L.A. City Council set to act on affordable housing, business tax.

BACK from their summer recess, members of the Los Angeles City Council--including two mayoral hopefuls--are confronting a full plate of high profile and controversial proposals.

There's the Los Angeles International Airport Master Plan, business tax reform, and proposed ordinances addressing affordable housing, sweatshops and newspaper racks. In addition, the council may seek to rescind or reduce the 11 percent rate hike recently imposed on Department of Water & Power customers.

While this is a far cry from the avalanche of bills that state legislators faced as their session wound down last month, it's still a higher level of activity than the norm.

"This all goes back to term limits," said Coby King, an Encino-based consultant. "We've seen a tremendous change on the council in recent years as old members cycled out and new ones cycled in. After a couple of years on the council, these new members are starting to put their stamp on city policy."

The debates will take place amid the backdrop of a four-way mayoral contest that includes two councilmembers, Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard Parks. Those two will be looking to take positions on some issues that set them up in opposition to Mayor James Hahn.

Of the major proposals before the council, only Hahn's airport plan is coming from the outside. Even that plan had substantial input from a key councilmember, Cindy Miscikowski, who forged a compromise after the original $9 billion plan ran into trouble. The council still must consider the environmental impact report for the entire airport project; that's expected to take place in October or November.

Meanwhile, business groups in L.A. are mounting an all-out push to put an end to nearly a decade of debate and studies with the passage of a sweeping business tax reform proposal by Oct. 31. A plan put forward by councilmembers Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel, along with three other measures, will go before the ad-hoc committee on business tax reform later this month.

Garcetti is also leading the charge with Councilman Ed Reyes on another controversial proposal to require developers to set aside portions of residential projects for affordable housing. Intense negotiations have been taking place for months, with council representatives and affordable housing advocates on one side and an unlikely pairing of builders and neighborhood groups on the other, both opposed to the plan. The proposed ordinance is set to go before the Planning and Land Use Management Committee later this month.

Two other proposals are expected to generate controversy as they hit council committees in the next several weeks. One is an ordinance that has publishers fighting the possible regulation of the color of news racks around the city. The other would prohibit city contractors from outsourcing any of their work to foreign countries with cheaper labor.

Besides all this, the council is coming under intense pressure from neighborhood councils to rescind part or all of the 11 percent rate hike for DWP customers that it approved earlier this year. After revelations of overspending on public relations contracts, Villaraigosa has a motion to suspend the rate hike.

Also, over the next several weeks, councilmembers are expected to be campaigning vigorously on behalf of two local measures on the November ballot: the half-cent sales tax for law enforcement agencies and the $500 million bond to reduce runoff into Santa Monica Bay.

More Business Tax Reform

Last week another major union joined the chorus of groups calling for the city to enact reform by Oct. 31: SEIU Local 347, which represents 10,000 city workers and is the most powerful city employee union.

"Lowering business taxes is good for the economy, the community and city workers," said Local 347 President Bob Schoonover. "These are reasonable reforms that will spur growth and opportunity for the people and businesses serving Los Angeles."

Local 347 is the first city employee union to weigh in on business tax reform in 10 years of debate.

Economic Boost

Proponents of two revenue-raising measures on the local November ballot received an unexpected dose of good news recently. A California Field Poll released just before Labor Day showed a marked uptick in confidence in the state's economy among likely voters.

According to the poll, which was taken in early August, 53 percent of the 602 likely voters surveyed said the state was in "bad times." Though it's a majority, the trend is down from a whopping 75 percent citing bad times in August 2003, when recall fever was running high. In addition, 44 percent of likely voters said the state was headed for better economic times in the next 12 months, up from 30 percent a year earlier.

In general, the more upbeat voters are about the economy, the more likely they are to approve bonds or tax increase, such as the half-cent sales tax for law enforcement and the Santa Monica Bay cleanup bond.

Staff reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [phone], ext. 227, or at [e-mail].