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<H1><CITE>BODY IMPOLITIC</CITE></H1><P>
<H2>Is L.A.'s Worst Local Disaster Its Squabbling City<BR>Council?</H2><P>
<H3>By Jill Stewart</H3><P>
<BR><B>
Just past the entrance to Los Angeles City Hall,</B> one steps into a corridor
that turns a tight corner and spills into the grand, marbled, vaulting chamber
that is home to the L.A. City Council. Movie crews often use the chamber as a stand-
in for a cathedral or other stately venue, but seldom as a city hall, which is
an apt coincidence since the city council itself rarely uses the chamber as a
city hall.<P>

The fifteen-member council passes congestion-reduction measures that don't reduce
rush-hour traffic, and anticorruption laws that don't lessen corruption. No
sooner does it proudly enact the "toughest" antigraffiti laws in the country
than a tagger covers a panel inside its front door with ugly whorls of spray
paint -- a mocking reminder of how little of what the council does or says ever
filters into the public or private life of Los Angeles.<P>

The council operates under what political scientists call a "weak mayoral"
system, in which it -- rather than the mayor -- wields vast power over land use,
growth, streets, utilities, businesses, parklands, and blight. There had been
high hopes that the current council would reject the lethargy of the Bradley era
and finally tackle the city's big problems. Instead, its members collect their
annual salaries of $90,000-plus as they squander entire afternoons arguing over
two-bit engineering contracts and gardeners accused of moonlighting. Lately, the
left-leaning body has spent endless hours decrying the "racist"
anti-affirmative-action California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) -- taking two
formal votes against the upcoming ballot proposition. That these votes have no
bearing whatsoever on anything seems to be of as little interest to council
members as the fact that the CCRI apparently enjoys huge support among most of
their constituents.<P>

This tragicomedy repeats itself three days a week, as members meet to shovel
down junk food, chat on the phone, tell uproarious private jokes, and otherwise
insult the handful of well-dressed but baffled citizens who appear at the podium
to speak. In the past year, the council has approved just one law that might
actually improve life in Los Angeles: an antitruancy measure aimed at epidemic
levels of teens in the streets. Some of the council's members are intelligent,
committed public servants. Yet as they sit in a horseshoe at their walnut desks,
speaking in dramatic tones about misspelled street signs and unlicensed
ice-cream vendors, they persistently fail to make meaningful use of the
tremendous power at their disposal. A rundown of the personalities who make up
the body goes a long way to explaining why.<P>

Nominally in charge is <STRONG>John Ferraro</STRONG>, the compromise-minded
council president who among other things controls committee assignments. A
well-liked but ineffectual representative of Studio City/Hollywood Hills/Hancock
Park, Ferraro often seems exasperated by the petty bickering in council
chambers.<P>

As president, Ferraro sits at a center dais several feet above the horseshoe.
Seated around him are:<P>

<STRONG>Jackie Goldberg</STRONG>, highly articulate but too accepting of glowing
press coverage that downplays the economic and social carnage devastating her
Hollywood/Silverlake district. Goldberg wastes her talent on misbegotten 1970s
liberalism, often attacking efforts to privatize bloated city services. Lately,
she's been railing against the Los Angeles Firemen's Credit Union's reluctance
to rename itself the Los Angeles Firefighters' Credit Union, while backing
development of a garish Price Club mall that will obliterate a rare
forty-five-acre expanse of open land in Atwater Village for the sake of a few
hundred minimum-wage jobs.<P>

<STRONG>Mike Hernandez</STRONG>, the most underrated of the members, concerned
with true community problems, such as housing shortages and crime, unfortunately
handicapped by his odd habit of rapidly bouncing in place and talking in spurts.
A traditional liberal, Hernandez grasps economic and historic issues better than
his colleagues, but has yet to instill his clean-it-up attitude among residents
of his own eastside L.A. district, arguably the most neglected, litter-strewn,
graffiti-marred section of town.<P>

<STRONG>Mark Ridley-Thomas</STRONG>, so consumed with getting his name in the
paper and putting down Mayor Richard Riordan that one insider says, "Watching
Mark claw his way up by stepping on Riordan is wearing thin even with Riordan's
enemies." A troubling exemplar of South-Central's new racial politics, he blames
everything from the firing of controversial MTA chief Franklin White to
criticism of LAPD chief Willie Williams on antiblack racism.<P>

<STRONG>Nate Holden</STRONG>, no longer taken seriously by his peers, despite
his recent acquittal on charges of sexual harassment. A veteran populist who
fights for his multi-ethnic district, which includes Koreatown, Crenshaw, and
Mid-Cities, Holden failed both in his long drive to become mayor and in his
efforts to persuade colleagues to place the interests of their individual
fiefdoms second to the city's shared problems.<P>

