Over the past six months, a small group of leading academics has been meeting secretly to envision an unbroken Los Angeles government.
The LA Governance Reform Project is an academic supergroup of sorts, with members from institutions across the region. Its mission is complex, but it is also very simple. To research and develop impartial government reform proposals to be presented for consideration by the City Council and the public at large.
The group has started convening After the voice recording leaked Last fall, it vandalized City Hall, exposing Los Angeles City Council members and powerful labor leaders’ attempts to gain power in a decade-long process of rezoning the city. The graphic and racist remarks revealed in the recording ended a longstanding scandal at Los Angeles City Hall and sparked widespread support for government reform, particularly around the city’s zoning process. .
“We are not elected members of parliament. We are not the kind of people who participate in protests. I realized it was an independent analysis,” said Ange-Marie Hancock, former dean of the University of Southern California School of Political Science and International Relations.
Hancock currently heads the Ohio State University Kirwan Institute for Race and Ethnicity and is one of two co-chairs on the project, along with UCLA Ruskin Public Relations Dean Gary Segura.
The most important governance reforms require changes to the city charter, which require a popular vote. The city council is widely expected to put forward a government reform bill, including independent district reorganization, for a 2024 ballot, but the details of its content are still up for debate.
Interim recommendations from the LA Governance Reform Project, released Thursday, include increasing city council quotas to reduce borough size, implementing independent zoning commissions and strengthening the city’s ethics machinery. According to the draft report, the recommendations aim to promote accountability, reduce corruption and foster positive relationships between different groups in diverse cities.
The group plans to solicit input from communities and stakeholders over the summer and then finalize its recommendations to the council in the fall, according to the report.
Under the city’s current zoning system, the City Council has the final say on zoning lines, with elected officials appointing members of the zoning committee, which effectively act as its representatives. The establishment of an independent committee would deprive the Council of its powers.
Special Committee on Urban Governance Reform of the City Council – was created Proposed by City Councilor Nitya Raman last fall and now chaired by City Council Speaker Paul Krekorian, it has spent the last few months hopscotching the city to hold hearings on its own zoning restructuring. He holds meetings and gives public testimony. During these meetings, Krekorian occasionally referred to upcoming academic reports, which he said the committee would consider before making policy recommendations.
The task force will reconvene in August after the council’s recess in July and will decide on reform recommendations to be sent to all councils by Sept. 18, according to Krekorian’s office.
Efforts to mandate independent zoning are also being pursued at the state level, along with many other grassroots reform efforts at the local level.
“Such waves of reform energy do not occur very often. Decades can pass between reform epochs,” the group writes in the report’s foreword. “Los Angeles is in the midst of such a moment right now, and it shouldn’t be taken for granted.”
In addition to Segura and Hancock, the team includes Rafael Sonnenschein (former director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Relations at California State University) and Sarah Sadowani (Pomona College political professor and California Resident Land Reclamation Commissioner). was also a member of the Society), headed by Mr. Boris. Ricks, Director, Southern California Research Center, California State University, Northridge, and Fernando Guerra, Director, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles Research Center.
Their work was supported by the Eli & Edith Broad Foundation, the Weingart Foundation, and the California Community Foundation.
They recommend expanding the council’s membership from 15 to 25, with 21 elected by districts and 4 general members. The number of parliamentary districts has remained unchanged since 1925, and each member of parliament represents about 260,000 people, more than any other city in the country.
The report recommends that the city establish two independent district reform committees of 17 residents each to draw school district lines for the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The draft report strongly recommends that the package of governance reforms be included in the November 2024 ballot, rather than the March primary ballot, to reach more voters.
