City Hall is being shaken up once again, and once again it’s happening from the inside out. City Council President Herb Wesson has replaced two long-term chairs of city committees as he announced a variety of new committee appointments.
The most notable changes was the removal of Councilman Bernard Parks from the chair of the Budget and Finance committee, as well as Jan Perry from the chair of the Energy and Environment Committee.
Both of the newly replaced chairs had missed Council President Wesson’s swearing in.
The changes will likely help streamline some of Mayor Villaraigosa’s proposals and policy initiatives. For example, both Parks and Perry had played key roles in stalling a budget plan that called for $43 million in internal borrowing and in killing rate hikes at the DWP.
Neither of the replaced chairs expressed any ill will towards Wesson after their replacement.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson engineered another shake-up at City Hall on Friday, removing Councilman Bernard C. Parks from his post as chairman of the powerful Budget and Finance Committee, which serves as the clearinghouse for budgets proposed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The move is expected to widen the bitter divide between Wesson and Parks, two of the council’s three African American members, who are already at odds over new proposed boundaries lines for the 15 council districts.
Parks, a budget hawk who had run the committee for eight years, did not show up for the Nov. 23 vote that made Wesson the council’s newest president. Parks’ spokesman said afterward that the councilman was ill. But Wesson said after that vote that he was disappointed.
Read the full article here.