Grading City Hall

In a series assessing the performance of elected officials in California, The Times issued report cards with letter grades to the top officials in City Hall. More about the project »


NAME

Eric Garcetti

OFFICE

Mayor

NAME

Eric Garcetti

OFFICE

Mayor

Two years ago, when The Times endorsed Eric Garcetti for mayor, we described him as the candidate with the most potential to lead Los Angeles into a more sustainable and confident future. But we had concerns too: Garcetti should not confuse constructive compromise with the path of least resistance. He should not try to be "all things to all people." We worried that he was "hard to pin down" and called him "a bit of a Zelig."

Today, unfortunately, our concerns are becoming reality. Midway through his first term, Garcetti remains as appealing and articulate as ever, but his inclination to avoid tough or controversial decisions is undermining his ability to address the very serious problems facing the city.

Garcetti has presented a vision of Los Angeles as a more livable, transit-oriented, environmentally and technologically friendly city, served by a more efficient, customer-oriented government. This is a good vision, and he is an eloquent spokesman for it. But what has he done to achieve it? So far, not much.

Garcetti said repeatedly on the campaign trail that job creation would be his top priority. After all, the city has never recovered the middle-class jobs it lost over the last three decades with the shrinking of the aerospace and manufacturing sectors. Immediately upon taking office, he announced a nationwide search for a deputy mayor for economic development. But in the end, he chose to surround himself with political allies rather than nationally recognized experts, hiring his longtime council staffer for the deputy mayor position and putting former Councilwoman Jan Perry in charge of the Economic and Workforce Development Department. Two years later, unsurprisingly, the mayor has yet to articulate a comprehensive job creation strategy.

And after signing into law a modest break for just the highest-earning firms, he's all but dropped his campaign promise to completely eliminate the city's business tax, even though companies say it's the chief reason they won't locate in Los Angeles. This is how he leads on his No. 1 priority?

Likewise, the mayor laid out what he called a "back to basics" agenda aimed at restoring city services that had been slashed or ignored. However, he killed a sales tax proposal to fund street resurfacing and sidewalk fixes, and he's never offered an alternative proposal to pay for the multibillion-dollar backlog of repairs. He has set an ambitious and worthy goal of reducing the city's dependence on imported water, which will require enormously expensive investments in cleaning contaminated groundwater, recycling wastewater and capturing stormwater instead of letting it flow to the ocean. Yet last month, when the Department of Water and Power proposed raising rates to help pay for infrastructure replacement, Garcetti played coy, saying, "Before I agree on an exact amount of an increase, I want to hear what our customers have to say and get the analysis from our ratepayer advocate." Of course, this is insincere. Garcetti appointed all the DWP commissioners and hired (and can fire) the DWP's general manager. Garcetti's office was involved in developing the rate proposal. He should make an honest case about the city's infrastructure needs and what it will take to pay for them.

He should be equally focused on controlling labor and pension expenses. Angelenos have seen the impact of cuts in services and decaying infrastructure due, in part, to increased spending on pension and retirement benefits for city workers, which now consume 20% of the general fund (four times what they did in 2002). The mayor on Wednesday announced an agreement with a coalition of city labor unions that he asserts will address this crisis. It may be a step in the right direction, but it's impossible to know because full details will remain unavailable to the public until after the contract is ratified.

It's not as if these are new issues for Garcetti, who served 12 years on the City Council and was its president from 2006 to 2011. He bears some responsibility for the current state of affairs and can't claim to be shocked by the magnitude of the city's problems.

When Garcetti chooses to lead on an issue, he can be effective. Amid growing concern about police shootings, he pushed the Los Angeles Police Department to outfit every officer in the field with a body camera by mid-2016. He helped negotiate a deal to build a rail connection to Los Angeles International Airport. He has promised to end years of inaction on earthquake safety, and he is lobbying the council to enact laws by the end of the year to require that thousands of vulnerable buildings be retrofitted, though there are still important details to be worked out, including where the money will come from.

