|
Surprise!
Surprise! DONE
GM Sarno Blindsides NCs
(Originally published in City Watch - free online publication
(CityWatchLA.com)
By Greg
Nelson
Last Thursday night the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners elected a new
president and promised that it would involve Neighborhood Councils in its
future actions. “We will not operate in a vacuum,” were the
exact words.
Apparently, the Interim General Manager of the Department of Neighborhood
Empowerment, Lisa Sarno, wasn’t listening or didn’t agree with the
concept.
At this same
time, Sarno had sent a 15-page report to the City Council in which she
listed a bushel of misbehaviors by Neighborhood Council members, and
argued to be given new powers to resolve them in the future.
Astonishingly, she never mentioned any of this in her report to the
commission that night. Most astonishing: Sarno never said a word about the
release of her pending shocker while addressing a room full of
Neighborhood Council leaders at Saturday’s Citywide Alliance of
Neighborhood Councils. If the purpose of this effort, as stated in
the report, is to help Neighborhood Councils, you would think at the least
a heads-up was in order. Or if the crisis is as dire as implied,
even urge them to attend the meeting and help save the LA NC System.
To the surprise of nearly everyone, Sarno and two BONC commissioners
showed up yesterday at the Public Safety Committee armed with the
report and the horror stories. The committee took no action, but
sent DONE and other city agencies back to their offices to propose
specific changes the laws that would give the general manager some kind of
new power to step in and remove board members or in some other way punish
them or their Neighborhood Council.
If the department wanted to ensure that nobody knew about this report and
the committee meeting, they couldn’t have done a better job. You
would have had to be a subscriber to the Public Safety Committee agendas,
and then been able to interpret what the agenda item meant to know that it
was important enough to take time off work to attend the meeting.
It is impossible to determine the magnitude of the problem cited in the
report because many of the incidents could have come from one Neighborhood
Council during a short period of time quite a while ago. I was
familiar with enough of the incidents to know that many of them occurred
years ago, and have long since been resolved. But the report
doesn’t give us that information. Disturbingly, the report paints
Neighborhood Councils as lawless, unethical, uncivilized, and dangerous
people.
Some of the incidents are comical: “stakeholders express frustration
with the board, claiming that they’re ignored when they submit their
issues.” Imagine if someone had a list of how many times the City
Council has been guilty of that crime.
It is important to remember that homeowner associations, chambers of
commerce, service clubs, and the like are pretty much comprised of people
who share common values, backgrounds, and goals.
On the other hand, Neighborhood Councils are designed to bring together
the diversity of each neighborhood, learn how to get along with the
assistance of the city.
It is naïve to believe that all these people of different religions,
cultural backgrounds, political parties, ages, and experiences would
automatically join hands and work together harmoniously. What is
missing from this report is what attempts the city made to help the
Neighborhood Councils with each problem. The city needs to first
assess whether or not it has done its fair share.
Instead, the report is a terribly unfair depiction of Neighborhood Council
life, making it seem like the Wild West where lawlessness abounds, and the
only ones who can make the Neighborhood Councils credible and productive
are the good folks at City Hall … if only they had the power to do so.
To put this report in perspective, imagine if someone collected all the
charges made against City Council members, gathered from newspaper
articles, blogs, and public comment time, and released them publicly
without giving the Council members a chance to respond.
Last week, a stakeholder was removed from a City Council meeting in
handcuffs, for disrupting the meeting. (I assume a report will follow
shortly, listing the disruptions, Brown Act, ethics and civility
complaints filed or reported against the City Council.)
If the truth were known, there have been very few incidents that involve
public safety among Neighborhood Councils.
Whether the problem is one of public safety, ethics, or conflicts of
interest, there are currently ways to deal with all of these. What
the city needs to do first is to ensure that the Neighborhood Councils
know how to deal with each one …. unless, of course, as we keep
suggesting, it is setting up the Neighborhood Councils to fail.
One last thought: why isn’t this a matter better suited for the 912
Commission? An impartial panel, able to extricate the truth from the
less-than-objective quadrangle quagmire that is DONE, Jack Weiss’
anti-NC crusade, NC boards and all of the aggrieved.
(Click here for
Ms. Sarno's letter to the city)
Only after exhaustive efforts have been made should we be talking about
granting new powers to a single person, along with all the due process
concerns, to step in and make things right.(Greg Nelson participated
in the birth and development of the LA Neighborhood Council system and
most recently served as the General Manager of the Department of
Neighborhood Empowerment. Nelson now provides news and issues analysis to
CityWatch.) |