{"id":304791,"date":"2010-02-10T17:25:10","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T22:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"tag:ronkayela.com,2010:\/\/1.923"},"modified":"2010-02-10T19:36:44","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T00:36:44","slug":"noisy-messy-and-complicated-democracy-in-la-is-an-idea-whose-time-has-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/304791","title":{"rendered":"Noisy, Messy and Complicated — Democracy in LA Is an Idea Whose Time Has Come"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Editor’s Note: This article was submitted to the LA Times Opinion Page Editor a week ago but still has not gotten a response rejecting or accepting it, so it’s yours for free)<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

To paraphrase President Obama in his State of the
\nUnion
\nspeech, democracy in a city of four million people can be noisy and
\nmessy and
\ncomplicated. <\/p>\n

That was evident this (last) week in Los
\n Angeles in a way that we have rarely seen as people
\nfrom all over the city, from all walks of life, paraded before the City
\nCouncil
\nto plead their case for their jobs, for funding for their causes, for
\nunderstanding of their needs.<\/p>\n

It was noisy and messy and surely the financial and
\nspiritual crisis facing the city is complicated. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the earnestness and passion of the disabled, of
\nneighborhood
\nactivists, of environmentalists, of city workers, of lovers of art and
\nculture,
\nof youth, of the LGBT community and so many others was a demonstration
\nof the
\nunderlying vitality of the people and their yearning for a city that
\nworks for
\nthem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their energy is the fertile ground on which great cities
\ngrow. It is the
\ngrassroots of democracy, a complex web of often competing needs, values
\nand
\ninterests that, if nurtured, can bloom into a community enriched by
\ntheir
\ndiversity. <\/span><\/p>\n

It’s the nurturing that’s the problem in <\/span>Los
\n Angeles<\/span> and always has been.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a city that throughout its history has been run from
\nthe top
\ndown by elites that have looked down at those below and patronizingly
\ndecided
\nwhat was best for them and, of course, for themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Times in its editorial<\/a> on the outcry of so many people
\nbefore the
\nCouncil expressed this noblesse oblige <\/i>attitude
\nby chiding them for thinking only of themselves when the city is in dire
\n straits,
\nhaving started the “<\/span>new fiscal year — irresponsibly and, more to
\n the
\npoint, illegally — in debt and insolvent.”<\/p>\n

The editorial suggests that a “successful” Los
\n Angeles rely on private fund-raising and volunteerism
\nas a “model for providing quality-of-life programs instead of support
\nfrom the
\ncity.<\/p>\n

With that, the Times gives a blanket endorsement to
\n the
\nproposal to restructure city government, eliminate thousands of city
\nworkers
\nwho provide services to the public and drastically reduce funding for
\nprograms
\nlike Neighborhood Councils, human services and arts and culture.<\/p>\n

The irony is that most of the money for these
\nefforts does
\ncome from donations and most of the work is done by thousands or
\nordinary
\npeople volunteering endless hours in the service of others and their
\ncommunities.<\/p>\n

City government should be in a support role for
\nthese
\nefforts but more often than not, it is the obstacle in their way.<\/p>\n

Instead of bringing this vast army of volunteers to
\n the
\ntable of power and working with them to integrate their efforts with
\navailable
\nresources, the city has brushed them off with little more than lip
\nservice.<\/p>\n

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana in his
\nmeticulously detailed reports to the Council and mayor demonstrated that
\noverspending and poor management over many years has brought the city to
\n the
\nbrink of bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

In his public comments to the Council, he warned
\nthat his
\nthree-year plan to slash spending, reorganize the bureaucracy and sell
\nvaluable city assets is just the beginning.<\/p>\n

The impact of the recession and the city’s
\nfinancial crisis
\nis likely to last seven to 10 years, he said, and more cuts in funding
\nand more
\njob eliminations are inevitable.<\/p>\n

There is no way out of this crisis without the good
\n will of
\nthe people and that is what is missing. <\/p>\n

The people have lost confidence in City Hall. The
\nhundreds
\nof people who have gone to City Hall to beg for mercy for their causes
\nare fed
\nup with begging for crumbs. They are demanding a full role in developing
\n the
\npolicies and implementing the programs they care so passionately about.<\/p>\n

It’s a noisy, messy and complicated way to do
\nbusiness. It’s
\ncalled democracy, an idea that is alien to the civic and political
\nculture of Los
\n Angeles. But it’s an idea whose time has come. <\/p>\n

And it’s the only way out of this crisis, the only
\nway the
\ncity can pull together and flourish for years to come.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Editor’s Note: This article was submitted to the LA Times Opinion Page Editor a week ago but still has not gotten a response rejecting or accepting it, so it’s yours for free) To paraphrase President Obama in his State of the Union speech, democracy in a city of four million people can be noisy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}