vacated on the Los Angeles City Council. That's right, Robert Farrell. Bob Farrell, as those who know the modern history of this city will realize, served on the City Council for most of two decades before retiring in 1991, and he was generally admired for his idealism and for his canniness, if not always for his effectiveness.

An appointee of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa assigned to oversee dozens of neighborhood councils resigned after FBI agents raided his home looking for evidence that he or others downloaded child pornography. Last Friday, investigators took a computer and other evidence from the Tarzana home of Albert Abrams, who until this week had been president of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, a seven-member panel of mayoral appointees. Abrams, 63, submitted his resignation Wednesday and said he did not know whether he was a target of the investigation.

Last spring, leaders of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power used a tactic that looked an awful lot like extortion, telling the City Council that unless it approved a generous rate hike, the utility would be forced to withhold $73.5 million it had promised to transfer to city coffers. The move infuriated L.A. residents and touched off a prolonged political battle over control of the utility. Measures I and J represent the council's effort to prevent this from happening again.

David Rockello doesn't live in Rampart Village, and he doesn't own a business or property there. But he's president of the Rampart Village Neighborhood Council, elected in part by voters he recruited ? people who, like Rockello, neither live nor work in the area. Rockello didn't break any rules to get his post. In fact, he followed them to the letter. And that has some people worried. The point of neighborhood councils, as envisioned by the charter reformers who designed them, was to provide a way for the city's many distinct communities to have a voice in planning decisions and other policies that affect them.