Want to weigh in?

Tweet us your experiences, opinions or expectations of Garcetti, City Controller Ron Galperin, City Atty. Mike Feuer or City Council President Herb Wesson @latimesopinion #gradeyourgov or find us on Facebook.

Too often, Garcetti is unwilling to speak out unless he knows it will be good for him politically. The result is that he has sat out some significant debates in which the mayor should be heard. He refused to take a position, for instance, on whether the city should consolidate local elections with state and federal elections (even though he said as a candidate that he opposed the idea). He was one of the few big-city mayors who stayed silent during the debate over giving trade deals a fast-track approval process, even though major deals such as the forthcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership will affect L.A.'s port and growing logistics industry. He refused to either sign or veto a controversial ordinance on homelessness. And on the eve of the Police Commission's meeting to decide whether officers were justified in shooting a mentally ill, unarmed black man, Garcetti ignored protesters at his residence and tried to slip out the back, purportedly for critical meetings at the White House but really to attend a D.C. fundraiser.

Garcetti's silence on public education has been particularly galling. Unlike his predecessors Richard Riordan and Antonio Villaraigosa, he has mostly stayed out of school district politics and governance. L.A.'s public schools are responsible for educating more than 600,000 children. The mayor cannot lead the city to a better future without using his bully pulpit to offer policy suggestions, support or oppose school board candidates, and find new ways to coordinate city services with student needs.

Garcetti has a good vision for Los Angeles. But to be a leader, he has to be willing to make hard, unpopular decisions for the greater good of the city. He should start by surrounding himself with respected, battle-tested experts rather than political loyalists. He must present an effective economic development policy. He needs to address the business tax, which is hurting L.A.'s ability to attract and retain companies. He has asked city departments to use data and metrics to track the delivery of services, and now he needs to fix the broken systems as he finds them. Can DWP deliver reliable water and power at affordable prices? Are Fire Department response times too slow, and are its recruitment practices fair and effective? How should the police respond to the worrisome 21% increase in violent crime during the first half of the year? What about the structural imbalance in the budget due to the increase in retirement costs?

Solving these problems will take political courage and decisiveness, not a finger in the wind.

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NAME

Herb Wesson

OFFICE

Council President

NAME

Herb Wesson

OFFICE

Council President

Just a few years ago, the Los Angeles City Council was considered almost unmanageable, populated by a motley group of elected officials with their own priorities and allegiances. The council president was referred to as the chief cat herder because the poor fellow was expected to, somehow, persuade the council members to act together, like members of a functional legislative body, rather than like 15 lords of 15 fiefdoms. Then Herb Wesson took charge.

The former speaker of the Assembly was elected council president by his colleagues in November 2011 and quickly brought a top-down, I'm-the-boss Sacramento sensibility to the City Council — for better and worse. That's a very different approach from the one fostered by his immediate predecessor and other recent council presidents. Meetings now rarely run longer than two hours. There are fewer self-indulgent monologues by bloviating council members, but there are also fewer meaningful debates over issues, because Wesson won't put up with even the appearance of discord. The council has voted on some major legislation during his tenure — the $15-an-hour minimum wage and pension reform come to mind — but other crucial policies have languished in committee because Wesson hasn't made them a priority. And in the vast majority of cases, the messy but often informative process of hashing out policy in a public setting has been rejected in favor of backroom deal-making.

For the record

An earlier version of this editorial said all L.A. City Council presidents have been men. Two women have served as president.

At his best, Wesson has pushed the council to make difficult decisions for Los Angeles, and he has given his colleagues cover for votes that might antagonize their political backers. Before he became council president, when the city plunged into financial chaos during the recession and employee pension expenses began consuming more and more of the budget, the City Council debated for more than two years about how to bring down costs — but failed to act. Just months after taking over, however, Wesson persuaded his colleagues to cut retirement benefits for new city workers — over the objections of the council's powerful labor union allies. Moments before the unanimous vote, he stood before the chamber, packed with city workers and union leaders, and said: "This was my idea. Don't direct your ire to these members. Direct it to me." That was leadership.

