Re: “Neighborhood Councils Protest City Council’s Tomorrow Hurry-up Vote on Street Repair Bond”
[Editor’s Note: Jay Handal is a leader of the Neighborhood Councils Budget Advocates group,which scored a temporary victory yesterday. Mr. Handal follows up his group’s plea in yesterday’s edition for a delay on the proposed street repair bond issue by forwarding reporter Rick Orlov’s account from the Daily News of the Los Angeles City Council’s agreement later yesterday to postpone the bon issue discussion for a week.]
Under pressure from complaints they were rushing a $3 billion street repair bond issue to the May 21 ballot, the Los Angeles City Council yesterday pushed off the proposal for a week until a plan on public outreach can be developed.
Councilmen Mitch Englander and Joe Buscaino were asked by Council President Herb Wesson to provide details of the plans to talk with Neighborhood Councils, business groups and others about their proposal, first publicly suggested only last week.
“The council president asked us to put together an outreach plan to be very inclusive with all stakeholders,” Englander said. “Keep in mind, this is just the start. We will have an election where we are asking voters to approve this.”
But two key groups of Neighborhood Council leaders – the Los Angeles Alliance of Neighborhood Councils and the Neighborhood Councils Budget Advocates – said they want 60 days to examine the proposal, which would have the effect of keeping it off this year's ballot.
The Budget Advocates, which represents all 95 Neighborhood Councils, voiced concern with the speed in which the proposal is being considered and how their groups were being bypassed.
“Yet again, the City Council, without any warning or advance notice, introduced a motion on Jan. 4, to place a $3 billion bond measure on the May ballot … thereby again silencing their Neighborhood Councils’ voice in an important matter,” a resolution said.
Englander, however, said he wanted to move ahead with the bond proposal, saying he had been working on it since 2002 when he was a staffer to former Councilman Greig Smith.
“In 2002, we had a backlog of failed streets that would have cost us $1.5 billion,” Englander said. “In 10 years, that cost has doubled, and it grows higher every year.”
However, Councilman Dennis Zine said he will need more information before he votes to place the measure before voters.
“I don't doubt the need for this, but I want to know what this does to the overall debt of the city,” Zine said. “We have all these other bond issues we have passed, and we are asking voters (in March) to approve a sales-tax increase. You have to ask how much can people afford to pay.”
Englander and Buscaino released a series of reports on the proposal at a website, https://sites.google.com/site/lastreetbond/home, which includes a PowerPoint presentation on the need for the program.
It also contained a cost estimate of an average of $34 per year per $100,000 in home value. With the average value of a home around $350,000, city officials said the estimated cost to a homeowner would be $117 a year over the 29-year repayment period.
In a presentation to the City Council, Nazario Sauceda, director of the Bureau of Street Services, said the problem of street repair has been escalating over the years as the city neglected maintenance from the 1950s through the 1990s.
This past year, with a $102 million budget, Sauceda said the department has been able to maintain existing streets but has not had much available to repair the streets considered in “D” and “F” conditions.
Sauceda said the bond issue would provide $300 million a year to repair some 900 miles of streets, with a goal of upgrading the 8,700 miles of streets in the poorest condition. The city has a total of 28,000 miles of streets under its jurisdiction.
Englander said the bond would contain language that the funds cannot be used for any other city service and it also would include an oversight committee to make sure the money is used correctly.
Mr. Handal may be contacted at sgrest@aol.com.
