Charter Panel Holds First Public Meeting

The Charter Reform Commission held its first public meeting Wednesday, and residents were ready with suggestions on how the 72-year-old charter should be revised.

Homeowner groups’ representatives, business leaders and academics urged the panel to consider expanding the size of the City Council and creating neighborhood councils to give citizens a larger voice in local government decisions.

“We want to have a great city that has a small town feel to it,” said Warren Campbell, a Cal State Northridge professor.

The commission, a 21-member panel appointed by the City Council, the city controller and the city attorney, was formed in September to overhaul the charter that acts as the city’s constitution.

Headed by executive director Raphael Sonenshein, the panel has been meeting since November, but has mostly concentrated on organizational matters such as hiring staff and collecting historical information.

This first meeting to get public input was held at Valley College in Van Nuys; it drew about 50 people. Most who testified were area homeowners and activists who had specific ideas on how to improve local government.

Richard Close, the president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., suggested that the size of the 15-member City Council be doubled, and he proposed neighborhood councils with the power to decide local matters.

“Right now people in this room can go down to City Hall,” said Close, “and all they get is one minute to speak to the council while the members eat their lunch.”

Close said that giving neighborhoods more of a say in government was key to the city’s future.

The proposal to create neighborhood councils has been discussed before. It would involve electing local representatives who could decide local planning and neighborhood improvement projects. It remained unclear where the lines of authority would be drawn between the neighborhood councils and City Council.

Expansion of the City Council has been proposed in the past. Each council member represents about 230,000 people..

The history of charter reform is marked by many failed attempts to redesign the power structure that distributes authority among the council, mayor and about 40 commissions.

The current reform movement has been fueled by threats of a San Fernando Valley secession and has been caught in a power struggle between the council, which voted to create the panel, and Mayor Richard Riordan, who has criticized the panel, saying that it is unlikely to create true reform.

Riordan has led and financed a petition campaign to create a 15-member elected charter reform panel with the power to put its reform recommendations directly on the ballot.

Both panels will work over the next two years to rewrite the governing charter. Voters must approve of any changes to the charter.