Wendy Greuel (Creative Commons)

Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel was met with frustration and even outrage at a town hall meeting last week, much of it regarding the city’s perceived failure to audit redevelopment agencies.

Come Wednesday, Feb. 1, all California community redevelopment agencies will be dissolved, in belief they’ve been ineffective, and their more than $1 billion funds will be redirected in hope of filling a budget gap. 

Last Wednesday, a packed room of LA residents at the Encino Community Center expressed their displeasure with the Los Angeles city budget and Greuel’s audit practices, in particular a lack of accountability impressed upon redevelopment agencies. One attendee even called for the entire Los Angeles City Council to be fired. 

Santa Monica resident Ali Shoja and two other individuals, who did not want to be named, said Greuel failed to properly track where the city is spending its money and eliminate the wasteful use of taxpayers’ dollars. 

Their accusations stem from information released in November 2011 by State Controller John Chiang. He found that California’s recently dismantled community redevelopment agencies will leave the state with roughly $30 billion dollars in debt. In Chiang’s report, many of the redevelopment agencies had questionable expenditures, including compensating city managers and council members without clear documentation.

The goal of the Community Redevelopment Agency was to help cities reduce blight or property that is inadequate in highly urban areas, using taxpayer’s money. According to Shoja, Greuel’s failure to audit redevelopment agencies in Los Angeles has cost Angelenos millions in wasteful spending. 

Shoja is confined to a wheelchair and has been living in a nursing home for the past nine years.  He said it costs the city $4,770 per month to have him live there. 

“My life is miserable. I went in the nursing home when I was 27. Now, I’m 36. After 10 years, that’s almost $600,000 in taxpayers’ money. With that money, I can have a good life, but they put it in the trash,” Shoja said.

His biggest frustration is in finding wheelchair accessible housing that is also in close proximity to accessible transportation. He has been searching for units in North Hollywood near the Metro Red Line, however, many of the new apartment buildings, which were redevelopment properties, in the NoHo Arts District cannot accommodate disabled individuals, he said.

Greuel intends to look at the development projects approved through the city council and to ensure the funds are being used properly, she said.

One major constraint on Greuel and her department is her budget, which is one third of what it normally is. The department has 14 auditors, but could roughly double if it had a full budget.

Deputy Controller of Communications Shannon Murphy said, despite funding setbacks, Greuel has been able to perform 50 audits and uncover $125 million in wasteful spending or fraudulent activity.

According to Greuel, the city of Los Angeles has a current deficit of approximately $200 million. She said the focus needs to be more on long-term solutions for improving the city’s economy.

“We can’t do short-term,” Greuel said. “People say, ‘Oh, just cut from last year,’ but we have to think outside the box. We have to think creatively and be proactive instead of reactive.”

Several residents also asked about her department’s recent plan to audit Los Angeles Animal Services and how it will reduce animal shelter killings. Greuel said the Controller’s office primarily focuses on a department’s finances.

“The issue about audits is if we did full-fledged audits on an entire department it would take us two years. By that time, we wouldn’t have made them make the changes. What we try to do is use these audits as a catalyst for change,” said Greuel. “Someone will say, ‘Well, we looked at this number and how does that relate to the number of animals that have been put down?’ So, we try to use these audits as a wedge into having some of those big policy discussions.” 

Many residents were supportive of Greuel’s efforts to crack down on abuses of city spending. Yet, they believed the city council is still not acting in their interests, including follow-through on fixing the sidewalks or cleaning up graffiti.

Mary Loughlin of Valley Village sees it as a two-way street. 

“It’s not about the complaint. It’s about finding the solution,” Loughlin said. “Wendy can’t take care of everything.”

Loughlin was faced with her own troubles when trying to report graffiti by local teenagers near Hollywood High School. She said the problem escalated when they started using drugs.

After calls to the school police and the Los Angeles Police Department, Loughlin decided to take matters into her own hands. She started approaching the teenagers and getting them to disperse. The problem was a minor one, but she said it points to the importance of civic engagement.

Anita Hermesch of Irvine echoed the same thought. 

“The biggest thing I think we need to change is we need to flush away one word in our vocabulary – ‘the.’ Replace ‘the mayor’ with ‘our mayor,’ ‘the city’ with ‘our city,’ ‘the economy’ with ‘our economy,’ and when we do that, we start thinking, ‘Oh, it’s not the mayor’s fault. What are some things I could be doing in our city’,” Hermesch said.