EDUCATION POLITICS--Why? Why Is This A Thing? 

Why is the public afforded no right to follow its public monies behind the privacy hedge of unaccountable Charter Schools? What’s it feel like to wake up one morning and discover your school has simply closed? 

I’m guessing a whole jumble of feelings vie for primacy from angry, sad, betrayed, scared, anxious, small, vulnerable, unimportant … I’m guessing there’s a huge range of PTSD symptoms, none of which encompases, critically, any feelings at all that happen to be conducive to learning: supported, encouraged, bolstered, trusted, buoyed, secure, powerful, competent.

If the high schoolers of City Charter School on Olympic Blvd in West LA weren’t so busy scrambling to enroll in a new school one month after the start of the school year, we could ask them. Because over last weekend, reportedly, or perhaps as late as Monday night for some, that community was gathered together and informed it would imminently be no more.

As the mother of teenaged high schoolers, I can testify personally to their fragility, susceptible to hormones and insecurities and a pressurized academic system at the mercy of Big Testing, High-Stakes, Big Business.

But as a veteran of some 18 years of overwrought admissions-induced panicking parents, it is worth remembering that empirically, kids command remarkable stores of resilience. Subjecting kids to a churn of insecurity will affect their immediate learning achievement, but it is the crisis of vulnerability that determines their plight as political collateral.

Expendable accessories to Education is what these kids have become. 

Because for all intents and purposes, Charter schools are corporate educational entities that are not accountable to anyone, and sustain no corporate responsibility for the welfare of their constituent client-students. There is no accountability for Charter School’s finances, not for their academic integrity, not for their functionality, nor for betraying their – our – kids.

We do not know why City Charter HS closed its doors, and because it is not a public entity, we cannot compel verification that low enrollment is a precipitate. Unlike in a truly public enterprise there is no means to investigate the school’s financial jeopardy. Meeting minutes from 2015 reference ongoing enrollment and extreme financial hardship but financial data is not presented and there is no surety that these vestigial minutes will not disappear anon. There is no way to monitor the institution and its public monies for efficiency, fraud or equity.

So even as “public Charter Schools” pocket public monies privately and insist on the fallacious moniker, and even as a boardmember of this de facto private corporation campaigns for a seat on the public schoolboard he has pledged to dismantle, yet as members of the public we have no mandate to scrutinize the foundational hallmarks of nominally public Charter institutions: financials, constituency and governance.

Time and again Charters unveil what is truly pernicious about them. They are designed as entities to circumvent accountability and reassert politically unacceptable advantage. It should not be a surprise when repeatedly they are felled by hubris and disregard. 

The political history of mankind is a struggle between limiting malfeasance and unleashing the human spirit. There never has been an institution public or private that does not require checks and balances, for these institutions are run by people with vested and competing interests. Until we design our schools’ top priority to be the educational interests of our students individually, and not their derivative monetary value, our children will inevitably be burdened and disserved, with the cost of their betrayal shouldered by the public, borne by each and every individual child personally.

Best of luck to the flood of City Charter students dissplaced, midyear. The good news is that our public schools are still here, still excellent (if flawed), available and open to welcome them as learners.

I apologize as a voting citizen, for unleashing on them this Charter school system which is so unaccountable to you my children, its students.

(Sara Roos is a politically active resident of Mar Vista, a biostatistician, the parent of two teenaged LAUSD students and a CityWatch contributor, who blogs at redqueeninla.com)

-cw

EDUCATION POLITICS--It’s 9/11. Read the recollections on the web. Watch the tributes on television. Ponder. And please remember that Democracy was the target. The cornerstone of Democracy is public education. Can we redouble our efforts to save and support public education? 

The Wall Street Journal says elected school boards are passé -- especially in big districts. 
Last week, blogger Peter Greene, aka Curmudgucation, told us:

“Behind the paywall at the Wall Street Journal, Chester Finn (honcho emeritus of the Thomas Fordham Institute,) Bruno V. Manno (Walton Foundation) and Brandon Wright (Fordham) are happy to announce the death of one more piece of democracy in this country.

“The trio reports that charter schools are spearheading a "quiet revolution" in local control. Because, like Reed Hastings (Netflix), they are happy to see the local elected school board die.

