According to the law, the city of Los Angeles must balance its budget each year. But mayor Karen Bass' current This represents a dystopian nightmare for our streets, sidewalks and public transport system. The city should correct this error during its evaluation The proposed budget In the coming weeks.
Angelenos already lives with streets deteriorating faster than we can repair them, the sidewalks break faster than we can repair them and the lampposts which become faster than we can replace them. A recent audit Exhibited the total failure of the city to make a zero vision, after having promised 10 years ago to lower the deaths of traffic. These things happen under the existing The exercise budget, which has already made draconian cuts across the city. With other cuts, expect an even worse service for essential elements of everyday.
The budget proposed by the mayor would lead to a reduction of a third of the staff of the Los Angeles Ministry of Transport in only two years, and roughly the same at the Bureau of Street Services. If the budget is adopted, the Bureau of Street Lighting believes that a broken reverber would be fixed two years After being reported.
Bass's proposal would add money to the Los Angeles police service and the Los Angeles fire service, would maintain the initiative of the homeless mayor inside the safe (although he failed A recent audit), and has considerably reduced investments in transport, street services, parks, animal shelters, street lighting and even the zoo.
A budget is a reflection of values. Does the mayor reflect the values of Angelenos? Do we want to live in a city where we cannot walk safely to the park because the sidewalks are too broken and the lampposts are turned off, and the hours of the park have been reduced due to endowment cuts?
The proposed cuts are also short -sighted, targeting programs that generate more income than they cost or initiatives that save money from the city. For example, in its first full month, cameras rose to the front of metro buses wrote nearly 10,000 quotes to drivers Gare illegally in the bus tracks. This has not simply accelerated the service for public transport riders and renders our streets safer – it has also generated millions of dollars for the city.
Two years ago, the law of the state authorized the city to set up gear cameras – and forced the income generated by the cameras to repair the streets along the corridors. Typical fashionable from Los Angeles, a year and a half later, we still haven't implemented the cameras (although we know how to do so by the end of the year). This means that we have not yet received any of the expected income or harvested the program security services.
From now on, the mayor's budget proposes to save a few million dollars by eliminating 58% of the arbitration staff of the quotation of the city ministry of transport – the staff who examine the evidence of the cameras and actually issues the tickets. This would put us in a situation in which we could not introduce the speed cameras at all and we may have to interrupt the program of application of the Bus route. The result – in addition to making our roads less safe – would be a net reduction Millions of dollars a year to the city. It's a penny, a pound book.
This proposed budget also increases the risk of distribution of liability of the city. For the current financial year, the city has planned $ 87 million to settle the prosecution. But the is on the right track Spend $ 320 million for the colonies At the end of this exercise. Although complaints against the police service constitute the largest share, the second most expensive department is public works. Nearly $ 54 million in these colonies come from prosecution by claiming that people were injured due to our dangerous streets and sidewalks. If we try to save money by further reducing streets and sidewalks, this will lead to an increase in these liability complaints, in addition to injured human lives.
Keep in mind that Los Angeles is also about to be under the spotlight on the world scene. We are organizing eight World Cup games next year and the Olympic Games in 2028. We should not organize world-class events in streets full of nests, broken sidewalks and dark lamps. It is a terrible image for Los Angeles, and the budget for the coming exercise is our last chance to progress before the start of events.
During a recent budget audience, the member of the Council Katy Yaroslavsky – who chairs the budget committee – asked the deputy mayor Matt Hale if there was a plan in the budget to obtain the resources necessary to prepare for the Olympic Games. He replied: “The investments we are making this year are moving towards the development of a plan.” These events arrive quickly. We don't have time to simply “direct a plan to develop”.
Instead of cutting the key services to make Los Angeles habitable and presentable, the bass should approach the unions, clearly show that the city cannot afford the increases it has previously accepted and renegotiate to save as many positions as possible. The LAPD is expected to set up new rules so that we do not spend $ 100 million in one year to settle complaints from the misconduct of the officers. And we must avoid reducing programs that generate income for the city, such as the application of parking and automated speed, or which save money from the city, such as infrastructure fixing to reduce future liability payments to people injured by our streets and broken sidewalks.
Los Angeles is one of the richest cities in the world, but our infrastructure quickly resembles that of a developing country. It is never a good idea – and always more expensive in the long term – to let your infrastructure deteriorate. It is a particularly bad look when we are about to welcome two major world sporting events. We can and must do better. The municipal council now has a chance to repair the mayor's budget proposal and reflect our values.
Michael Schneider is the founder of Streets for all.
