So, What is the State of the City?

Let’s call this a commentary:

In his annual State of the City address, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stood before a crowded room of elected officials and supporters and called for education reform. In his prepared remarks, the mayor said:

“Now, I know some of these ideas are new, and some are not.  And over the years, we’ve had many well-intentioned efforts at reforming the educational system.  But any student of the LA Unified can tell you… That we can’t address our problems in the classroom… We won’t make real headway… Unless we change the lack of accountability at the top. I believe we need new leadership at every level. I believe we need to wake up and shake up the bureaucracy at the LAUSD.”

Though education reform was the theme of Villaraigosa’s sixth annual address, that quote is not from last night. It is from his 2006 State of the City. Five years later, the mayor is again pushing to be the education mayor, going so far as to speak directly to teachers and use the same line last night that he used in ’06: “It’s hard to risk what you’ve got when you’ve never had what you deserve.”

Since that first annual address, Villaraigosa has created the Partnership for L.A. Schools, which oversees 21 underperforming schools. He has also gotten supporters elected to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education and had a close adviser serve as superintendent.

All that said, LAUSD still does not fall under the umbrella of the city of Los Angeles. The mayor acknowledged as much last night. “While it is true that I don’t have formal authority over our schools, I do have a bully pulpit and I will continue to use it,” he said.

So, what about the problems that do fall under the mayor’s umbrella? Faced with either a $350 million deficit, according to the city administrative officer, or a $500 million deficit, according to the mayor, in fiscal year 2011-12, Villaraigosa said his proposed budget would fund core services, including:

• Expanding library hours and restoring Monday service
• Opening new park facilities
• Maintaining and resurfacing 735 miles of city streets
• Filling 300,000 potholes

How will these things be funded? The library will see a boost thanks to Measure L, which voters passed in March and which increases the system’s annual budget per the city charter. However, the mayor did not give any details on where the money would come from to pay for those other services.

Villaraigosa spent part of the address highlighting the city’s recent accomplishments. He touted an ordinance that would give a preference to local companies seeking city business. “We are giving more work to local firms with our Local Preference Ordinance, and keeping our tax dollars circulating and multiplying here in LA,” he said.

And that will probably be true, when the Local Preference Ordinance is eventually passed by the Los Angeles City Council.

The mayor also touted the Department of Water and Power’s achievement of reaching 20 percent renewable energy by 2010. There was no mention of a recent controller audit that suggested reaching that goal was due to luck.

What is the state of the city? The mayor is poised to spend the last two years of his term focused on improving Los Angeles’ public schools. Meanwhile, those who understand finances believe Los Angeles is on the brink of bankruptcy. There is a deputy mayor who criticizes the Los Angeles City Council for not doing more about next year’s budget problems, when it is the mayor’s office that releases the budget.

So far, there’s a city controller and one council member running for mayor, with a big time developer, the aforementioned deputy mayor, a county supervisor and others possibly waiting in the wings.

The state of the city is that there’s a lot of work to do and no clear path on how to get it done.