Entry #8 of Politics in My City - L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti on Why He Made Tom Sherak Film Czar

For City Film Czar, Eric Garcetti selected Tom Sherak, who will make only $1 a year in salary.  His appointment comes as L.A. is experiencing "an exodus of film and TV production to other states and countries offering tax credits and rebates".

Here is the most interesting fact from today's article:

"California allocates $100 million annually for its film and TV credit program, much less than what New York and others offer. According to FilmL.A., which tracks local filming, there were 25,534 permitted production days in fiscal 2013, compared with 47,669 in 1997."

Expect Eric Garcetti to pass a proposed measure to waive fees for TV pilots and films.

Entry #7 of Politics in My City - How the Government Shutdown is Affecting Southern California

Today's article sheds light on how the current Federal Govt. shutdown is impacting Los Angeles.  The Justice Department has said its prosecutors would attempt to cancel "non-critical civil matters and proceed with essential criminal matters only while the government remains shuttered".

Here are some additional points that stood out to me:

• According to the state Employment Development Department, Los Angeles County was home to about 48,100 federal workers in 2012.

• Los Angeles County CEO Bill Fujioka said the county was operating normally, noting that the "federal (government) shutdown will not have significant fiscal or program impact on the county."

• Metro officials said that since the shutdown means mass furloughs in the Federal Transit Administration, a protracted stalemate in Washington could mean delays in processing grant applications for local rail projects.

Here is the article that I've referenced today.
http://www.kcet.org/news/stories/how-the-government-shutdown-is-affecting-southern-california.html

Entry #6 of Politics in My City - Unaccounted Spending at DWP

As of today it remains a mystery to know how the L.A. Department of Water and Power spent $40 million, which it claims to have spent on two labor-management training institutes.

That public money go unaccounted for is bad enough.  Making this an especially disconcerting ordeal is the fact that this situation can be legally protected from being made public.

As it turns out, the training institutes are governed equally by the DWP and by IBEW Local 18, the DWP union. Each side has equal representation on the two governing boards.  To make the records public, the DWP would have to persuade the union to agree to go along with that.  Without both sides agreeing to make the spending transparent, the decision to go public would end in a deadlock.

The article that is referenced today is the following:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2013/10/eric_garcetti_joint_training_i.php

Entry #5 of Politics in My City - L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti's First 100 Days Portend a Shift in Governing

Eric Garcetti is a mayor with a broad range of previous experience.  He is an Oxford scholar with a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, he was an activist working on issues of equality and civil rights” in ACT UP/New York and is currently serving the country during his stint as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve Information Dominance Corps working on naval intelligence.  As today's article mentions, "Philosophically and concretely, Garcetti represents a new direction, a gusto for rethinking what is—with a fidelity and deep sense of duty to the nobility of public service."

Read more here:
http://www.frontiersla.com/News/Context/Story.aspx?ID=2050316

Entry #4 of Politics in My City: First phase of Bradley terminal opens at LAX

With the $1.9 billion renovation of the first phase of the Tom Bradley terminal at LAX now completed, I wonder whether this investment will actually prove to be profitable for the City of Los Angeles in the long run.  As Gina Marie Lindsey, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, has said, "the sophistication infused into the new terminal would give LAX an edge since airlines that fly long distances are selective about where they stop".  How does one go about measuring whether the venture is profitable or not?

These thoughts are triggered by the following article:
http://wavenewspapers.com/news/local/culver_city_edition/article_078b71c6-26f7-11e3-a429-001a4bcf6878.html

Entry #3 of Politics in My City: Garcetti Attempting to Modernize L.A.'s City Government

L.A. Mayor is running a top-to-bottom assessment of all agency heads working for the City, a 50,000-person bureaucracy that essentially controls all of the City's public services, from the water supply and power grid to the police and fire emergency dispatch system.  As he interviewed department heads, those who make the cut will be forced to have their performance evaluated by a metric-based system that is meant to provide transparency of the City's efficiency.  I'm skeptical about how accurate such metrics will be, as government has a tendency to "cook" the stats in their favor.  But I am fascinated by the fact that Eric Garcetti is going with this approach, since, as this article mentions, it is could be somewhat of a political gamble.  

What I would like to research going forward:
I am interested in learning more about the 2001 legislation that is said to have created the groundwork for a more powerful mayoral position in Los Angeles.  Historically, L.A.'s powerful 15-member City Council can limit the mayor's will, while a web of commissions can also slow things down.

I will be following closely the opening of the City's "transparent" site during the week of October 8th.  

I will also take some time looking at similar sites for the cities of Boston (http://www.cityofboston.gov/bar/scorecard/reader.html) and Minneapolis (http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/results/index.htm).

My thoughts above are in response to the following article in today's L.A. Times:
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-0926-garcetti-agenda-20130926,0,1017431.story

Entry #2 of Politics in My City: Department of Neighborhood Empowerment

Today, there are 95 Neighborhood Councils in neighborhoods across Los Angeles, which are organized by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.  Here is their mission:

The mission of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment is to promote increased citizen participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs through the creation of a citywide system of Neighborhood Councils. Our vision is that by 2020, the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment will have fostered a robust and empowered Neighbohood Council System that enables meaningful civic participation for all Angelenos, and that serves as an effective voice for improving governmnet responsiveness to local communities.

In looking at the following website, I was unable to find a council that may address belongs to.

http://empowerla.org/about-us/