By JOSE HERRERA
LOS ANGELES — As part of ongoing efforts to revamp city governance, City Council members will consider recommendations Tuesday that would begin the process of creating a commission to overhaul parts of the City Charter.
Creating a charter reform commission would need to be approved by city voters. The council is aiming to put the issue on the 2024 or 2026 ballot.
Among the recommendations going before the council Tuesday is one that would ask several city departments to provide feedback and identify sections of the charter that would benefit from reform and modernization.
Council President Paul Krekorian, Council President Pro Tem Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilman Tim McOsker introduced the motion on Sept. 19.
According to the motion, the current charter was developed in the late 1990s through two charter reform commissions that conducted an “extensive review and analysis of every section of the prior charter.”
Officials said that process was conducted due to widespread dissatisfaction with the city at the time that included a failed secession movement in the San Fernando Valley.
“Twenty-three years after that overhauled charter went into effect, the city faces new challenges that could not have been foreseen then, as well as new opportunities for progress, improved services, greater accountability and more responsiveness,” the motion reads.
The crises of homelessness, housing unaffordability, a pandemic, economic strain, climate change urgency and threats to public safety impact the city’s delivery of core services, the councilmen note in their motion.
Confidence and trust in city government has also been eroded by “unethical conduct” of some city leaders, the motion states.
For those reasons, the council members are looking to engage with the public to begin both minor revisions in the short term and major overhaul in the long term of the charter.
Such amendments may include addressing the city’s land use…
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