Responding to the uproar by Neighborhood Councils and community activists, the City Council Tuesday dropped plans to put a $3 billion road repair bond measure on the May 21 ballot.
Councilmembers Mitch Englander and Joe Buscaino, who sponsored the measure, proposed holding it for a future ballot in order to "give the proposal more time for consideration by all Los Angeles stakeholders and to engage in a massive public outreach effort."
The Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils, the Los Angeles Alliance of Neighborhood Councils and the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates had all adopted resolutions asking for a 60-day delay on the road repair bond proposal for "meaningful outreach" to city residents.
The Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council had planned to discuss adopting such a resolution at their upcoming meeting on Thursday.
The councilmembers asked the city attorney to draft language for a future ballot measure and referred the bond issue to the Public Works Committee, which Buscaino chairs. The committee will hold public meetings throughout the city.
“Providing for safe, well-maintained streets is one of the most basic core functions of city government, and is crucial to our economy and our daily lives,” Englander said. "We want all stakeholders -- community members, Neighborhood Councils, chambers of commerce, community-based organizations and businesses -- to have the opportunity to weigh-in, and that has always been one of the central goals of the street repair proposal.”
On Monday, Tony Perez, a spokesman for CD1 Councilman Ed Reyes, said Reyes felt the council needed more feedback before they could take action.
"There has to be more public accountability, because there are still a lot of questions out there," Perez said.
The bond issue, called the largest infrastructure proposal in the country, would repair 8,700 miles of failing city streets over a 10-year period.
An informational website has been posted at https://sites.google.com/site/lastreetbond/home.
Read more about the City Council action here.
