RANDOM LENGTHS NEWS
ROOM FOR DIFFERENCE
Ridley-Thomas Sets
Example, Offers Possibility of Variation in Neighborhood Council
Set-Up
by Robert Johnson
Editor's Note: The
following is Part Two of our series on Charter reform. Part One,
last issue, dealt with institutional voices; the final article,
next issue, will consider voices outside the mainstream.
Not so far from the Harbor Area, in South-Central Los Angeles' 8th City Council District, the standard from which Charter reformers will be developing their proposals for neighborhood council establishment has been taking shape for the past six years. The experimental "Empowerment Congress" in the area has been the brainchild of Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose ideas are being taken very seriously by Charter reformers including San Pedro's Janice Hahn, due to its widely acknowledged success. Hahn, a member of the elected Charter Reform Commission--which will be airing its ideas for the inclusion of a more directly representative level of city government at upcoming meetings in both the 8th District and,on May 6 at Peck Park, in our own 15th--calls the Empowerment Congress "an excellent model".
However, Ridley-Thomas' opinions on the location of these entities within the structure of City Government as a whole have a distinctively conservative air, steadfastly reserving power in the present configuration of the City Council. His concern in allocating power to neighborhood councils is the avoidance of "more cumbersome bureaucratic process"--an echo of the streamlining focus of Mayor Riordan. Further, he offers the provocative suggestion that different approaches to local government may be appropriate for different districts, an idea which appears to be gathering support--an April 13 press release from the joint Charter Reform Commission suggested that it was in line with public opinion as discerned by their recent focus groups.
Ridley-Thomas' political body has been established as an advisory body; a forum for the gathering of ideas and the dissemination of information from the distant City Council on which he sits. His public stance has been that he is comfortable with its status, and his intention has never been that the Congress would have any real decision-making power. Citizen involvement has been disappointing (contrary to the glowing account of the LA Times), according to L.A Watts Times Managing Editor Jarrette Fellows, Jr., though he adds that "what he's doing is great." As an example, then, it does not speak to the potential enthusiasm that might be generated by an actual local decision-making body based on assembly.
Ridley-Thomas' other contribution to the Charter reform debate on neighborhood councils is the call for the creation of a "Department of Neighborhoods," which would work within the context of the City Council, as is, to set up advisory councils in each district according to the varying needs and concerns of the local citizenry. This suggestion, however, initiates a host of questions, not the least of which is: What might be the criteria for one area to be more representatively democratic than another? Ethnicity? Economic advantage/disadvantage? Corporate interests?
The increasing cooperation
between the two Commissions and the findings of recent joint
Commission focus groups appear to be steering reform action away
from the idea of giving power directly to neighborhood councils.
This new direction may be due, in no small measure, to the model
espoused by the Empowerment Congress and the logistical morass
that the idea of locally specific solutions engenders. While still
tauted as an ideal, the practical application of an empowered
neighborhood council system appears to be sliding quietly off
the Commissions' table.