“Oh, the elected school board was fine back in the day. ‘This setup functioned well for an agrarian and small-town society in which people spent their entire lives in one place, towns paid for their own schools, and those schools met most of the workforce needs of the local community.’ But this set-up does not work for a ‘country of mobile and cosmopolitan citizens.’ Not with money coming from the state and feds, and not when ‘discontent with educational outcomes is rampant.’ What does that mean? Where is the evidence? What do you mean?! Didn't you hear him? The discontent is rampant! Rampant, I tell you!

“Also, they want you to know that some school districts are really, really big. So big that elected boards are no longer "public spirited civic leaders" but are now a "gaggle of aspiring politicians and teacher-union surrogates." Because gaggles of aspiring politicians are far worse than gaggles of aspiring financial masters of the universe. Hedge fund managers are known for their altruism -- remember how altruistic Wall Street was back in 2008? Not that these guys are going to mention that the folks behind the “great charter revolution” are mostly hedge funders and money changers.” 

There’s more at Curmudgucation.blogspot.com. 

El Camino Real = the Royal Road

After blaming its own alleged financial violations on the Los Angeles Unified School District for failing to provide enough oversight of the independent charter school, El Camino Real Charter High School is refusing to hand over the investigative report it commissioned. That’s rich.

Such is the Royal Road to charter accountability in California.

El Camino can’t quite get its story straight on the reasons it’s hiding the report. The Royal Road’s attorney says it’s because the report contains personnel matters. If the report is used for a personnel evaluation, that evaluation is subject to confidentiality, not the report. Just like a report about a robbery would be public, and then also might be used in a personnel evaluation that would be confidential. Just like an iPad contract would be public, and the evaluation of the superintendent who might have fixed it would be private. Other examples abound.

Then there’s the Royal Road’s argument that it’s covered under attorney-client privilege, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.  

The investigative vendor, Oracle Investigations Group, is not a law firm. How can its report be covered under attorney-client privilege?

If the school’s attorney commissioned the report, it seems that would have been part of the discussion when the president of El Camino’s board asked his board colleagues to approve the hiring of Oracle. But it never came up.

The Los Angeles Daily News reported that discussion back in June:

“Now the El Camino high board of directors has decided to launch an independent financial probe of the popular principal’s spending. The forensic accounting comes ahead of a year-long management assistance review by a state financial turnaround agency prompted by the credit card scandal.

“I want guidance from agencies to tighten up the (school fiscal) policy,” El Camino board Chairman Jonathan Wasser said after a unanimous vote late Wednesday to pay for the probe of its principal. “I believe in due process.

“We need to have the forensic accounting look over all the information because it’s big, and I’m not an accountant, and it requires somebody trained to look over the evidence.”

El Camino might not be an outlier. 

Everybody's doing it

In this KPCC report, charter schools advocates are blaming school districts' lack of expertise in oversight for the ACLU's recent report showing 1 in 5 California charters illegally discriminating in enrollment. They say it's all just a big mistake and if the school boards had the expertise, they could have just told the charter schools to stop requiring a birth certificate or a student essay or a parent's volunteer contract in their enrollment packets. A state oversight commission would seem like a good idea if you wanted to focus on one appointed board instead of all these hundreds of pesky elected school boards throughout the state. 

The wild, wild West

The Washington Post asks, “How messed up is California’s charter school sector? You won’t believe how much.” Education reporter Valerie Strauss gives her column to Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education (NPE) who visited the “wild, wild West” to write a report on California’s charters. I’m glad to have had a chance to sit down with her and highlight the lowlights. The report is the first of four she will be writing.

Perfect timing! There are two charter accountability measures on the Governor’s desk.

Legislative update

Is the Charter Schools Association supporting El Camino’s earlier call for more oversight by urging its members to push the governor to sign them? Nah.

In an email to its members, it urges:

“Ask Governor Brown to veto AB 709. AB 709 would apply a series of conflict of interest laws to charter schools. CCSA opposes AB 709 because it would impose Government Code 1090 on charter schools, remove important flexibility for charter school governance, and cost charter schools time and money spent on compliance that is better spent in the classroom. AB 709 is nearly identical to a conflict of interest bill from the last legislative session that was opposed by CCSA and vetoed by Governor Brown.
 
