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
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