<STRONG>Rudy Svorinich Jr.</STRONG> and <STRONG>Rita Walters</STRONG>, two
friendly dim bulbs whose presence is largely irrelevant. Svorinich, a former
paint-store owner who represents faraway San Pedro, is a political neophyte
clearly in over his head. Walters, for years an ineffective board member of the
L.A. Unified School District, is now even more overmatched as a South-Central
councilwoman, facing such gritty inner-city problems as wild dogs and nighttime
garbage dumping.<P>

<STRONG>Joel Wachs</STRONG>, a quick-witted officer on a ship of fools, author
of respected rent-control laws and the one-percent arts-endowment tax on big
developers. Wachs, whose district includes the northeastern San Fernando Valley,
caused a ruckus last year when he sent staffers out of city hall to purchase
supplies directly from the Staples store across First Street instead of using
the city's incompetent procurement office.<P>

<STRONG>Ruth Galanter</STRONG>, a Yale-educated Venice liberal who warns of
"more riots" if the anti-affirmative-action initiative passes. The Sixth
District council slot was once a powerful post, but under Galanter -- who has
disappointed the environmentalists who elected her (most recently by giving her
blessing to DreamWorks SKG's huge Playa Vista development) -- it has become
inconsequential.<P>

<STRONG>Mike Feuer</STRONG>, the smart, reed-thin attorney who filled the
Westside/Sherman Oaks seat of departed powerhouse Zev Yaroslavsky. Too new to
have made a real mark, Feuer appears to be joining the council's increasingly
out-of-touch liberal majority, which keeps insisting that both Riordan and his
prospective appointees to such posts as the library and parks commissions
publicly denounce the CCRI, the council's one true passion.<P>

<STRONG>Laura Chick</STRONG>, disliked by some colleagues because she rightly
insists they ought to be doing something about the economic <CITE>and</CITE>
visual decline of neighborhoods. The outspoken west Valley councilwoman authored
the recently passed antitruancy law and is pushing a tax break to lure
businesses to L.A. But she has few allies -- a result, in part, of her habit of
questioning the pet projects of fellow council members, and her penchant for
blasting Riordan even while adopting his ideas.<P>

<STRONG>Marvin Braude</STRONG>, now white-haired and cranky, with an impressive
legislative legacy, from the ban on oil drilling on the beaches to the ban on
smoking in L.A. restaurants. Unlike most council members, the brainy
Westside/southwest Valley representative still appreciates the emperor's lack of
clothes, regularly skewering his colleagues with such remarks as, "Aren't we
supposed to legislate, not obsess over every single little thing that comes our
way?" and, "What is our goal here -- just to embarrass the mayor?"<P>

<STRONG>Hal Bernson</STRONG>, the council's lone white conservative, author of
the strict earthquake standards that probably saved many lives in Northridge.
Bernson is so afraid of his most vicious liberal colleagues that he ducks out
when they schedule votes on the affirmative-action initiative. Though a
pro-growther, he has shown a surprising soft spot for environmental treasures in
his northwest Valley district, such as Stoney Point and Chatsworth Reservoir.<P>

<STRONG>Richard Alatorre</STRONG>, the smartest, most powerful, and slyest of
the lot. He wields major influence as a member of the subway-building
Metropolitan Transportation Authority and as a key supporter of the proposed
Catellus megacomplex in his eastside/downtown district. The only thing holding
Alatorre back from greater things is his street-thug persona. At one closed-door
meeting, he uttered the F-word so many times that Ferraro finally had to
caution him, noting, "Two ladies are present" -- whereupon Alatorre turned to
the women and said, "Could you please leave?" Still, he is widely popular, and at
age 52 is adopting his recently orphaned young niece.<P>

<STRONG>Richard Alarcon</STRONG>, a mirror-loving bureaucrat from the
north-central Valley who struggles to find something valuable to do. He recently
proposed a major commercial development for the abandoned General Motors plant
in Panorama City, to be financed by actor Tom Selleck's family. Given to
pointless dramatics, Alarcon has compared the CCRI to Hitler's <CITE>Mein
Kampf</CITE>.<P>

At bottom, the council's problem is that it cannot see the link between its own
shortcomings and the deepening problems of the city it is supposed to be
governing. While both the municipal infrastructure and public civility founder,
its members continue to operate in blissful disconnect, mired in minor brushfires
and small-time political feuds. In the end, they resemble nothing so much as
members of an L.A. street gang, unconcerned about the decline of the city as long
as they get to be in charge.
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	<HEAD>
	<TITLE>Hacked LAPD</TITLE>
	<META name="description" content="The Los Angeles Police Department is really a
	death squad who's mission it is to discriminate against, beat, rape, murder
	and prosecute innocent citizens, especially niggers.">
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	<H1><CITE>BODY IMPOLITIC</CITE></H1><P>
	<H2>Is L.A.'s Worst Local Disaster Its Squabbling City<BR>Council?</H2><P>
	<H3>By Jill Stewart</H3><P>
	<BR><B>
	Just past the entrance to Los Angeles City Hall,</B> one steps into a corridor
	that turns a tight corner and spills into the grand, marbled, vaulting chamber
	that is home to the L.A. City Council. Movie crews often use the chamber as a stand-
	in for a cathedral or other stately venue, but seldom as a city hall, which is
	an apt coincidence since the city council itself rarely uses the chamber as a
	city hall.<P>