Please help us ensure Governor Brown hears loud and clear that AB 709 is bad for charter schools and charter school students, and should be vetoed. Send a letter today!”

At last count, the CCSA was looking for 8,350 more letters.

The CCSA is also urging passage of AB 1198 – Assembly member Matt Dababneh proposed this bill to help charter schools buy or build facilities or refinance existing debt, even through personal deals with their own board members. 1198 passed through the legislature unanimously.

The NPE is circulating its own letter:
 
“It is time for sensible regulation of charter schools in the State of California. Stories of illegal selection practices and even outright fraud and corruption are far too commonplace. Millions of tax dollars are wasted, even as millions more are drained from public school districts.

If you have not read our recent report on California charter schools, please read it now.  You can find it here.
 
Write Governor Brown today. We make it easy. Just click here. Ask him to sign two bills that are sitting on his desk today.
 
AB 709 requires charter schools to abide by the same oversight as district public schools, like the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act, because they spend public funds. Yet this reasonable measure is being fought by the powerful California Charter School Association lobby.
 
SB 739 puts a stop to one school district approving a charter in another district. It’s hard to believe this is allowed, but it happens. This bill would allow charter authorizers to place charter schools only in their own districts.
 
Write today by clicking here. Then share the link with neighbors and friends.”
 
I listened in on a short conference call about AB 709, with its author, Assembly Member Mike Gipson, State Treasurer John Chiang, LAUSD Board member George McKenna, Anaheim Superintendent Michael Matsuda, the California Teachers Association, the ACLU, and the Center for Popular Democracy -- and now you can, too.

My favorite school district

Last week, the LAUSD board held its first Budget and Facilities meeting at which board members were asked to bring ideas for the year’s agenda. I was told no one mentioned Prop 39, which requires school districts to hand over empty classrooms to charter schools. I was told no one mentioned bond measures. 

Tuesday, September 13th is the first Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting. 10 a.m. In the Board Room.

(Karen Wolfe is a public school parent, the Executive Director of PS Connect and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CORRUPTION WATCH-Power corrupts, and corruption destroys, but corruption breeds something worse – a grandiose sense of hubris. The attitude that “I can do whatever I want and screw you” describes Valley Village’s Councilmember Krekorian. 

Councilmember Krekorian’s hubris is not misplaced. He is the absolute ruler of Council District 2 where there are no laws. Rather it operates at the whim of the councilmember. If you want to destroy historic homes? No problem, someone in CD 2 will ring up City Planning’s Office of Historic Preservation and you can be certain the historic home will be bulldozed. 

Concerned about the loss of affordable housing in established neighborhoods? No matter who you are, Krekorian ignores you. Assemblywoman Patty Lopez, who district is contiguous to Valley Village and who therefore will be directly impacted with a rise of homelessness in this area, requested that the City Planning Department take the time and effort to meet with her so that the housing crisis will not worsen. With Krekorian’s blessing, Garcetti’s Commission rejected out of hand Assemblywoman Lopez’ request for a meeting. 

Assemblywoman Lopez’ focus on the needless loss of affordable housing is allegedly shared by the Mayor, Councilmember Krekorian and the LA City Council in general which declared homelessness to be a crisis. That is all propaganda PR for the March 2017 re-elections. All the units which Raffi Shirinian’s Urban Blox will destroy are rent-controlled units and none of the new units are affordable. However, the behind-the-scenes secret dealings with politicos to push through Raffi Shirinian’s Urban Blox destruction of affordable homes is more nefarious. 

The Theft of State Property 

The long established rule in California is that city streets belong to all the people of the State. “It is settled that the public streets of a municipality belong to the people of the State,” it is stated in Keller vs. City of Oakland (1921 Calif Supreme Court) 54 Cal.App. 169. 

Krekorian and his cohort Raffi Shirinian recognize that Shirinian’s destruction of poor people’s homes requires the theft of state property. According to City documents, Shirinian’s entire project is 42,342 square feet and about 14,070 square feet (33% of the land) is being stolen from the State of California. Weddington does not even belong to the City of Los Angeles and certainly it is not the personal property of Councilmember Krekorian, even though he treats it as such. 

