CommentsALPERN AT LARGE--First and foremost, congratulations to Councilmember Nury Martinez for becoming the future City Council President of Los Angeles.
You deserve credit for your election, and beyond being the first Latina to run the City Council it's also to be remembered that you have individual talents and attributes that go far beyond just being a woman or of Latina ethnicity in your repertoire.
You must work with all parties, and you must work with the understanding that leading the City Council is akin to herding cats. A City Council President is not a queen, and there are limits to what she can do for her constituents.
Still, sincere congrats are in order.
It's no secret that the Mayor and the current City Council are all under fire for being collectively out of touch with City residents and workers, so the greatest challenge to be confronted by Councilmember Martinez is CREDIBILITY.
Council President Pro Tempore Nury Martinez must work with current Mayor Eric Garcetti and current Council President Herb Wesson, but also has to (when the time and circumstances are right) confront where they did wrong.
The phrases of "women's intuition" and "Latina common sense" and similar epithets will be thrown around to describe what Ms. Martinez should do and pursue, but going back to the first term of Mayor Garcetti, and how Herb Wesson's past got him to his own City political success, might point the best way for the new Council President to proceed:
CREDIBILITY.
Also, there is a need to highlight, not gaslight, Angelenos.
1) L.A. needs to have a citizenry that is represented--the average Angeleno works and hasn't the financial and time resources to do the developer/lobbyist inside work because he or she is working and tied up with children. Access to the halls and people in power should be restored to the people. Key negotiations and debates can and should be done at night, and where affected people live.
2) Promoting higher wages needs to be accompanied with circumstances that promote hiring of quality jobs with quality benefits. If employers are hurting, then inevitably their employees will also suffer. Income inequality and the lack of great jobs and careers are still issues that plague LA
3) Things are NOT so great with housing. Why are we having a net rise in higher-cost housing by developers who claim they're building more affordable housing? Sacramento's efforts are developer-funded (and NOT by the good, well-intentioned developers), so why should LA embrace them?
4) Labor unions should be empowered, but if the cost of rent and utilities is unaffordable, how are their efforts promoted? And what if their unaffordability is caused by those in power who proclaim to help the average Joe/Jane living in LA?
5) Are LA's green efforts going to be open-minded and help the environment, or will they be the same old dogma that financially enriches a few and bankrupts the rest of us...without really helping the environment? What if the "Green New Deal" is being hijacked by a few eloquent grifters?
6) Do foreign nationals and real-estate investment trusts (REITs) have more rights than the rest of us to purchase and live in a home, condo, or other residential arrangement?
7) The homeless have rights, but do the rest of us have rights, too? When DOES being considerate and kind to the homeless start becoming the enabling of lawlessness? When DO we have the right to demand that the homeless work with City resources and/or seek publicly-funded treatment...or otherwise be asked to leave their virtually-permanent encampments on public property?
8) Crime is NOT going down...it's going up. Wesson and Garcetti are leaving on less than stellar notes from their City posts, after once having high hopes for success by those who elected them. Much of this must do to with safety and health concerns, because the issues of crime and public health are very real, and very ignored, under Wesson and Garcetti's watch. Time for a reset?
9) Our streets, alleys, and sidewalks are all years behind in their collective maintenance despite repeated attempts to have them fixed in a timely fashion. When DOES the question be called as to whether the taxpayers (who have repeatedly voted to tax themselves) are having their resources spent appropriately?
10) Open space and parks are in short demand, while we have myriad mini-parks fenced off from the general public in our elementary school and other public school playgrounds. Can Parks and Recreation team up with the LAUSD to allow children and their parents more open space and recreational opportunities?
To close, congratulations are in order for Councilmember Martinez. That said, the past few years and our current circumstances arguably prevent a reasonable and proper honeymoon for our future Council President.
But when they time is right, and change of the guard has occurred, it's hoped that a new era of City Council responsibilities will be extended to ensure that greater accounting of the City Council and City government exists to promote the rights of those increasingly-hapless Angelenos who are being confronted with the choice of fleeing the City for their own mental, physical, and financial health.
(CityWatch Columnist, Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father to two cherished children and a wonderful wife. He was (termed out) also a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Outreach Committee, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee and Vice-Chair of its Planning Committee. He was co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chaired the nonprofit Transit Coalition and can be reached at [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
-cw