	The fifteen-member council passes congestion-reduction measures that don't reduce
	rush-hour traffic, and anticorruption laws that don't lessen corruption. No
	sooner does it proudly enact the "toughest" antigraffiti laws in the country
	than a tagger covers a panel inside its front door with ugly whorls of spray
	paint -- a mocking reminder of how little of what the council does or says ever
	filters into the public or private life of Los Angeles.<P>

	The council operates under what political scientists call a "weak mayoral"
	system, in which it -- rather than the mayor -- wields vast power over land use,
	growth, streets, utilities, businesses, parklands, and blight. There had been
	high hopes that the current council would reject the lethargy of the Bradley era
	and finally tackle the city's big problems. Instead, its members collect their
	annual salaries of $90,000-plus as they squander entire afternoons arguing over
	two-bit engineering contracts and gardeners accused of moonlighting. Lately, the
	left-leaning body has spent endless hours decrying the "racist"
	anti-affirmative-action California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) -- taking two
	formal votes against the upcoming ballot proposition. That these votes have no
	bearing whatsoever on anything seems to be of as little interest to council
	members as the fact that the CCRI apparently enjoys huge support among most of
	their constituents.<P>

	This tragicomedy repeats itself three days a week, as members meet to shovel
	down junk food, chat on the phone, tell uproarious private jokes, and otherwise
	insult the handful of well-dressed but baffled citizens who appear at the podium
	to speak. In the past year, the council has approved just one law that might
	actually improve life in Los Angeles: an antitruancy measure aimed at epidemic
	levels of teens in the streets. Some of the council's members are intelligent,
	committed public servants. Yet as they sit in a horseshoe at their walnut desks,
	speaking in dramatic tones about misspelled street signs and unlicensed
	ice-cream vendors, they persistently fail to make meaningful use of the
	tremendous power at their disposal. A rundown of the personalities who make up
	the body goes a long way to explaining why.<P>

	Nominally in charge is <STRONG>John Ferraro</STRONG>, the compromise-minded
	council president who among other things controls committee assignments. A
	well-liked but ineffectual representative of Studio City/Hollywood Hills/Hancock
	Park, Ferraro often seems exasperated by the petty bickering in council
	chambers.<P>

	As president, Ferraro sits at a center dais several feet above the horseshoe.
	Seated around him are:<P>

	<STRONG>Jackie Goldberg</STRONG>, highly articulate but too accepting of glowing
	press coverage that downplays the economic and social carnage devastating her
	Hollywood/Silverlake district. Goldberg wastes her talent on misbegotten 1970s
	liberalism, often attacking efforts to privatize bloated city services. Lately,
	she's been railing against the Los Angeles Firemen's Credit Union's reluctance
	to rename itself the Los Angeles Firefighters' Credit Union, while backing
	development of a garish Price Club mall that will obliterate a rare
	forty-five-acre expanse of open land in Atwater Village for the sake of a few
	hundred minimum-wage jobs.<P>

	<STRONG>Mike Hernandez</STRONG>, the most underrated of the members, concerned
	with true community problems, such as housing shortages and crime, unfortunately
	handicapped by his odd habit of rapidly bouncing in place and talking in spurts.
	A traditional liberal, Hernandez grasps economic and historic issues better than
	his colleagues, but has yet to instill his clean-it-up attitude among residents
	of his own eastside L.A. district, arguably the most neglected, litter-strewn,
	graffiti-marred section of town.<P>

	<STRONG>Mark Ridley-Thomas</STRONG>, so consumed with getting his name in the
	paper and putting down Mayor Richard Riordan that one insider says, "Watching
	Mark claw his way up by stepping on Riordan is wearing thin even with Riordan's
	enemies." A troubling exemplar of South-Central's new racial politics, he blames
	everything from the firing of controversial MTA chief Franklin White to
	criticism of LAPD chief Willie Williams on antiblack racism.<P>

	<STRONG>Nate Holden</STRONG>, no longer taken seriously by his peers, despite
	his recent acquittal on charges of sexual harassment. A veteran populist who
	fights for his multi-ethnic district, which includes Koreatown, Crenshaw, and
	Mid-Cities, Holden failed both in his long drive to become mayor and in his
	efforts to persuade colleagues to place the interests of their individual
	fiefdoms second to the city's shared problems.<P>

