GELFAND’S WORLD-I'm legitimately conflicted. Today's subject shouldn't even be a question at all, yet it is. Let's define it this way: When the voters put somebody in office, whether it's onto a neighborhood council board or the state legislature, the voters' choices should be respected. That's what a representative democracy is all about.
The problem, as people keep telling me, is that some people should not be allowed to remain on neighborhood council boards because of their bad behavior. And yet, the system doesn't really provide for an effective but fair way for board removal, which would involve preserving both democracy and the public interest.
It's a question that's been with us since the beginning, and we still haven't solved it. Now, the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) is looking at the next round of rule making and, as usual, is going off in precisely the wrong direction.
As CityWatch readers may recall, there was a recent dust up at the North Hills West Neighborhood Council. One board faction tried to sabotage the system by doing a grand ceremonial walkout, while simultaneously accusing it's opposition of sexism. The sexism allegation seems to have been thin gruel, at the worst, and might not really be true. Also note that sexism is not a crime, it's a way of thought. Sexual harassment is an actionable offense, whereas sexism per se is not. Our system does not, as a rule, turn thought crimes into real crimes.
But in spite of this little Constitutional limitation, the North Hills West complaint was referred to a city agency, and that agency did an investigation. Apparently the report is not publicly available, in spite of numerous inquiries from all quarters. However, a letter went out, pointing out that no crimes were committed.
The letter did, however, allude to a lot of distasteful back-and-forth comments between the opposing sides. Rudeness, we have to surmise, has now become an official concern of the city of Los Angeles and its governing coalition. Members of the City Council's Education and Neighborhoods Committee, particularly Nury Martinez, want something to be done.
So the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners has been talking about what to do about us bad children. The inevitable result -- how many times have we heard this one before? -- involves some new training requirement. The word coming down the grapevine is that we will get the whole collection, including training about sexual harassment and bullying. There may also be something about violence in the workplace, but that's less clear.
The issue of bullying is actually legitimate. I've heard at least one story from a very credible source about abusive yelling by a board member that took place at a westside neighborhood council meeting. This abuse was directed at one of the neighborhood council election workers. Everything I heard about this episode is believable, and requires comment.
There was verbal abuse and, if witness comments are to be believed, some physical action that could have been interpreted as threatening (or at least quasi-threatening). In other places and times, instances of insulting comments, raised voices, and the occasional heckling are also a matter of record.
Some of this falls under the category of Constitutionally protected speech, in spite of the nanny state attitudes of many people in city government. And yes, I know I am using a politically conservative term when I say "nanny state." Sometimes the term is an accurate description of observed attitudes.
For example, what better term is there than "nanny state" when DONE staffers lecture the public and elected board members that they must respect each other? Since when did lack of respect become a matter of civic ordinance, and how would DONE prove a violation anyway?
But when things go beyond our natural propensity to argue, and get to the point where someone feels physically intimidated, then a line has been crossed. Admittedly, it's not always possible for the observer to recognize that this is happening, and maybe some people are overly sensitive to remarks that aren't meant to be threatening, but I think we have to admit, much to our chagrin, that once in a while, the line is definitively crossed.
I think a lot of the blame for things sometimes getting out of control lies directly at the feet of the elected officials and the early generation of leadership at the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE). I offer as evidence for this remark the fact that lots of organizations manage to have heated discussions and controversial votes without breaking out into screaming or slugfests.
It's in the nature of politics to invite debate over real disagreements and, if possible to resolve them. If such is not possible, then one side has to lose the vote, but our system is designed to make sure that the loss happens in a nonviolent manner.
Some people don't want to accept the idea that conflict is supposed to be taken to a vote, not to a duel. In well run organizations, these people are kept under control. Usually the control lies within the culture of the organization and its unwritten social strictures. A stern look towards a raised voice is usually enough. On rare occasions, a truly disruptive person can be told to leave the building, and that order can be enforced by the law enforcement authorities if need be.
In other words, a neighborhood council meeting can be contentious, it can be aggressive, and it can even be a bit loud, but it is not a fight in a skid row bar.
The way to create the social strictures and the resulting culture of democratic deliberation is to have chairs and board members who are knowledgeable and practiced in parliamentary procedure. It is necessary for the chair to protect the rights of all participants at all times, and sometimes that involves telling somebody to wait his turn. As I like to point out, everyone gets a turn to speak, but you have to wait for yours.
It's also useful for the chair to understand that when dealing with somebody who is being a bit rambunctious, it's up to the chair to smile and ask for order rather than to lose his or her composure.
I've been to a lot of meetings and chaired a few, and in almost all cases, the system can be made to work. Developing effective chairs and knowledgeable boards would nip most of the bullying in the bud, because each meeting would have a room full of people who would make clear that some conduct is not acceptable.
Unfortunately, DONE misses the point that you only have to engage in a bit of behavioral modification. You don't have to rebuild peoples' personalities. You couldn't do that even if you wanted, but that's their message to neighborhood council participants. They tell us to respect each other and to respect other peoples' comments. It's actually a very patronizing approach, because it is in effect telling people to reject their own logic.
If DONE's message were to tell people that it's a free country, that they can think anything they like, but they can't interrupt other people, that would be enough. You'll get your turn to speak, DONE should be saying, and you have to allow the other people their own turn. But the city agencies and boards don't quite get this simple message, and they don't know how to make it enforceable.
Once in a while, there is an outburst at a neighborhood council meeting, and over these past dozen years, the city frets and moans, but doesn't recognize its own failures. Now there is political pressure for somebody to do something about that small number of people who won't tame their worst impulses.
The proposed remedy going the rounds at the BONC is not a real remedy, but a fig leaf. The developing consensus is to force neighborhood council board members to take an hour or two of training. It may be made available as one or more internet videos. Figuring 2 hours for each of us, it's another 3,000 hours lost to futility.
Teaching the rules against bullying and harassment doesn't actually teach people how to act, only how not to act. The creative ability to participate in a meeting efficiently, and the ability of the chair to use Roberts Rules creatively to move the meeting along are not what DONE is going to provide. They don't know these things, and never have.
So we're going to get trained, which is the polite euphemism for patronized, demanded of, treated like third class citizens. Of course it won't be effective in its stated intent, but it gives the city authorities the chance to say that they tried. OK, they tried. The fact that they didn't think is a different matter, I guess.
And none of these pseudo-remedies deals effectively with bullying.
There are even worse ideas coming down the line. One is to give DONE and the BONC the authority to fire an entire neighborhood council board. This is presented as doing us a favor, since it ostensibly stops one step short of decertifying the entire neighborhood council. Of course it misses the point that a board is dysfunctional for a reason -- probably several reasons -- and replacing one board with another doesn't solve the underlying weakness. Rather, it's a prescription for continued DONE responsibility to oversee, mother, and meddle.
In discussing this question with a BONC commissioner the other day, I pointed out that the city of Los Angeles is about to make the Democratic Party platform into the rule of law. It's an interesting thought.
(Bob Gelfand writes on culture and politics for City Watch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 29
Pub: Apr 8, 2014