Do We Even Need a City Council?

By Janaya Williams |

 Is the L.A. City Council—overshadowed as it is by the mayor, five county supervisors, and powerful state and national politicians—still worth the trouble and embarrassment? Can the body be saved by reforms, or by making it bigger? Or should L.A. replace its council altogether and turn instead to innovative methods of government decision-making—from lottery-selected citizens’ panels to the online environments used to govern cities from Madrid to Montevideo?

A panel including Public Access Democracy director Leonora Camner and California 100 executive director Karthick Ramakrishnan visit Zócalo to discuss where things went wrong, and imagine new futures for L.A.’s city council.

Read More Here