	<STRONG>Rudy Svorinich Jr.</STRONG> and <STRONG>Rita Walters</STRONG>, two
	friendly dim bulbs whose presence is largely irrelevant. Svorinich, a former
	paint-store owner who represents faraway San Pedro, is a political neophyte
	clearly in over his head. Walters, for years an ineffective board member of the
	L.A. Unified School District, is now even more overmatched as a South-Central
	councilwoman, facing such gritty inner-city problems as wild dogs and nighttime
	garbage dumping.<P>

	<STRONG>Joel Wachs</STRONG>, a quick-witted officer on a ship of fools, author
	of respected rent-control laws and the one-percent arts-endowment tax on big
	developers. Wachs, whose district includes the northeastern San Fernando Valley,
	caused a ruckus last year when he sent staffers out of city hall to purchase
	supplies directly from the Staples store across First Street instead of using
	the city's incompetent procurement office.<P>

	<STRONG>Ruth Galanter</STRONG>, a Yale-educated Venice liberal who warns of
	"more riots" if the anti-affirmative-action initiative passes. The Sixth
	District council slot was once a powerful post, but under Galanter -- who has
	disappointed the environmentalists who elected her (most recently by giving her
	blessing to DreamWorks SKG's huge Playa Vista development) -- it has become
	inconsequential.<P>

	<STRONG>Mike Feuer</STRONG>, the smart, reed-thin attorney who filled the
	Westside/Sherman Oaks seat of departed powerhouse Zev Yaroslavsky. Too new to
	have made a real mark, Feuer appears to be joining the council's increasingly
	out-of-touch liberal majority, which keeps insisting that both Riordan and his
	prospective appointees to such posts as the library and parks commissions
	publicly denounce the CCRI, the council's one true passion.<P>

	<STRONG>Laura Chick</STRONG>, disliked by some colleagues because she rightly
	insists they ought to be doing something about the economic <CITE>and</CITE>
	visual decline of neighborhoods. The outspoken west Valley councilwoman authored
	the recently passed antitruancy law and is pushing a tax break to lure
	businesses to L.A. But she has few allies -- a result, in part, of her habit of
	questioning the pet projects of fellow council members, and her penchant for
	blasting Riordan even while adopting his ideas.<P>

	<STRONG>Marvin Braude</STRONG>, now white-haired and cranky, with an impressive
	legislative legacy, from the ban on oil drilling on the beaches to the ban on
	smoking in L.A. restaurants. Unlike most council members, the brainy
	Westside/southwest Valley representative still appreciates the emperor's lack of
	clothes, regularly skewering his colleagues with such remarks as, "Aren't we
	supposed to legislate, not obsess over every single little thing that comes our
	way?" and, "What is our goal here -- just to embarrass the mayor?"<P>

	<STRONG>Hal Bernson</STRONG>, the council's lone white conservative, author of
	the strict earthquake standards that probably saved many lives in Northridge.
	Bernson is so afraid of his most vicious liberal colleagues that he ducks out
	when they schedule votes on the affirmative-action initiative. Though a
	pro-growther, he has shown a surprising soft spot for environmental treasures in
	his northwest Valley district, such as Stoney Point and Chatsworth Reservoir.<P>

	<STRONG>Richard Alatorre</STRONG>, the smartest, most powerful, and slyest of
	the lot. He wields major influence as a member of the subway-building
	Metropolitan Transportation Authority and as a key supporter of the proposed
	Catellus megacomplex in his eastside/downtown district. The only thing holding
	Alatorre back from greater things is his street-thug persona. At one closed-door
	meeting, he uttered the F-word so many times that Ferraro finally had to
	caution him, noting, "Two ladies are present" -- whereupon Alatorre turned to
	the women and said, "Could you please leave?" Still, he is widely popular, and at
	age 52 is adopting his recently orphaned young niece.<P>

	<STRONG>Richard Alarcon</STRONG>, a mirror-loving bureaucrat from the
	north-central Valley who struggles to find something valuable to do. He recently
	proposed a major commercial development for the abandoned General Motors plant
	in Panorama City, to be financed by actor Tom Selleck's family. Given to
	pointless dramatics, Alarcon has compared the CCRI to Hitler's <CITE>Mein
	Kampf</CITE>.<P>

	At bottom, the council's problem is that it cannot see the link between its own
	shortcomings and the deepening problems of the city it is supposed to be
	governing. While both the municipal infrastructure and public civility founder,
	its members continue to operate in blissful disconnect, mired in minor brushfires
	and small-time political feuds. In the end, they resemble nothing so much as
	members of an L.A. street gang, unconcerned about the decline of the city as long
	as they get to be in charge.
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