Weddington Street (photo left) sits between Shirinian’s south side of Weddington and the parcel to the north. Weddington Street is 60 feet wide. That means that without Krekorian’s ripping out all of Weddington Street’s 14,070 square feet and giving all that land to his buddy Raffi Shirinian, there is no viable project. 

Instead, Raffi Shirinian has a small parcel south of Weddington and a small parcel north of Weddington which are unconnected to each other. Neither parcel is large enough to support the cost of destroying the nine homes of the poor and disabled people now at stake, but with Krekorian’s gift of the connecting State property, Raffi Shirinian now has enough acreage to construct his 26 high-end homes. 

Giving Away State Property Makes Money for Corrupt Politicos 

It has become quite the rage for councilmembers to give away city streets to their friends and campaign donors. (More about how that works later.) The target can be any dead-end street or cul de sac. A councilman like O’Farrell declares that the street is no longer necessary and councilmember’s friends get to incorporate what used to be a public street into their property. This ploy is favored by the wealthy who want to live in illegal gated communities. Because gating off a public street is unlawful, the councilman simply gives the entire dead-end street and -- like magic -- the landowners now have a private driveway where there used to be a public street. 

But Weddington Street is used all the time as a street. The residents have showed how it is being used by the neighborhood children as a play area – and as a dead-end street, it lacks the dangers of a through street. It provides on-street parking for about fourteen cars. After this project is constructed, none of these current residents will have any place to park; there will be no play area for children. The street also serves the function of providing open space in a residential neighborhood. In fact, any city that cared one whit about the quality of life of its citizens could make the intersection of Weddington and Hermitage much safer by installing a modest roundabout. 

A roundabout is a circle often filled with flowers which is placed in the middle of an intersection so that cars cannot speed directly down the street, but rather, when they come to the roundabout, they must slow down and drive counter-clockwise around the circular garden. 

We Know that this is Corruptionism 

We know that this gift of Weddington Street to Raffi Shirinian is slow-motion corruption which could be stopped dead in its tracks – except for the overwhelming hubris that the unanimous vote trading pact has created in city councilmembers like Krekorian. Krekorian knows that no councilmember will mention the fact that there is no basis – other than cronyism - to give Raffi Shirinian 14,000 sq feet of state land. Rather, the City Council will unanimously approve this additional bit of corruptionism. 

Judges are very familiar with how this delayed compensation-bribery system functions. While on the bench, many judges are very nice to insurance companies, real estate developers, and other business interests. Then when they retire on fat pensions, the judges go to work as arbitrators and mediators for insurance companies, real estate developers and large “downtown” law firms. These ex-judges can pull in $750 an hour. How does anyone tie their bizarre rulings on the bench with the generous compensation which they receive after their “retirement?” There is no way. 

There is no way to trace future campaign contributions to Krekorian or to his deputy Karo Toussian, who is running for Council District 7, to this deal with Raffi Shirinian or to the deal whereby Krekorian needlessly destroyed Marilyn Monroe’s home. 

The Los Angeles City Council’s Unlawful Vote Trading Pact Makes Los Angeles Safe for Criminals 

This gift of state land to Raffi Shirinian is the result of LA City Council’s unlawful vote trading pact. Each councilmember agrees to vote YES for every construction project no matter how corrupt, and in return, each councilmember is guaranteed the same “respect.” This type of “respect” is also known as “omerta.” In other words, “I won’t talk about your illicit deals if you don’t speak about mine.”

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

VOX POP--Mayor Eric Garcetti has vowed to ban ex parte backroom meetings between developers and his planning commissioners, conceding to a demand by the Coalition to Preserve LA Described by the Los Angeles Times as a “burgeoning” movement, the citywide Coalition is fighting pay-to-play corruption at City Hall through the reform measure known as the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. 

The LA Times reports that Garcetti’s plan to issue an executive directive to prohibit such private meetings is “part of a bigger attempt to fend off [the] hotly contested” Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which the Coalition aims to place on the March 2017 ballot.

In an August 17 letter to Garcetti, the Coalition and its supporters offered four reforms to improve LA’s broken planning and land-use system. For the first time in memory, City Council members and the mayor have agreed the system is broken. The Coalition demanded:

— Developers and their special interest lobbyists must no longer be permitted to choose the consultants who literally write Environmental Impact Reports for their own developments. This obvious conflict of interest must be banned.

