Twelfth in a series
[img]989|left|Denny Zane||no_popup[/img][Editor’s Note: For more than 30 years, Denny Zane, 63-year-old visionary-philosopher-politician-arch activist in Santa Monica, has been in the forefront of shaping and influencing public policy and environment-related projects. This is a first-person account of that journey. Summing up the way he has morphed through a series of (always-linked) career changes, he said: “I got into the habit of making a living by pursuing my personal political priorities.” Now concerned with mass transportation, accent on light rail, his address is movela.com]
Re “We Hardly Knew Each Other”
During the years Antonio Villaraigosa and I worked together on transportation and environmental projects, he was always in the role of a public official.
His role, his mission always was to articulate a vision, whether it be on a Metro RTD board of directors, in the state legislature, the city of Los Angeles or the L.A. City Council.
My role has always been as a community organizer, bringing coalitions and constituencies to the arena where, it turns out, he was providing leadership.
The story here is about how democracy works.
What I articulated when we began to work on the transit coalition of today and people would say, “Antonio said he was going to do this transit stuff, and he hasn’t done it.” I would say, “Mayors aren’t kings. They don’t wave wands, particularly in Los Angeles. The most effective public officials became that way because they have constituency allies who mobilize.”
Before Measure R was passed two years ago last month, I told people complaining about Antonio not doing enough that the problem is, constituencies have not mobilized around this issue. Here is why we need to work together. If we want this to happen, I said, we had an opportunity. We should take advantage of Antonio’s willingness to provide leadership at the regional level.
He already has indicated that in his positions as Mayor and with the Metro Board, he will be a champion of these issues. He will help mobilize majorities on those bodies, and he will stand up publicly.
But he can’t do that on his own. We need to have a constituency coalition.
That was the argument I made when we began to gather business community leaders, the Chamber of Commerce, the L.A. Business Council, the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., the Federation of Labor and others in the labor movement, the IBEW, ironworkers, steelworkers, sheet metal workers, the environmental community, the American Lung Assn., Breathe L.A., the Coalition for Clean Air, Calpers, Transit Advocates and groups like that.
We convened a constituency coalition for what has to be a watershed moment.
At the office of Dan Rosenfeld — now an aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas — while he was still doing development with Urban Partners in the Bradbury Building, we called 35 organizations, about one-third business, one-third labor and one-third environment.
Dan’s meeting room had seating for about 24. Thirty-four organizations show up, almost 40 people.
We are like “My God. This really has resonance.”
(To be continued)
