Unified Charter Would Be a New Lease on Life in L. A.

The unified charter for Los Angeles that emerged from the efforts of the elected and appointed charter reform commissions will do what both commissions set out to do: move Los Angeles into the 21st century with a more streamlined, responsive city government. The unified charter deserves voter support in the June election for several reasons: * It is a vast improvement over our current 75-year-old bloated and inconsistent charter. The city of Los Angeles has balanced too long on the edge of dysfunction. To preserve the current charter would be to continue this dangerous brinkmanship into the next millennium.

* The unified charter offers a flexibility that is essential to effective government. The existing charter is a straitjacket, an attempt to micromanage the governmental process down to the subatomic level. The unified charter places the responsibility for managing the details of government where it belongs, with the mayor and the City Council. The city would no longer be locked into detailed procedures and rules that may have been suitable in 1924 but are wrong for today.

* The unified charter fosters accountability within a system of checks and balances. In the current charter, responsibility for big decisions lies everywhere and nowhere. Instead of delineating clear lines of authority, in many cases the old charter offers an impressionist’s rendering of who is supposed to do what. The unified charter will change that, clarifying lines of responsibility and accountability. It lodges new management authority with the mayor and gives him (or her) the right to remove department heads and city commissioners. At the same time, it gives the City Council a check over that authority by empowering it to overturn the removal of a department head by a two-thirds vote and to reverse decisions made by city commissions.

* The unified charter will foster citizen participation. For the first time in Los Angeles history, there will be a system of neighborhood councils to provide a clear and direct conduit for the views of city residents. It also will create area planning commissions composed of people who are residents of the areas directly affected by planning decisions.

* The unified charter strikes exactly the right balance in addressing law enforcement, an area of special interest to me. On the one hand, it preserves intact the reforms proposed by the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, commonly known as the Christopher Commission, and adopted by the voters in 1992 and 1995. The two charter reform commissions resisted pressure from special interest groups to modify the composition of the LAPD’s Board of Rights, which adjudicates complaints of police misconduct. The unified charter also preserves the authority of a board of rights to consider past behavior of officers under investigation for misconduct. At the same time, it clarifies critical aspects of the 1991 independent commission report, ensuring that the Police Department’s inspector general will report directly to the Police Commission and will have appropriate power to launch investigations when they are required.

* Finally, the June ballot will give the voters a choice on how large the City Council should be. The main charter proposal retains the current 15 members, so a vote for that proposal means there will be no change in the size of the City Council. However, two additional measures will be on the ballot to provide options to increase the council to either 21 or 25 members. In terms of population, our council districts are the largest in the nation. Residents would be much better served, and their voices more clearly heard, if the council was increased to 21 or 25 members.

Taken collectively, the provisions of the unified charter represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make Los Angeles government more efficient, more responsive and more effective. While some people may have reservations about one or another part of the document, it is, on the whole, a chance to make a vast improvement in the governing process. The long, hard work of the two commissions and their talented chairmen has made available a handsome dividend. The people of Los Angeles are in a position to collect it with their votes in June.