The Public Square: December 14 - December 16

A brief look at items on the agenda at City Council, City Council Committees, Neighborhood Councils, and various City Boards and Commissions of interest to Hollywood residents. City Agendas can be found here.

Monday, December 14:

• Public Safety and Personnel Council Committees Joint Meeting (9:45 AM)
  • Item 1 (Council File 09-0600-S142)
    • New CAO report on LAPD hiring and attrition data. This report is brief follow-up/update to the report that was presented to this same joint committee on 12/7/09.  From the report: "The LAPD has expended its entire adopted 2009-10 hiring allocation. Future classes, regardless of class size or class starting date, will increase the Department's existing $80.3 million deficit. All future 2009-10 cadets will become Reserve Fund obligations." This is really bad. The City cannot afford to continue to shovel money at the LAPD in order to maintain deployment levels at 9,963 officers. The numbers just do not work. An entire year's hiring allocation has been expended in 6 months. Not good. A projected $80.3M salary deficit. Even worse. Being forced to pay for new recruits out of the reserve fund. Positively ridiculous. Its unbelievable that the Mayor/Council would even consider hiring more officers with numbers like these staring them in the face. The Mayor/City Council need to come to grips with reality ASAP.
• Hollywood Studio District Neighborhood Council (6:30 PM)
  • Agenda not yet posted. Check here for a copy of the Agenda.
    • Meeting will be held at the Helen Bernstein High School.

Tuesday, December 15:

• City Council (10:00 AM)
• Planning and Land Use Management Council Committee (1:30 PM)
  • Item 2 (Council File 09-2896)
    • Motion instructing City Planning and LADOT to report with recommended changes to the zoning code to increase the number of bicycle parking spaces required for new development. See my previous comments from the 12/07/09 - 12/09/09 Public Square.
• Energy and Environment Council Committee (2:00 PM)
  • Items 8 & 10 (Council Files 08-1967 and 08-1967-S1)
    • Report from the LADWP relative to the establishment of an ratepayer advocate/ombudsmen. This item was continued from the 12/8/09 Energy and Environment Council Committee meeting. See my previous comments from the 12/07/09 - 12/09/09 Public Square.
  • Item 9 (Council File 09-2544)
    • Motion instructing the CAO, CLA, and City Attorney to report on the feasibility of creating an Inspector General position for the LADWP. This item was continued from the 12/8/09 Energy and Environment Council Committee meeting. See my previous comments from the 12/07/09 - 12/09/09 Public Square.
• Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council (7:00 PM)
  • Agenda not yet posted. Check here for a copy of the agenda.

Wednesday, December 16:

• City Council (10:00 AM)
  • Item 27 (Council File 09-2675)
    • Motion recommending that a moratorium be placed on the naming and dedication of all City facilities and an instruction to the CAO and CLA to develop a policy for the naming/dedication of City facilities. My guess is that the City is interested in establishing a policy so it can eventually sell the naming rights to City facilities. One thing that is interesting to note is that this motion was presented by a Councilmember (Tony Cárdenas) who, coincidentally, recently celebrated the renaming of recreation center after his parents.
  • Item 42 (Council File 02-1043)
    • Report from the BOE recommending that the closure of La Punta Drive, westerly of Quebec Drive, be extended for 18 months. The closure of this street was originally requested by Council in July 2002 in response to "serious and continual criminal activity as determined by the Police Department." This is the fifth extension request for the "temporary" closure of this street. Wait, you can close off and gate a public street? For 7 years? I understand the public safety concerns but whatever criminal activity necessitated this street closure occurred years ago. How long can you close off a street for past criminal activity? 10 years? 20? Forever? What is the justification? Per a letter in the report from the LAPD:

      "Since the gate's installation, incidents of graffiti on the guardrail and on the retaining wall, calls for police service to residential or vehicle break-ins, and congregating gang members at the end of the cul-de-sac, have continued to be at a zero percentage rate of occurrence. Prior to the gate's installation in 2001, the police responded to the vicinity on a weekly basis."

      Of course there are no vehicle break-ins or gang members congregating on the street; it's gated off. Ugh. There are plenty of places in LA where gang members hang out and vehicles are broken into, but we can't go gating off public streets to stop a few nuisance calls to the LAPD. Only in the Hollywood Hills does this kind of stuff fly. It must be nice to look down on everyone from up there:

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