Commentary

2nd District Los Angeles City Councilmember Wendy Greuel apparently figures that staffers at the city’s Department of Transportation can do better in reviewing applications for major development projects, checking to determine whether such plans will require additional road lanes or other features to offset any ill effects they might bring.

Greuel is apparently willing to unleash this dormant potential at the Department of Transportation—for an extra fee.

Greuel claimed to offer something for developers and everyday folks in introducing her plan.

“This program will make the city's permit-issuing operations more efficient and it will reduce the risks and costs associated with projects,” she said, adding that “with a struggling economy, we need to do everything possible to stimulate the economy and create jobs.”

Then came the topper: “This program will go a long way toward cutting through the red tape and bureaucracy at City Hall,” Greuel said.

The Garment & Citizen finds Greuel’s plan troubling—and not just because cutting red tape used to be something that politicians promised at no charge.

We also wonder why staffers at the Department of Transportation aren’t working faster already. They should be doing just that if they have the capacity. An extra fee shouldn’t be required.

It’s unclear whether Greuel’s plan would use the extra fees to hire more staffers, or provide current employees with better equipment that would allow them to pick up the pace. That would, at least, address the most glaring question begged by Greuel’s proposal.

Another question remains, however: Is it wise for our city government to offer better service for a fee?

Perhaps the horse is out of the barn on this one—the city’s Department of Building & Safety has apparently been taking this fee-based approach for some time.

Perhaps that’s even more reason to question the concept, as well as Greuel’s effort to extend it to other agencies, because the whole thing sounds like private businesses that provide better service or accommodations to customers who pay more. You know—first-class air travelers, priority banking customers, platinum credit-card holders.

Those differentiations make sense for some private businesses because their primary purpose is to seek profit. It also makes sense for government to study and adopt some successful innovations from private businesses in the interest of efficiency. Government agencies should study ways to save money by buying paper clips in bulk, for example, or band together to realize savings with high-volume orders for motor vehicles.

There are many other areas where government should purposely avoid operating like a private business, though. Indeed, that’s a big part of having a government. Public agencies are supposed to serve in a manner that puts all of us on equal footing. It’s an ideal to be sought regardless of profit motive. Government is where big and small, rich and poor, are supposed to get the same shake.

The Garment & Citizen realizes that there have long been unofficial delineations in the way constituents are treated by government officials. We know that large developments, for example, require more time from the bureaucrats who ride herd on them. We also know that it’s the nature of our current political system for public officials to pay more attention to constituents with big money.

That’s tough enough—and we see in Greuel’s proposal the likelihood that matters will get worse. How many times have you heard politicians tell us that nobody should be treated like a second-class citizen? How can Greuel and her colleagues live up to that old line if they create first-class categories of city services?

We hope they realize how many among us already believe that there are different classes of service at City Hall—with the differences based on money, whether it comes in the form of a campaign donation or an official fee.

Maybe Greuel deserves credit for being upfront about where our city government is going. It’s still a misguided notion, though, and we believe that our government will be long gone for most of us if this latest trend continues.

—Jerry Sullivan, Editor & Publisher