Is Los Angeles The Worst Managed City In America?

The Budget Crisis

California has been dealing with a ballooning budget crisis for the past 8 months, but the latest flash point of major financial crisis is now hovering over the City of Angels. The city faces a budget deficit close to 1 billion, and could be effectively bankrupt by the summer. How is it even possible that one of the biggest and richest city in America be in such state of disarray?

Everybody in Los Angeles is feeling the pinch as city officials are randomly and drastically cutting spending. First cuts were made in education and social services, and it is now the turn of critical sectors of public life and basic safety to fall under the ax of deep budget cuts. The fire department, in an effort to cut labor cost, has been forced by the city to take crews and paramedic units off the job one day a week through fire stations around Los Angeles. And the cuts are likely to get more severe in the very near future.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is increasingly facing the heat even from within the city council. Last week, Villaraigosa was greeted in the city council chamber by booing city workers after he announced an order to eliminate at least 1,000 city jobs. And there will be thousands more to come for next year indicated Villaraigosa.

“I do not see a scenario where there will not be layoff, not only this year but next year as well. We will not be able to meet our financial obligations sometime in the summer if we don’t act now,” the embattled Mayor said in front of the city council last week.

Others within the council, such as council Janice Hahn, do not see eye to eye with the Mayor on the cut of city employees. Hahn was cheered by the crowd present in the chamber when she argued that laying off people at this juncture would only compound the financial crisis by increasing a soaring unemployment- more than 12 percent in LA county- and put the laid off workers at risk of losing their houses.

The Options Considered by The City Council: A Lack of Vision

An option which the city of LA is taking under serious consideration is to privatize numerous city properties and assets such as the convention center, city garages and even the zoo. Many city in America are going through tough times as local tax revenues- mainly property taxes- have plummeted in conjunction with the recession driven by the real estate bubble and the foreclosures epidemic.

But let’s face it, these remedies considered by the city will not be enough to make the city solvent before the summer. Of course the logical approach should be to increase revenues and also raise taxes. Raising taxes is always unpopular with voters, but it could be the only way for Los Angeles to stay solvent and avoid bankruptcy.

A few options should be on the table: The city could levee a temporary tax on gasoline sold in the county; a toll system on the freeway system would also generate substantial revenues. A perfect example of the city lack of vision and gross mismanagement is an ordinance passed by the city council to shut down most of the medicinal marijuana dispensaries, which were one of the only booming businesses of the city. The ludicrous argument used by the city council was to claim that such businesses “attract crime”. This brings us to our last, and perhaps most damaging argument against Mayor Villaraigosa and the city council at large.

The Los Angeles Police Department Is The $1.2 Billion Gorilla Draining The City Coffers

Mayor Villaraigosa does not have his priorities straight. He has no problem making cuts in all the important sectors of public life-including the fire department- but he is absolutely adamant about not cutting the city Gargantuan police force. The LAPD has 15,000 employees and an annual budget of $1.2 billion.

Even though the budget short fall will top $1 Billion this summer, the city spent between fiscal 2008 and 2009 an astronomical $500 Million for the swanky new headquarters of the LAPD. In April 2009, Villaraigosa and former LAPD chief Bratton announced plans to increase the police department by 10,000 officers. Since then chief Bratton left office to start his own private security firm. This is counterproductive at best, in fact more equitable allocation of city resources such as education, public transportation, prevention efforts and affordable housing would lessen the need for more policing by investing instead in sustaining the communities.

“To Protect And Serve”?

Mayor Villaraigosa’s obsession with “security” is unfortunately shared by most American politicians either Democrats (such as Villaraigosa) or Republicans. It is an irrational policy, and further constitutes a disaster in the making in Los Angeles with its massive police department. It is the same grave systemic problem on the federal level with the military spending, for the sake of “keeping America safe” we put an unbearable and unsustainable strain on the federal budget.

Just think about it for a minute: Los Angeles spend on its police force $1.2 Billion a year, and as a nation we will spend $720 Billion on Defense for 2011. The motto of the LAPD is “to protect and serve”; the 15,ooo employees from the police department will not have much to protect when mid-summer comes and the city is bankrupt from spending too much on them.

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