Last year, two government-appointed commissions recommended moving city elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered ones to coincide with higher-turnout gubernatorial and presidential elections and increase the city's embarrassingly low voter turnout. Council members initially balked at the idea. They worried that local candidates for office wouldn't be able to compete for campaign contributions or airtime amid bigger, higher-profile state and federal races. Wesson, however, crafted a clever ballot measure that sweetened the deal for his skeptical members (and himself) by ensuring that the election date change would give them 18 extra months in office. In record time, the council voted the measure onto the March ballot, and it was passed overwhelmingly by the voters. When Wesson wants something to happen, he makes it happen.

But when Wesson doesn't want something, it goes nowhere. The City Council is still pondering rules to curtail mansionization, which is destroying the character of some neighborhoods. Despite a building boom in high-end real estate, proposals to make developers build or help pay for affordable housing have languished. It took a lawsuit by disabled residents to force the city to commit to fixing its busted sidewalks. And since a proposed sales tax to pay for road repairs was killed last year, the City Council has done little to develop a plan to repair potholed and cracked streets. If Wesson had made these issues top priorities, there's little doubt they would have been addressed.

So what are his priorities? It's a bit hard to say. Until recently, Wesson hadn't put forward much of a long-term agenda. Banning plastic bags is all well and good, but Los Angeles faces serious problems, including its long-standing budget deficit, the high cost of employee pensions and retirement benefits (which now consume 20% of the general fund), the drastic backlog in infrastructure repair and the lack of a meaningful economic development plan. After more than three years as president (not to mention six previous years on the council), these are hardly new issues to Wesson. So what has he done to move forward on them?

In the pursuit of a disciplined council, Wesson has at times been punitive and autocratic, and has shown a contempt for transparency and public comment that is troubling. Within months of being council president, he stripped key committee chairmanships from two of his critics, then-council members Bernard C. Parks and Jan Perry, and he was accused of manipulating the redistricting process to the benefit of himself and his allies — and to the detriment of Parks and Perry. The clear message: Dissent will not be tolerated. As a result, council members rarely publicly oppose or even debate Wesson-supported legislation. This lack of debate robs Angelenos of representation.

Opposing viewpoints have been suppressed at meetings. The city spent $20,000 for a study on the impact of the hotel worker minimum wage, but when the study's author attempted to present his findings to the full City Council, Wesson cut him off after 60 seconds. When former Mayor Richard Riordan came to a council meeting to oppose a hastily arranged half-billion-dollar sales tax ballot measure and to urge additional pension reform, Wesson interrupted him, asking why he didn't fix the pension system while he was mayor. When Riordan began to respond, Wesson cut him off, saying: "No, there's no back and forth. I get the last word. This is our house." But Wesson is wrong. The council chambers belong to all the people of Los Angeles, who deserve a voice in how the city's business is conducted.

Want to weigh in?

Tweet us your experiences, opinions or expectations of Wesson, City Controller Ron Galperin, City Atty. Mike Feuer or Mayor Eric Garcetti @latimesopinion #gradeyourgov or find us on Facebook.

A primary responsibility of the City Council is to vet and approve land-use decisions. But the city's development process is broken, with council members routinely exempting individual projects from planning and zoning rules, which provides windfalls for developers (and sometimes campaign contributions for council members) but results in no coherent strategy for growth in the city. Wesson has set a bad example by allowing over-the-top exceptions in his district, including his support for a 27-story apartment building in a Koreatown neighborhood of two- to five-story buildings. Rather than allowing development by exception, Wesson and the council ought to be advocating for and funding updated community plans that add density where appropriate and take the politics out of city planning.

