If ever there was a self-serving exercise designed to manipulate the input of the citizens of Los Angeles, it is the Mayor’s Budget Survey.
The process is called “spinning.” It is an overused term; so let’s make up a more worthy description of the Mayor’s ploy. Maybe we can give it a more technical ring – Filtering Adjustment by Regressive Technique, or by the acronym – FART.
This description is meaningful. It translates to taking raw data and fashioning it into an overly simplified conclusion. One thing is certain: the result will stink.
Government by survey is not advisable. Worse yet, it is a charade designed to fool the public into thinking that their feedback is meaningful. It is simply a means of channeling feedback along carefully marked paths to support a preordained conclusion.
Do not get me wrong – feedback is vital – but we should be the ones that control it.
In lieu of participating in the Mayor’s Budget Survey, Neighborhood Councils, Residents Associations, civic groups or individuals should each submit their own street level view of what is needed to fix this city and perhaps even rescue it from its steady demise. That will be my recommendation to Neighborhood Council Valley Village and the Valley Village Homeowners Association.
I recommend you review the preliminary financial report for Fiscal Year 2009 to get a sense of the actual sources and uses of funds. It’s only twenty-one pages.
Also review the 2009-2010 Budget, but take the Mayor’s view with a grain of salt.
It’s obvious that the survey was a conglomeration of items they had already decided to lessen or eliminate. They just wanted to see which item would give them the most grief.
I took the survey and I’d recommend taking it for this reason only.
There is a comment section where you can tell them where you really want to see them cut. That become part of the record and when they hold up the results we can ask them.”
“Where are the comments?” “Where’s the Beef?”
Bankruptcy seems the only logical choice in my opinion. The city employee unions have a stranglehold on this city and our gutless elected officials don’t have the backbone to challenge them. They simply move on to their next elected position or hang around in a circling pattern as a consultant or “part-time” appointee until one comes their way. They request and get their patronage for the next office.
They just leave their mess for the next person to clean it up.
Take the survey and give them hell!
I respect all who take the time to enter comments in the survey. My view is that mass repudiation by the NCs of the survey sends an even stronger message than loading the survey up with comments. If you couple that with each NC sending its own formal statement of opinion instead, that is an even more powerful message.
I appreciate your position and I take comfort in knowing that you see through the Mayor’s veil of deceit.
Scary Paul – we wrote the exact same sentiment a week ago and set it to be published today on Griffith Park Wayist.
It’s amazing to think that even the Downtown-savvy citizens in CD2 fall for this nonsense.
Quite honestly, the voting, TAXPAYING public should feed the Mayor his own biased survey. But since that is illegal… probably… boycotting and developing a survey or checklist that accurately represents the needs of the population will suffice.
Glad to see others are questioning the integrity of the survey process. I hope all NCs repudiate it and do their own.
[…] 6, 2010 by Paul Hatfield I recently called for a boycott of the Mayor’s Budget Survey. In my view, the survey has been nothing more than an empty ploy by the Mayor since its […]
The mayor and the city needs to stop blaming city employees. This survey manipulates the issues. In the last bull market the city had a lot of extra money and spent, spent, spent. Like every responsible homemaker or head of the family there should have been a rainy day fund. Just because you find an extra $100 dollars doesn’t mean that you start living to that standard. That is exactly what the city government and Feds did with all the extra money coming in from the tech and housing booms. No one was responsible and kept spending. If the economy ever comes back up (maybe 10 years, or 15) are we going to spend all that extra money on new projects, hire people, etc… or are we going to put some in a rainy day fund? I know my statement will not solve this current crisis. Just reflecting.
Stop blaming city employees. Many city employees turned down great private sector jobs during the boom when there friends and family were making and SPENDING a lot of money. We stuck it out and had good jobs but people out there had great jobs. Now that the economy has turned, it appears that city employees have great jobs and out there is the rampant unemployment. It does not seem fair to blame the city workers now. IMHO.
As you say, there has been a lot of mismanagement by the city for many years. Regardless of how bad it was, we have a compensation and benefit program that cannot be sustained, unless at great cost to the taxpayers. That is unfair.
The employees will have to contribute more to their benefits if they want to avoid layoffs.