Valley community leaders and secessionists have given an almost unanimous thumbs-down to a draft plan for a system of neighborhood councils, part of a charter reform effort aimed at offering more local control that some hoped would take the steam out of the Valley secession movement. The plan, released less than a month ago by the Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), offers few specifics on what councils will look like or how they will be organized. So far, it has only fueled mistrust and irritated secession leaders. “Neighborhood councils were supposed to be the way to head off secession,” said Richard Close, chair of Valley VOTE, the organization pushing for a secession study. “Just the opposite is happening by having such a loose framework. It’s going to make sure very few of these happen and, more likely, secession will be the only way for communities to have local control.” Rosalind Stewart, general manager of DONE, said the proposed neighborhood councils were never intended to address the concerns of secessionists. Instead, Stewart said, the citywide plan is meant to bring community groups together to discuss problems. But critics say the draft plan is so vague it could be difficult for neighborhood councils to have any meaningful influence. The vagueness also means the City Council will be hard-pressed to approve a neighborhood council plan by June 2001, critics say. The one specific listed in the draft plan a call for each council to represent about 25,000 residents has been rejected by neighborhood and secession activists as too small a number. They say 160-plus councils are too many for the city to handle and would render each group virtually powerless. The Studio City Residents Association, which had been optimistic about the draft plan before it was released, has begun lobbying City Council members because it opposes the proposed size of the neighborhood councils. “To start too big puts charter reform at risk,” said Tony Lucente, president of the Studio City Residents Association. Close and others said the groups should be developed around existing communities, regardless of size one council for Sherman Oaks, one for Studio City and so on. And he believes larger communities should be able to decide if they want more than one council. And that’s not the only problem. Chick said she is concerned about how DONE may use public feedback from the draft in adopting a final proposal. She also worries about how neighborhood councils will be certified and whether less organized neighborhoods will be given help in forming their councils. She also said DONE is considering setting the neighborhood councils up as nonprofit organizations, which would force groups to compete for limited resources. Stewart stressed that the released plan is only a draft and the size of the councils may change after public hearings. So far, she said, reviews have been mixed. “That’s the purpose of our hearings, to hear from the public,” Stewart said. She further said that DONE believes the small-size model would be workable. The draft plan’s vague wording and call for small councils has secessionists claiming City Council members are purposely setting the proposal up for failure to avoid diluting their own or the mayor’s power.