To raise his grade, Wesson needs to get the council moving on the crucial issues facing Los Angeles. That includes balancing the budget and pursuing additional changes to the pension system to ensure financial stability in the future, keeping the city safe when crime is rising and fixing the city's aging streets, sidewalks and infrastructure. He also needs to ensure that the council's work is conducted in an open and transparent fashion with debate and dissent recognized as critical tools that make for better public policy. Wesson has begun talking about his strategic "agenda," which is promising. Let's see him define it, stick to it and achieve it.

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NAME

Mike Feuer

OFFICE

City Attorney

NAME

Mike Feuer

OFFICE

City Attorney

After the histrionics of Carmen Trutanich and the poor judgment and egotism of Rocky Delgadillo, Mike Feuer is fast on his way to being Los Angeles' best city attorney in decades. He's upgraded the quality of work in his beleaguered office of more than 500 lawyers and he's gone out of his way to find practicable solutions for vexing legal stalemates that have bedeviled the city for many years. He's off to a strong start, although he can do even more.

The job Feuer fills is frankly a little odd. He's a lawyer charged with defending the city against lawsuits and providing legal advice to city officials, but who is really his client? On paper it's the municipal entity that is the city of L.A., but in practice it's the mayor, the City Council, city departments and sometimes city employees. Even though they're the clients, however, they don't hire him and can't fire him. He's an elected official, installed or ousted by the electorate and responsible to them — yet only up to a point, because voters aren't his clients and are in no position to judge the day-to-day legal work that is his office's bread and butter. The office that comes closest in comparison may be California's elected attorney general.

Feuer became city attorney by defeating incumbent Trutanich, who came in like a breath of fresh air but fumbled the delicate balance between lawyering, leadership and politics and suffered an understandable backlash in the form of budget cuts and loss of voter support. Feuer's primary task in his first two years was to clean up what Trutanich had left behind.

In that basic task, Feuer has excelled. He has instilled a work ethic and a measure of pride in his staff. Tasked under last year's Proposition 47 with prosecuting thousands of crimes that had previously been handled by the district attorney, he quickly got his office up to speed. Numerous judges interviewed by The Times have noted an increase in the preparedness and ability of L.A. deputy city attorneys in their civil and criminal courtrooms. Officials in City Hall have cited a night-and-day difference between the quality and timeliness of drafts and documents now compared with those produced before Feuer took office.

He restored the neighborhood prosecutor program, which had been cut during the budget crisis and, in so doing, he returned to action a troop of problem-solvers who deal with neighborhood disputes, nuisances and low-level crimes before they get too far out of hand.

The city attorney's office, at its best, should focus on more than merely defending against lawsuits and providing routine legal advice; it should be oriented toward problem-solving. That's an approach at which Feuer has demonstrated some notable ability. One example is the settlement of the long-running dispute over the city's responsibility to curb the dust whipped up off the Owens Lake bed, left dry by a century of Los Angeles water diversions. The parties several times seemed close to agreement but were too often stymied in the past by city lawyers who laid out the reasons to say "no." Soon after Feuer took office, he got the city and its opponents to "yes."

The same orientation was clear in his quest to forge an agreement with hospitals to stop them from dumping patients who have nowhere to go when they are discharged. He showed his independence, and his advocacy on behalf of the public, in issuing public opinions about the enforceability of billboard restrictions — and offering a range of options — even when his clients on the City Council might have preferred an opinion that was more accommodating to their supporters in the sign industry.

His engaged approach is a good example of the kind of thing an elected city attorney can and should provide beyond the mere competence expected of a solid law firm or appointed lawyer. Feuer offers leadership and a certain political deftness, gently prodding the council and mayor by laying out opportunities, yet not crossing the boundary into their territory.

On homelessness, an issue replete with political, social and legal challenges, Feuer has taken some steps — offering the council a range of options, for example, on removing bulky items from public streets and sidewalks while still preserving the property rights of the homeless owners. On Friday, he announced a program to streamline the process for clearing minor criminal citations for homeless people and for connecting them with vital services. Still, on the difficult homelessness issue, Feuer's grade must be "incomplete," because he has a long way to go (as do other city officials) to steer the city to a workable solution.

