Let's install 'user pays' for council

By Doug McIntyre, Columnist, Los Angeles Daily News
Article Last Updated: 03/01/2008 09:15:00 PM PST

SOMETIMES you just have to take a swing at the pinata even if it's not your pinata.

The Los Angeles City Council is famous for this: whacking away at issues completely outside its jurisdiction. How many nonbinding resolutions have members proposed and passed encouraging "free and fair elections in Guatemala?" How many impassioned speeches have filled the cave of winds as Bill Rosendahl out-Gandhis Eric Garcetti on the Iraq war?

"We, of the city of Los Angeles, are proud to recognize the independence of Kosovo!" And all you want is a new wheel for your blue barrel.

Maybe it's us. We just don't appreciate the council members for the leaders of vision they are - statesmen with their eyes on the big picture. Maybe we really are just a gaggle of philistines trapped by our provincial thinking unable to comprehend the global sweep of Richard Alarc n.

We grumble and pout over petty little complaints. Filling up e-mail inboxes and boring Tom LaBonge with trivial stuff like rotten schools, clogged roads, homicidal maniac gangbangers and cracked sidewalks.

Whack, whack, whack goes the bat to the pinata. Only that's not candy tumbling out: It's your tax dollars.

A casual observer might conclude this is a good thing. If the L.A. City Council has time to weigh in on stuff it has zero control over, L.A. must be running with atomic clock-like precision. Stop the killing in Iraq? We can't stop the killing here. We can't even fix our sidewalks.

Let me repeat that. We can't fix our sidewalks. Dumb slabs of concrete baffle us. While local leaders opine on the great issues of our time, the city, literally, crumbles under our feet.

Los Angeles has 10,750 miles of sidewalks and 15,000 miles of red tape. We're told 4,600 miles of sidewalks are broken. That's the bad news. The good news? The city says it can have the sidewalks fixed in only 83 years. And you thought your kitchen remodel was slow.

When last we left off, Jan Perry had successfully negotiated overnight privileges for the homeless to sleep on the sidewalk in front of your house. Any sidewalk anywhere in the city of L.A. is now available for naps and siestas between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.

"Los Angeles, we'll leave the light on for `ya." Unless we're having rolling blackouts or the DWP contract is up and someone "accidentally" cuts a cable. The homeless not only get to sleep on the sidewalk in front of our homes, but we have to make the bed for them. The homeless apparently like a firm mattress.

So, the latest scheme will charge homeowners 50percent of the cost of sidewalk repairs, with the tab tacked on at escrow. The estimated cost per home? $3,500. This, after we were told we had to "cut" our phone tax to pay for firefighters, raise our trash "fees" to hire cops, and Janice Hahn wants a parcel tax for gangbanger summer camp.

This could get very complicated. If you want cops, you have to pay more for garbage pickup. If you want firefighters, you have to pay more for your phone. If you don't want to be murdered by a stray gang bullet, you have to pay more property taxes.

Let's really go for it. Let's charge for everything. You want traffic to flow? A green light is gonna cost you $15. You say your house is on fire? Water is pretty pricey these days. Fully engulfed? That's $1,500. Just smoldering? A steal at $500.

If Los Angeles is going Dutch, there's no end to the new revenue streams. Have you ever considered how many Angelenos never, ever call, write or contact their City Council member? They're blissfully unaware they even have a City Council member. So, why should the millions who never use the council pay for all those salaries and staffers?

Let's extend the sidewalk-repair plan to the council itself - a "user pays" system. If it's good for sidewalks, it ought to be good for the council itself. Let the gadflies, neighborhood cranks, talk-show hosts and newspaper pundits pony up.

You want to visit the council Web site? Enter your pin number. Want to send Jack Weiss an e-mail? I hope you have a valid credit card. You actually expect Bernard Parks to pick up the phone? You know, he's running for the Board of Supervisors and campaigning is so darned pricey! Every time a City Council door opens, the air-conditioning leaks out. AC doesn't grow on trees.

Why shouldn't "We the People" pay for the City Council? The developers have been doing it for years.

Doug McIntyre hosts the "McIntyre in the Morning" program on Talk Radio 790 KABC, weekdays from 5 to 9 a.m.