Neighborhood Councils: White, Rich, Homeowners
By Jim
Smith
There is new evidence to
substantiate what many have long suspected - L.A.'s neighborhood councils do not
represent or reflect the population of the city.
The councils, which are spread across the
city, are too white, too rich and too slanted toward homeowners. The evidence
comes from the preliminary results of a Cal State Fullerton survey conducted
about neighborhood councils. It has been posted on the web at
www.citywatchla.com/content/view/526/75 (click on CityWatch
report).
The survey, conducted by
Social Science Research Center at CSU Fullerton, which is run by Raphael
Sonenshein, purports to be a random sampling of past and present neighborhood
council officers. Its data describes a system that is skewed against renters,
Latinos, and those with household incomes under $100,000 a year. The results are
for the entire Los Angeles neighborhood council system. (The Venice Council
currently includes two Latinos and two African-Americans out of 21 board
members.)
Here are the percentages
taken from the neighborhood council (NC) survey, and compared with the latest
census data for Los Angeles:
Renters on
NC: 11.4%
Renters in LA:
61.4%
Whites on NC:
71.7%
Whites in LA:
30%
(non-Latino)
Latinos
on NC: 10%
Latinos in LA:
48%
African-Americans on NC:
10.4%
African-Americans in LA:
10%
Asians on NC:
4.2%
Asians in LA:
11%
$100,000+ household income on NC:
42.4%
$100,000+ household income in LA:
17%
Not reported in the survey was the
percentage of non-English speaking residents of Los Angeles. However, it is
likely to be skewed from the population. A case in point is the Venice
Neighborhood Council which under Progressive leadership had purchased
interpreting equipment. After it was turned over to the new non-progressive
faction that ran the Board, beginning in 2006, it was never used
again.
Other evidence that neighborhood
councils may have outlived their usefulness was reflected at the hearings
sponsored by the Neighborhood Council Review Commission, a body mandated by the
city charter to recommend changes in the NC system to the city council.
At a meeting called for the entire
westside on July 12, only three Venetians showed up at University High, and none
of them were on the Venice Neighborhood Council Board. There were a sprinkling
of board members from NCs in Mar Vista, West L.A., Westchester, Brentwood and
Pacific Palisades. Most of the nearly all white audience that did turn out
wanted fundamental changes in the councils including restricting it to residents
(currently those who work or own property but don't live in the district can
also run for office).
According to Mark
Siegel, an NC Review Commissioner, a July 16 meeting in the San Fernando Valley
produced a higher turnout but the only Latino in the room was L.A. City
Councilmember Richard Alarcon, who had come to welcome the group. Siegel, a
long-time backer of neighborhood councils and founder of the CityWatchLA.com
website, acknowledged the imbalance found in the Cal State survey, and said:
“It is preposterous to think that we are representatives of the entire
community and therefore deserve more
power.”
The neighborhood council
system was founded for some rather cynical reasons during the regime of former
Mayor Richard Riordan. He was faced with two problems. Parts of the city,
including the Valley, Hollywood and the Harbor, were considering secession. At
the same time, he believed the mayor did not have enough power. His solution was
to revise the city charter to shift power from the city council to the mayor,
and to include a neighborhood council system to win public support for the
charter revision.
The new neighborhood
councils were promoted as an alternative to secession. Ultimately, only the
Valley voted to secede, but its vote was overruled by the negative vote in the
rest of the city. The neighborhood council system also served as a potential
counterbalance to the growing power of labor movement based on Latino and
African-American voters. Not a bad development in the eyes of Republican
Riordan.
Seven years down the line many
neighborhood councils have become tools of homeowner groups and chambers of
commerce. Residents, particularly those who rent and are below the medium income
remain disempowered. The abysmal findings of the 2007 CSU Fullerton survey are
even worse in many categories than were those of the June 2004 USC Neighborhood
Participation Project's survey. This means that no progress toward making
neighborhood councils more representative has been made in three years, or
indeed, since their founding in 2000-01.
Perhaps one of the options the review
commission should recommend to the city council is that the neighborhood
councils, which seem to be dying a slow death, should be put out of their
misery. The people of Los Angeles - and Venice - need real power in their
communities, but it will not likely be handed down from above.
Posted: Wed - August 1, 2007 at 11:35 AM