— There must be a clear and transparent process, including fast-tracked deadlines, for crafting the new Los Angeles General Plan that empowers the people to chart the future of our own city, slashing the undue influence of developers and their lobbyists at City Hall.

— Spot-zoning exceptions to the General Plan, a practice which currently allows wildly inappropriate mega-developments in neighborhoods, must become the rare exception, rather than routine, as it is today.

— Ex parte communications between developers and city elected officials or members of the City Planning Commission — also known as backroom meetings — must be eliminated. Such communications give developers an all-access pass to our government officials while regular people with a much bigger stake in their communities wait in line at long meetings for one minute of public comment.

The Coalition and more than 20 neighborhood activists delivered the letter during an August 17 meeting with Garcetti at City Hall.

Yesterday, the LA Times revealed a leaked letter that Garcetti had sent to the Coalition pledging to “bar ex parte meetings with members of the City Planning Commission and the area planning commissions that vet development plans in different parts of the city.”

The LA Times notes: “Critics have grown increasingly vocal over the last year about private meetings conducted between real estate developers and planning commissioners appointed by Garcetti, arguing that such talks have skewed city planning decisions in favor of development interests.”

Bizarrely, David Ambroz, Garcetti’s appointed planning commission president, gave the LA Times a completely false statement saying that the powerful commission is somehow “at the tail end of the process.” In fact, the City Planning Commission is mired in backroom meetings with developers, and Ambroz is widely known for being arrogant and condescending to neighborhood residents who try to speak at his hearings.

Garcetti’s promised ban is a clear, first-step victory for neighborhood activists who have banded together to form a citywide, grassroots reform movement, the Coalition to Preserve LA. 

• See also: Jill Stewart’s Planning Report interview 

(Patrick Range McDonald writes for Preserve LA. Read more news and find out how you can participate: 2PreserveLA.org.) 

-cw

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW--As we race towards November 8, it’s easy to forget we have a tome of ballot initiatives to read through before filling out the Vote by Mail ballot next month or arrive at the polls. We are unlikely to get an onslaught of presidential campaign ads that those in the swing states might see but we are getting hit by ads against Prop 56, which would increase cigarette tax by $2 per pack, with an equivalent increase on other tobacco products and e-cigarettes that contain nicotine. 

If passed, the tax increase would boost existing healthcare programs and would also be used for prevention and control programs, as well as research for tobacco-related disease research and law enforcement. Other programs that would benefit would be University of California physician training, dental disease prevention programs and administration. Revenues would be excluded from Prop 98 funding requirements. The Passed in 1988, the Mandatory Education Funding Bill requires a defined percentage of the state budget be used for public education. 

The state’s legislative analyst and director of finance estimate that the bill would increase net state revenue by between $1 billion and $1.4 billion, with potentially lower annual revenues over time. 

Opponents to the proposition, as the numerous ads running against Prop 56) claim Prop 56 throws money at “special interests,” i.e. insurance companies. I did a bit of digging to see who is paying for those ads, as well as who is supporting the proposition and here’s what I found. 

Prop 56 is sponsored by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association in California and the American Heart Association. The proposition is supported by dozens of nonprofit organizations, including California Medical Association, California Dental Association and California Hospital Association. The opposing organizations? Take a guess. Philip Morris USA Inc. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. That’s it. 

Tobacco costs California taxpayers $3.58 Billion each year in tobacco-related healthcare costs and each year, tobacco causes more deaths than guns, car accidents, HIV, alcohol and illegal drugs combined. Big Tobacco (Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds) have made billions in profits from California and are figuring out ways to attract new smokers, such as e-cigarettes and vaping. They’re trying to protect their turf, which is why they’ve spent millions to defeat Prop 56. 

Instead of dipping into the wallets of nonsmokers to the tune of about $413 per household, Prop 56 would tax tobacco users to fund existing programs. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, increasing tobacco taxes reduce teen smoking. This year, an estimated 16,800 California teens will start smoking and a third of those will eventually die from tobacco-related diseases. In every state that has raised cigarette taxes by a significant margin, teen smoking rates have decreased, which is something Big Tobacco doesn’t want. 

