> Of course, this is not the first, or second, or even third time that a councilmember has been caught up in a corruption scandal in recent years. In 2021, Mark Ridley-Thomas was suspended after he was charged with misusing his position on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for personal benefit. In early 2020, Mitchell Englander was charged with accepting bribes in 2017 from a Los Angeles businessman; he pleaded guilty in 2020. Similarly, Jose Huizar pleaded guilty to corruption charges stemming from soliciting bribes from real estate developers during his time in office.
> So, what’s going on here? Why is Los Angeles so corrupt? Will this end anytime soon?
> # The Corruption Equation
> Courtesy of the Twitter user HeadwaysMatter, the equation that helps explain corruption is the following:
> As we will see, the governance system in Los Angeles — and especially the land use governance system — satisfies virtually all of these conditions. What led Curren Price, Mitchell Englander, and Jose Huizar to take bribes from real estate developers will continue to happen so long as this system of land use governance remains firmly in place.
> # Discretion
> In regular cities, this is theoretically the case. However, in Los Angeles, the zoning code and general plan have been so discordant at many points that virtually any housing development must go through a zoning change or general plan amendment. In many cases, the existing use would not conform to the zoning!
> Zoning changes go through the city council. And, when every development requires a zoning change or general plan amendment, this means the council has immense power over the fate of the development. By custom, the councilmember whose district the development is in is deferred to with regards to the acceptance or rejection of the zoning change.
> # Monopoly
> Compared to other cities with a “strong mayor” (i.e., the mayor has extensive powers over local administrations and the budget), Los Angeles’s mayor is relatively weak. Combined with zero at-large representation in Los Angeles’s city council (compared to, for example, Oakland) and the custom of councilmember discretion, this means that the councilmember alone has near total control over the fate of a housing development.
> # Accountability
> Council races are generally low turnout — for example, Curren Price won his election with 8,000 votes in a council district with almost 250,000 people. This means that Price, or any councilmember for that matter, usually represents a council district they are not really beholden to. The odd year elections in Los Angeles before 2020 exacerbated this further — Jose Huizar and Mitchell Englander got ~13,000 votes in 2015, and Englander wasn’t even opposed.
1 Comment
> Of course, this is not the first, or second, or even third time that a councilmember has been caught up in a corruption scandal in recent years. In 2021, Mark Ridley-Thomas was suspended after he was charged with misusing his position on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for personal benefit. In early 2020, Mitchell Englander was charged with accepting bribes in 2017 from a Los Angeles businessman; he pleaded guilty in 2020. Similarly, Jose Huizar pleaded guilty to corruption charges stemming from soliciting bribes from real estate developers during his time in office.
> So, what’s going on here? Why is Los Angeles so corrupt? Will this end anytime soon?
> # The Corruption Equation
> Courtesy of the Twitter user HeadwaysMatter, the equation that helps explain corruption is the following:
> > corruption = discretion + monopoly – accountability
> As we will see, the governance system in Los Angeles — and especially the land use governance system — satisfies virtually all of these conditions. What led Curren Price, Mitchell Englander, and Jose Huizar to take bribes from real estate developers will continue to happen so long as this system of land use governance remains firmly in place.
> # Discretion
> In regular cities, this is theoretically the case. However, in Los Angeles, the zoning code and general plan have been so discordant at many points that virtually any housing development must go through a zoning change or general plan amendment. In many cases, the existing use would not conform to the zoning!
> Zoning changes go through the city council. And, when every development requires a zoning change or general plan amendment, this means the council has immense power over the fate of the development. By custom, the councilmember whose district the development is in is deferred to with regards to the acceptance or rejection of the zoning change.
> # Monopoly
> Compared to other cities with a “strong mayor” (i.e., the mayor has extensive powers over local administrations and the budget), Los Angeles’s mayor is relatively weak. Combined with zero at-large representation in Los Angeles’s city council (compared to, for example, Oakland) and the custom of councilmember discretion, this means that the councilmember alone has near total control over the fate of a housing development.
> # Accountability
> Council races are generally low turnout — for example, Curren Price won his election with 8,000 votes in a council district with almost 250,000 people. This means that Price, or any councilmember for that matter, usually represents a council district they are not really beholden to. The odd year elections in Los Angeles before 2020 exacerbated this further — Jose Huizar and Mitchell Englander got ~13,000 votes in 2015, and Englander wasn’t even opposed.
!ping YIMBY&LA&DEMOCRACY