Stiff-Arming the Voters

The Los Angeles City Council has done violence both to orderly, lawful procedure and to the initiative process with its emergency adoption of loophole legislation that is designed to protect some private developers from the effects of limitations that will be on the November election ballot. This is wrong. But the wrong can be righted by denying the ordinance final approval this week.

Merits of the growth-controlling initiative that has qualified for the November ballot will be sorted out in the campaign leading up to the election. It is a complicated but important proposal that calls for respectful consideration. It represents the wishes of more than 100,000 voters who signed petitions to put it onto the ballot.

Council President Pat Russell, with the support of Mayor Tom Bradley and eight council members and the encouragement of leading development interests, has moved to preempt at least in part the judgment of the voters with what she calls the Neighborhood Protection Ordinance. As the city attorney’s staff has made clear, the new ordinance would plunge the city into deep litigation should the initiative be approved. Among its many defects is the imposition of extensive zone changes, without the due process of public hearings, simply to circumvent the will of voters in the election.