The News: Upon Further Review (Vol 3) … Council Members Take $$ for Doing Nothing

News Item:  A jury found two former Lynwood city council members guilty of boosting their salaries by giving themselves large stipends for sitting on city commissions that often did next to nothing.  The defendants argued that they relied on advice from city managers and city attorneys before taking the action.

Comment:  Neighborhood councils could take a leadership role in demanding more transparency in the financial operations of the city of Los Angeles.  They could begin by asking the city controller to regularly publish a list on the city’s website of how much each elected official receives in financial compensation.  In this way we could see how all those council members are doing who made past promises to refuse pay hikes.  The councils could also insist that this kind of advice be made public so everyone can be on the same page.

News Item:  A Superior Court judge found the Los Angeles City Council guilty of improperly approving a high-rise commercial and residential building in Hollywood.  The judge’s main concern was that the city’s actions denied meaningful public participation in the discussion.

Comment:  If neighborhood councils don’t step in on this issue, the city’s process will continue to be one that is almost entirely focused on the desires of the developers, and one that treats public participation as a nuisance.  And the City Charter’s “early warning” section will remain meaningless.

The time is long overdue for neighborhood councils, while fighting individual land use battles, to develop a participatory democracy platform that all candidates in the upcoming election will be invited to endorse.  

The knowledge, experience, and spirit of neighborhood council members is staggering.  A draft platform could be completed in a day, and then circulated to all the councils for comments.

News Item:  Orange County is one of three counties that won a federal grant to design a new online voter registration system.

Comment:  Yet neighborhood council elections, which would be an excellent testing ground for online registration and voting, continue to use 18th century techniques.  Neighborhood councils should be leading the parade.

News Item:  The head of the city’s Information and Technology Agency sent a message to all city employees that if they don’t stop watching the Olympic Games on city computers, the system might crash.  Two city council members, who are candidates for citywide office, ask for the games to be blocked.

Comment:  Crashing the system isn’t the only problem here.  There is a huge productivity loss.  This is what motivated the council members to speak up, but it’s important to remember that they are also the ones who should have foreseen this problem and addressed it earlier.  And wouldn’t it have been more effective if the memo had come from the mayor as the city’s administrative head?

When you’re one of the captains of the ship, it’s your job to anticipate problems and keep the crew on the ball.


-cw