In fact, introducing electronic cigarettes is the latest marketing plan to introduce a new generation to smoking because ninety percent of smokers start as teens; and teens who start with e-cigarettes as twice as likely to become smokers. Almost every major tobacco company now owns at least one e-cigarette brand and some even market to younger users with themes like Barbie and flavors like bubble gum, cotton candy and gummy bear. 

Prop 56 would require independent audits and strict caps on administrative spending and overhead, as well as to prevent politicians to hijack funds for their own agendas. 

Charging smokers a user fee tax instead of leaving California taxpayers on the hook for tobacco-related healthcare costs, preventing teens from using tobacco and maybe decreasing the number of smokers in the state seem to be sound reasons to support Prop 56. 

Sorry, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.

THE CITY--Recently, CityWatch published comments from Eric and Joshua Preven who argued that the City Council shouldn’t be holding so many secret, closed-door meetings. They’re right.

To take the discussion to the next level I am proposing 27 specific actions that City Hall could take, and neighborhood councils could push, to make City Hall more transparent, and improve the public’s perception of government.

Any one of the suggestions could become a crusade led by a neighborhood council. After all, they were created with the hope that they would organize themselves into a force that could, among other things, fundamentally change the way government operates.

To date, the results have been dismal.

Do the math. There are nearly 2,000 neighborhood council board members. Add in former board members, activists who have specific interest areas, members of each council, and all their friends and relatives. The number is staggering. It’s easily enough people to determine how this city is run.

In between neighborhood battles over planning and zoning issues, it seems reasonable to expect that a citywide reform effort or two could be included in order to reduce some of the reasons for all the neighborhood battles.

Improving City Hall’s transparency isn’t just a matter of reducing the number of closed sessions. There are procedures used by the City Council, its committees, and city commissions that reduce transparency in open meetings too.

I’ve written enough CityWatch columns to know what will happen next. Someone will write a comment taking exception to one of the suggestions on the list. If you read a recommendation you disagree with, ignore it, pick just one that you agree with, and organize the crusade.

The city of Riverside, in adopting transparency reforms for its City Council said it best: “Our values lie not in hiding embarrassment and unpleasant occurrences.”

The first step is to begin changing the culture at City Hall that discourages public participation. City Charter Section 900 explains that the purpose of the neighborhood council system is "To promote more citizen participation in government ...." That too should be the goal of the City Council, and they should be constantly reminded of it. Here's the list. (Mentions of the “City Council” generally also include its committees.) 

1.  If a City Council meeting is to be a closed session for reasons of discussing anticipated litigation, recordings of the meeting should be made public after two years if no litigation is filed, when the statute of limitations passes, or when the controversy is concluded.

2.  After closed sessions, the City Council or commission should publicly announce which items were discussed that weren’t confidential.

3.  If the city attorney’s representative in a closed meeting leaves after issuing warnings that a potential violation of the Brown Act has occurred, or is about to occur, the Office of the City Attorney should notify the public and media ASAP.

4.  Every member’s vote on a final action in a closed session should be disclosed to the public at the end of the session.

5.  Before the City Council votes on a settlement, the deal should be made public at least 10 calendar days before the meeting, or 15 days if it’s a collective bargaining agreement so that the public may weigh in.

6.  City Council committees should be required to keep minutes and make them public.

7.  City Council and commission minutes should include a brief summary of each person’s statement made during the public comment period for each item. Submitted written comments of up to 150 words should be included in the minutes.

8.  Draft minutes of City Council and commission meetings should be available no later than 10 working days after the meeting.

9.  All preliminary drafts and department memoranda should be declared public information.

10.  Elected officials and agency heads should keep a public daily calendar of every meeting and    event attended, minus personal events, including a brief statement of issues discussed.

11.  The City Council and commissions should write their procedures and rules in a way that is easy to understand, much in the same way that city ballot measures are written in simplified language.

12. The Brown Act requires that, at a minimum, agendas must include a brief general description of each item. But the City Council and commissions shouldn’t to do the minimum just because it can. Often the descriptions of agenda items do little to explain to the public what is to be discussed. There have been too many examples in the past of items that were purposely worded to be so vague that nobody knew the importance of them, e.g. the Staples Center deal.     