There are areas where he ought to be more engaged and aggressive. He should demonstrate a firmer commitment to investigating workers' compensation and overtime fraud on the part of city workers, referring felony cases to the district attorney, prosecuting misdemeanors in house and counseling city departments on how to prevent such problems. If he can go after Wells Fargo Bank for allegedly victimizing customers with illegal charges — and he can, and should — he can and should also defend Los Angeles residents and taxpayers from abuses by the city's workforce. If such abuses are mostly folklore, he should say so, and if they are real, he should act.

Having set a solid foundation, Feuer will face thornier challenges in the second half of his term and, if he's reelected, a second term. His steepest challenge may be steering Los Angeles through rising crime, changes in criminal law wrought by Proposition 47, a spate of high-profile police shootings around the country and a rare moment in history when society is rethinking its approach to crime and punishment.

Want to weigh in?

Tweet us your experiences, opinions or expectations of Feuer, City Controller Ron Galperin, City Council President Herb Wesson or Mayor Eric Garcetti @latimesopinion #gradeyourgov or find us on Facebook.

As city attorney for the nation's second-largest city, and with his dual role in criminal and civil law, Feuer has an opportunity to set a national example for policies and processes that allow a long generation of drug and petty offenders to get clean, put their pasts behind them and reenter civil society safely and productively; and he must do it while keeping public safety in the forefront.

Feuer has experimented with pilot programs for restorative and neighborhood justice. They are fine moves, although tentative ones, but they do not constitute the sweeping transformation of the justice system for which Feuer could be the chief thinker, actor and spokesperson. Taking up the challenge would be fraught with political risk. But if not Feuer, who? If not now, when?

Feuer has come a long way from his first days as a councilman in the 1990s, when his colleagues and others in City Hall scoffed at his earnestness, his impatience and his focus on ethics, and called him a "Boy Scout" and "Saint Michael." Today he is more politically savvy and excels at dealing effectively with his colleagues and counterparts. And that's — OK. There are times, though, when some more of that old impatience would be welcome.

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NAME

Ron Galperin

OFFICE

City Controller

NAME

Ron Galperin

OFFICE

City Controller

When the people of Los Angeles elected Ron Galperin as city controller in 2013, they were looking for an independent-minded watchdog who would use the power and bully pulpit of the office to delve into the city's troubled finances, sound the alarm on wasteful or inappropriate spending and hold his fellow public officials accountable for confronting the big, sweeping fiscal issues that Los Angeles faces in the years ahead.

So far, what they've gotten is a nice guy with a narrow vision and a tendency to steer clear of the subjects most critical to L.A.'s future.

Galperin's heart is no doubt in the right place, and he's had a couple of notable victories, including a courageous and much-publicized showdown with one of the most powerful union leaders in Los Angeles. He's also increased transparency and made it easier for Angelenos to understand how their tax dollars are being spent. But for the most part, he's done less than we believe he is capable of, sticking mostly to the bare essentials of the job during his first two years in office.

During the campaign, Galperin pitched himself as an outsider who could deliver a fresh perspective on City Hall's finances. It wasn't a tough sell considering that his opponent was longtime councilman and inveterate insider Dennis Zine. Galperin had shown he had the interest and ability to scrutinize city budgets through his work as chairman of the City Council-appointed Ad Hoc Commission on Revenue Efficiency. The commission produced nine reports over a year and half and identified $100 million that the city could either make or save through numerous small changes.

That was promising, but as controller of a big, complicated, troubled city like Los Angeles, it is not enough to go hunting for a few million dollars here and a few million dollars there.

