Los Angeles Learning From Other’s Mistakes, Successes
By HOWARD FINE
Staff Reporter
As Los Angeles embarks on its experiment in neighborhood councils, it joins a small group of other cities with similar bodies, though never on such a large scale.
In drawing up plans for neighborhood councils, L.A. city officials paid frequent visits to places like New York, St. Paul, Minn., and Portland, Ore., all of which have had neighborhood groups in place for decades.
For the most part, these groups have succeeded in bringing government closer to the people. But they’ve had their share of problems, from financial mismanagement to inadequate staffing.
Take New York, the only city comparable in size to L.A. with a formalized structure of neighborhood groups. These 59 community boards, as they are called, were first established in the 1960s under Mayor John Lindsay. But unlike neighborhood councils in L.A., the community boards are really creatures of the borough leadership. Their members are appointed by borough presidents and function more like a council district office than a truly representative neighborhood group, according to Ken Thomson, director of the Center for Strong Democracy in Cambridge, Mass., who has studied neighborhood groups.
Even so, the community boards manage to serve as “fairly effective first rungs of government for people in neighborhoods,” said Bill Chong, vice president of programs for the Citizens Committee for New York City, a community service umbrella organization. He said the community boards have sped up the beautification of city blocks and helped stop drug dealing.
Chong said the biggest problem is that the community boards are understaffed. “The volume of work they receive is way too much for the two or three staff people they have,” he said.
Perhaps a closer model for L.A. is the city of St. Paul. Although it only has 300,000 people, St. Paul has 17 district councils, each representing about 25,000 people, similar in size to the smaller neighborhood councils in L.A.
A major focus of these district councils since their inception in 1975 has been land use and development. When a developer comes to the city with a project, they are almost always advised to take it first to the district council. While it’s an extra step, Thomson says the process is actually more predictable in St. Paul than in neighboring Minneapolis.
“Developers tell us they like to work in St. Paul because they know the structure,” he said.
More recently, district councils have branched out and run recycling programs, nursing programs for the elderly and other community service initiatives.
(Some of the district councils in St. Paul have applied for non-profit status, giving them the ability to go out and seek additional grant money from private foundations.)
But the district councils have had their share of problems, most notably in managing their own fiscal affairs.
“These groups are composed primarily of volunteers from the community, not professionals,” said Larry Soderholm, the city’s planning administrator. “If they don’t have an accountant on board, they may not realize they have to pay withholding tax or set aside money for other purposes. If you don’t pay withholding tax for three years, that can blow quite a hole in your budget.”
Soderholm said there’s never been any criminal activity like embezzlement of funds, just “fiscal naivet & #233;.”
