On the consent calendar on Monday’s City Council agenda, there is a rather curious item entitled “Removing Infrastructure Roadblocks”, that, if adopted, is meant to “streamline” the public process and eliminate “barriers” to municipal infrastructure projects.
The premise of this item is that the public process, meaning engagement with the community on public projects that impact their lives and expend their tax dollars, needs to be short circuited so the City can expedite the construction of needed infrastructure.
Supposedly this item was inspired by the “delays” in adopting the Hart Park Improvement Plan and the Fountain Avenue “Re-Design”.
The one thing about infrastructure projects, is that they are all different and often need extensive community input and public hearings simply to ensure that the proposed infrastructure project reflects community needs, is efficient in design and function and is cost effective. There is a huge difference between the impacts of the Fountain Re-Design project and the Hart Park Improvement Plan. You can’t apply a cookie cutter approach to capital projects because they are each unique in their own way.
I do have a bit of experience in dealing with municipal infrastructure projects. I was appointed by my City Council colleagues to lead the Santa Monica Re-Design project in 1999. I was the point person in dealing with community outreach when we created the City’s first parking structure at Flores and Santa Monica in 1995. I was instrumental in creating the Kings Road Park and the fire station at Cynthia and San Vicente. Each one of these projects was unique. More importantly, any time you are investing millions of dollars in a project, it is prudent that you ensure there is an open public process because the public often has insights that CityHall bureaucracy often overlooks. “Streamlining” public process or review by City Commissions seems both short sighted and undemocratic. Historically, public input has always improved proposed City projects, so I don’t understand why the author of this proposal is so dismissive of engaging with the community.
Traditionally, City Council appoints qualified community leaders to our Boards and Commissions because these people bring something to the table by way of professional insights or community experience. It is also a way to bring budding community leaders into the decision-making process so that we have a qualified pool of future City Council candidates. Why would we want to short circuit public deliberation and deny the community the insights of relevant Boards and Commissions?
But hidden in Item 1(F) is a truly toxic proposal that reflects City Hall’s insecurity about the Fountain Re-Design. In section 4 the item proposes an amendment to the City’s Municipal Code so that no approval of any infrastructure project could be reversed unless there was a 4 to 1 majority vote of the City Council.
We are all aware how places like Culver City and South Pasadena removed bike lanes and other traffic “improvements” after they were built because the impacts were so adverse and unanticipated. So, if the critics of the Fountain Re-Design project turn out to be right, and reducing the street to a single lane in each direction causes all sorts of “unforeseen” problems, it will be almost impossible to correct the City Council’s mistake. Apparently, the author of this proposal fears that once the Fountain project is built and the impacts glaringly apparent, the community will demand the project be reversed. This proposal means we can’t change our mind. It is clearly anti-democratic; apparently majority rule is something to be avoided, even when City Hall turns out to be wrong.
This proposal seems a bit ironic as we have been constantly told that 70% of the community supports the Fountain Re-Design. If the project was properly studied and an actual traffic study completed, then the project should have few impacts on the community. But apparently the project’s biggest City Council backers are afraid that the critics may be right.
Forty years ago we incorporated the West Hollywood to give residents more say in their future, not less. This item seems like a real roadblock to local democracy. Community engagement is a value City Hall should treasure, not a nuisance.
I strongly urge you to read Item 1(F) on Monday’s City Council agenda and email City Hall with your thoughts.
Steve Martin
Item F.1 is not on the consent calendar.
To accurately answer the question posed by Mr. Martin (“why the author of this proposal is so dismissive of engaging with the community“) would ironically mean WEHOonline won’t publish it – because an accurate response would include commentary regarding the author’s mental stability.
I ask what/why this agenda item is necessary for the benefit of West Hollywood residents. The idea that our voices need to be silenced is appalling with the guise that we hold up the process. Removing checks and balances is nothing different than what Trump is doing.
It’s Erickson and the other two union Unite Here lackeys. Some of us were smart enough to know NOT to vote for them, that they’d be poison to our city. We were right. Vote. Them. Out!
Nobody likes to be bullied, but it appears that this is what is happening to us ! One council member, John Erickson, has an agenda that he wants to pass through by hook or by crook, and he has two weaker partners doing anything he (and streets for all ) asks them to do. It’s interesting and infuriating at the same time, watching them, bending themselves over backwards, trying to justify their reasons for agreeing with him. Is it because he is receiving so much money from “streets for all? Probably, and that is partially what is motivating him. But… Read more »