Neighborhood Councils Brainstorm With L.A. Councilman Mitch Englander

Within minutes of being introduced Thursday night to the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils, District 12 City Councilman Mitch Englander shucked his suit jacket to field questions thrown at him from more than 40 neighborhood council members.

It was a good-humored and informative—some might even call it policy-wonky—brainstorming session in a meeting room at Sherman Oaks Hospital, during which Englander indicated where he was leaning on several issues. Those issues included the proposed Administrative Code Enforcement (ACE) program, neighborhood council funding, the city budget, school truancy fines, and sidewalk and street repairs.

But he began by praising the neighborhood councils, which number 14 in his district, the most of any council district, and which he said played a crucial role in elections by providing candidate interviews and forums.

“The neighborhood council members were the first ones I listed on my endorsements,” he said. “The elected officials were at the bottom.”

It’s not surprising Englander would have mentioned his election, since he’s been in office only since July 1 following a March 8 win with 58 percent of the vote. On Thursday evening, he ran through some of his accomplishments during his first 100 days in office, contained in an online report at cd12.lacity.org, which generated outbursts of applause.

Following remarks, he held a 45-minute question-and-answer period, which  included the following issues:

Sidewalk repairs: Some City Council members argue that a proposal to have property owners take over sidewalk maintenance because of lack of city funds is simply a return to how it was done prior to 1911. Englander said he disagrees and believes the discussion should center on defining what core services the city should provide, such as fire and police for public safety and public works, which would include sidewalks and trees.

He also took issue with the idea of imposing sidewalk maintenance fees when property changes hands, or point of sale, which he said “doesn’t make sense” in a down economy when homes in a short sale would be hit with additional costs amounting to thousands of dollars.

ACE: This proposed program would levy administrative fines against offending property owners rather than pursuing court filings. Parts of it make sense, Englander said, but citing and fining for building code violations do not.

Funding for neighborhood councils: A question about raising or preserving the neighborhood council budgets, around $40,000 for each, prompted Englander to list past and current city deficits totaling nearly $1 billion, plus $750 million in refunds due if a class-action lawsuit over telephone user taxes is successful.

He said the council’s budget-struggle approaches include “shared sacrifices” under which all city services suffer equal cut backs, or “continuous calibration,” month-by-month adjustments to the budget as city assets are sold to provide revenue. Englander said he believes a priority-based budget is the right approach and added that his office would help fund projects that neighborhood councils help pay from their own budgets.

School truancy fines: The Los Angeles Unified School District and the city are re-examining the policy of ticketing students who are late or truant from school. Englander said kids receiving tickets may fear to report the ticket to their parents and the unpaid fine could generate a bench warrant for arrest.

“It’s causing all sorts of problems,” Englander said. “The system doesn’t work. It’s punitive and we’re not teaching kids anything.”

Street repairs: “The condition of our streets has gotten horrific,” Englander said, before launching into an enthusiastic, detailed overview of the city’s arcane regulations regarding who can dig up streets—currently 200 entities such as phone companies, the city’s Department of Water and Power, cable companies and others—and how the city fails to kept track of them or do inspections when work is completed. 

The solution he’s working on: Failure to notify the city’s contract administration officials to inspect repairs would prompt automatic curb-to-curb reconstruction.