13. Rule 11 permits the presiding officer to determine the duration of speakers' comments based on the impending danger of losing a quorum. This misses the underlying problem of why a         quorum is about to be lost. Legally, there is very little required of the City Council members.          One would think that showing up and staying for work would be a minimum expectation.      

14. City Council members arriving late to meetings should be required to explain publicly why they are late, or why it is necessary for them to leave early, especially if it causes a loss of a quorum, something that is insulting to the City Council and the public. All the explanations should be recorded in the minutes.      

15. The City Council president should direct that the Channel 35 cameras in the Council Chamber be turned on at 10 a.m. so the public can see who arrives on time, and who is tardy.      

16. The council minutes clerk should post on the internet the time of day at which each member arrived, distinguishing between those who have been previously excused and those who haven't, and publish the information.       

17. Council Rule 17 permits the chairs of committees to waive consideration of an item pending in their committees. Instead, a majority of the committee members should be required to allow a committee to waive consideration of an item pending in a committee.      

18. If it is anticipated by the Council President or committee chair that an item MAY appear on a future agenda, that item should be listed at the bottom of all preceding agendas. Often lobbyists and parties with a financial interest in an item will privately arrange to have an item scheduled for a specific date, usually when it's convenient for them. The problem is that the public never knows about it until the agenda is released 72 hours in advance for a regular meeting, or 24 hours for a special meeting. The future item can include a statement that the date is tentative and subject to change even after the agenda is released.      

19. Council Rules 16, 23, 39, and 64 allow items to be considered by the City Council without being referred to a committee, or meeting the normal 72 hours posting requirement. The Council Rules should be amended to require that any such action include an explanation for the urgency, even if the reason is that it's a routine, non-controversial matter. Far too often there is no real urgency, and the public's ability to participate in the decision-making process is severely hampered by design.      

20. Recommend that an explanatory statement of urgency be included whenever a "placeholder" item appears on a City Council agenda. This happens when the City Council committee plans to meet on an item after the City Council agenda has been posted. Often the committee meets just an hour before the City Council meeting is scheduled to begin, and the committee decision is literally run over to the Council Chamber. The public should know why it isn't possible for them to have at least a 72 hour notice of a committee's discussions and actions.  

21.  The City Council should tell the mayor that, except in the event of a real urgency, the Council will not schedule an item, or cast a final vote on any item until the staff report has been made available to the neighborhood councils and public X working days before the meeting. The mayor should give this same instruction to city commissions. Too often, critically important reports aren’t available until moments before a meeting is to start.

22. Council Rule 51 allows the City Council to send a matter immediately to the mayor for signature or veto without allowing time for the City Council to reconsider its action at its next meeting as provided by the Brown Act. "Forthwith" actions should include an explanation of the urgency. This would help alleviate concerns by skeptics that the action has been taken to purposely eliminate the public's ability to influence the mayor's actions.      

23. Council members should be present in the chamber in order to cast a vote. Council Rule 48 provides that members’ votes be recorded as "yes" if they haven't used the electronic voting system switches at their desks. This is not the case when oral votes are taken, so it shouldn't be asking too much of council members to actually go to their desks and cast votes. There have been many “yes” votes cast while a member was in the bathroom, or snacking in the backroom.        

24. From time-to-time, motions are referred to more than one committee either when the motion is submitted or afterwards, and each committee in turn will discuss the matter. But the city clerk should create a copy of the file so that each committee has one. In this way, any one of the committees may take an action and send it to the full City Council. This would eliminate the problem of one committee chair refusing to place the item on his/her committee's agenda.        

25. Twice a year, the city clerk should post on its website a list of the files pending in each committee. These lists already exist in electronic form so there wouldn't be additional work for the office.  

26.  The mayor should assign one high-ranking staff members to be responsible for promoting transparency and public participation throughout city government. 

27.  The city controller should maintain a database on the internet that keeps track of how much each elected official receives in total financial compensation, where their discretionary funding has gone. Finding this out shouldn’t require a Public Records Act request. 

If there is one person who take just one of these recommendations and lead a crusade to get it adopted, neighborhood councils will know the satisfaction of having the first step toward being the most influential political force over city government.

(Greg Nelson was instrumental in the creation of the Neighborhood Council System and served as General Manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.