Galperin's most recent audit, for example, found that the city had not collected $1.8 million from outside organizations for the cost of overtime by city employees working special events. That's an infinitesimal drop in the bucket when you consider that the annual city budget is $8.6 billion. And it followed an audit that found a "staggering" use of overtime in the Department of Transportation's Paint and Sign section — but $3.3 million of overtime is hardly more than pocket change, especially since the audit didn't make the case that the OT was undeserved or the system was being misused.

The audits Galperin has underway — looking into city warehousing practices, developer fees and funds sent from other governmental agencies, among others — don't indicate he has any intention of enlarging his vision in the near future. So far, Galperin has completed 18 audits — far fewer than his predecessors. And while it's true that not all audits can be expected to reveal gross misdeeds (and that Galperin took over an office with a skeleton crew of seven auditors and has taken a while to staff up), the fact is that only a few of his reports have landed with much of an impact.

But what's been most disappointing about the controller's term so far is his absence on important public debates. Galperin won a long-shot campaign in part because voters liked his frank assessments. The public hasn't seen much of Galperin and his straight talk since election day. Where was he during the minimum wage debate? On homelessness or infrastructure investment?

Galperin is not the first controller to focus on micro-savings, department by department. That's a basic responsibility of his job as L.A.'s "auditor and chief accounting officer." But a good controller ought to — and is expected to under the City Charter — do more. The controller is not merely a glorified accountant or check-signer-in-chief, like the state controller; he or she has the authority to propose far-reaching revamps of policies and processes. In a government without political parties, the controller ought to be the loyal opposition, a public advocate of sorts. Uncovering waste and fraud is part of the job, but the controller also has a responsibility to outline for voters and policymakers a larger narrative of what is going wrong or how things could be better.

This is a city in which pension and retirement benefits consume 20% of general fund spending (nearly four times more than in 2002). So shouldn't Galperin be speaking out loudly and emphatically about how that number can be reduced? If abuse of overtime and disability systems is costing hundreds of millions of dollars every year, then shouldn't he fight for legal changes and rule changes to address that, even beyond the Paint and Sign section? The city continues to face a fundamental, ongoing imbalance of revenues and spending. Why isn't the controller beating on the City Council and the mayor to address the problem — and suggesting ways to do so?

Given that roughly 80% of L.A.'s tax dollars are spent on salaries and benefits, why wouldn't the controller analyze labor contracts, like the one recently negotiated with the police, helping explain which of its provisions make sense and whether money is being wasted?

Galperin has had one highly visible success since taking office, although it was more symbolic than substantive. After The Times reported that two nonprofit organizations set up under an agreement between the Department of Water and Power and the utility's union had spent $40 million in ratepayer revenue over 10 years with no clear results, Galperin jumped right in with an audit. That meant taking on the powerful head of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, Brian D'Arcy, issuing subpoenas to compel him to explain where the money went. Though he was fought every step of the way, Galperin succeeded in getting the books opened, an important victory for the principle that the people of Los Angeles have the right to know how their public dollars are spent.

That battle took courage, something he doesn't always get full credit for because of his tendency to be a get-along guy with an aversion to confrontation. We'd like to see more such boldness.

Want to weigh in?

Tweet us your experiences, opinions or expectations of Galperin, City Atty. Mike Feuer, City Council President Herb Wesson or Mayor Eric Garcetti @latimesopinion #gradeyourgov or find us on Facebook.

Galperin's biggest achievement in office so far has been his open data project, ControlPanel LA. That may sound mundane, but the rapidity with which he was able to compile and post smartly organized data on salaries, spending and the budget exploded the usual trope about painfully slow bureaucracies. He gets extra credit for presenting this data in a graphically accessible and easy-to-digest way, such as the ability for anyone to see real-time spending across any city department. We're also glad he carved out an open data corner just to highlight DWP spending, at UtilityPanelLA.

To raise his grade, Galperin needs to think bigger. He needs to add his voice to the public debates over the city's future and be the public watchdog when it comes to spending. And if city departments are ignoring his recommendations and continuing to waste taxpayer money, it's his duty to come out publicly and noisily to call the public's attention to it.

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About the project

It's been two years since Eric Garcetti became mayor of Los Angeles. His election was part of a changing of the guard in City Hall that also saw the arrival of a new controller and city attorney, as well as seven new City Council members.

The art of exaggeration

David Horsey explains his process for drawing the caricatures on this page.

The challenges that faced them were enormous. Los Angeles may still be big, beautiful and alluring to many, but its problems — rampant homelessness and inadequate public transportation, buckling sidewalks and underperforming schools, mind-numbing traffic and simmering racial tension — are legendary.

So how are they doing? As part of a new series, The Times issued report cards to the top policymakers in City Hall. Rather than waiting until election season to endorse candidates, we issued mid-term letter grades and job performance reviews to Controller Ron Galperin, City Atty. Mike Feuer, City Council President Herb Wesson and, finally, Garcetti. In the second phase of the project, we will publish report cards on selected county and state officials as well.

The grading process was tough but fair, as generations of teachers have told generations of students. Leading an urban metropolis such as Los Angeles is a hard job; no single elected official should be expected to untie the knots of bureaucracy, reverse decades of under-investment in infrastructure or end income inequality in two years. But politicians will do a better job if they are held to high standards.

Are they keeping their campaign promises? Have they delivered on their rhetoric? Do they tackle the city's fundamental problems or do they duck controversy in favor of safe or politically popular stances? Are they focused on the monumental problems at hand or on their next elections and their own careers? Do they represent all of Los Angeles, including its diverse communities, and think about the city as a whole?

Here's why it matters. Los Angeles' leaders must struggle to close the long-standing budget deficit and manage the creeping cost of employee pension and retirement benefits, which consume 20% of the city's general fund (nearly four times more than they did in 2002). At the same time, they must confront a host of social problems, provide basic services and address a billion-dollar backlog of infrastructure needs. Can it all be done?

After a decade-long decline, Los Angeles just posted a startling 21% increase in violent crime for the first six months of 2015, a surge that has not yet been fully explained and that poses a challenge for the Los Angeles Police Department and its civilian overseers, for whom public safety is a top priority. Meanwhile, the department, like others across the nation, is under scrutiny for how its officers interact with black and Latino communities, and for its use of force against unarmed civilians. City Hall has taken credit for past reductions in crime. To what extent are elected officials accountable for the increasing problems, and what should they do to address the issues?

For all its strengths and attributes, Los Angeles is increasingly a city of haves and have-nots, where some residents are being priced out of their neighborhoods, where public schools fail to provide a path out of poverty for too many students, where there are too few middle-class jobs and there is too little affordable housing. But it is also a city where corporations feel underappreciated, saying that L.A.'s business taxes are too high and its government bureaucracy is too cumbersome. It is a city where even many Democrats concede that policy in City Hall is too often made to benefit labor unions — which donate liberally to city campaigns — rather than residents.

The goal of the report card project is threefold: to engage city residents; to lay out the key issues facing L.A. and California; and above all, to hold politicians accountable.

The four City Hall leaders whose report cards were published in the first part of this project have different backgrounds and responsibilities. Not all are expected to grapple with the full range of the city's issues. Galperin is serving his first term in public office, but Garcetti, Wesson and Feuer have all served in government for years, and therefore bear some level of accountability for past city action, or inaction, on these issues. All were graded in the following broad categories:

Leadership. Does he (because there are only men in this initial group) set the right agenda and priorities — and follow through? Does he lead and persuade in a crisis or challenge others or hide behind them?

Effectiveness. Does he demonstrate the political and management skills to get things done? Does he have a record of success?

Vision. Does he articulate a vision for the city, his office or a particular issue? Does he press for badly needed, longer-term reforms?

Transparency. Is he honest and open with the public? Has he lived up to campaign promises?

Political courage. Does he stand up for his beliefs even when doing so might draw criticism or alienate supporters? Does he show a willingness to make hard decisions?

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Digital production: Sahil Chinoy