As a taxpayer, I question whether any City department really needs more than one Assistant General Manager. Nor am I persuaded that Assistant GMs should be civil service exempt. Yet, for all the talk about reducing the cost of City government — which I support — I have not heard anything that lets me believe the Bosses actually want to cut costs/maintain service at City Hall.

Consider. The Community Development Department employs fewer than 200 workers. It has a General Manager who is paid $195, 592 a year, and 3 Assistant General Managers each of whom gets an annual salary of $171,000. Understandably, having 3 Assistants is good for the General Manager’s ego, but how does it help the people that CDD is supposed to serve?

Or consider the Information Technology Agency. Its General Manager gets $241,122 a year. Does that Department need 3 exempt, Assistant General Managers — does it need to pay them a combined salary of $537,000 a year to manage 374 employees? Does that benefit the Public?

And consider the Department of Building and Safety, with a workforce of 723 employees. The Superintendent of Building is paid an annual salary of $211,994. And he’s assisted by no less than 5 Deputy Superintendents! One Deputy gets $196,000 a year, another gets $154,000 and each of the other 3 gets $176,000. Management salaries are called “General Administrative Support.” Well, $1,089,994 is a lot of GAS for one City agency!

But no City department is more top-heavy than the Mayor’s Office. Consider these statistics: Mayor Villaraigosa gets an annual salary of $232,425. His Chief of Staff gets $189,973 a year. He has two Deputy Mayors each of whom gets $169,000 a year; another Deputy Mayor gets $161,000 a year, and each of his other 8 Deputy Mayors gets $153,000 a year.

But that’s just the beginning. In addition to the high-priced help referenced above, Mayor Villaraigosa employs a Chief Legislative Representative ($148,000 a year) and a Chief Administrative Assistant ($137,000 a year). And to top that off, he employs 162 Mayoral Aides, 17 of whom get over $100,000 a year, and all but a few of them get over $40,000 a year.

These salary figures, taken from an official City report dated January 13, 2012, show that the average employee in the Mayor’s Office gets over $85,000 a year. NOW THAT’S TOP-HEAVINESS!

As this column is written, the Mayor’s proposed budget for 2012-13 is being studied by the Council’s Budget Committee. A huge revenue gap and a whole lot of layoffs have already been predicted. And if past practice is any guide, layoffs will involve only worker-level employees — employees who are actively providing services to the people of Los Angeles. In addition to cutting services, that would exacerbate the existing top-heaviness problem in City Service.

You can email this writer at samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

— “The duty of the Council and its committees is to become fully informed of the business of the City so as to oversee all the functions of the City government and report to the Council any information or recommendations necessary to enable the Council to properly legislate.”

The separation of governmental powers is a sound principle. Its purpose is to prevent the Executive Branch from abusing its power. Theoretically, that purpose is achieved by requiring the Legislative Branch to oversee Executive Branch actions, to investigate and report Executive Branch abuses.

Sadly, the separation of powers doesn’t always work at City Hall. On some issues, the Mayor may find it advantageous to create a “coalition” with key Council members. Through such a coalition, the Mayor may get measures passed that would otherwise be defeated. Other issues may be held up by the Chairman — never get to the Council. Clearly, that’s not how separation of powers is supposed to work.

For example, the Council’s Personnel Committee is duty-bound to become fully informed on the City’s personnel function. It’s obligated to inform the Council about personnel problems it observes. Yet, for a number of years that Committee (whose Chairman was a member of an anti-civil service gang) sat and watched while a succession of Mayors trampled the Charter, degraded the Civil Service Commission, usurped its powers, and corrupted the Los Angeles City Service.

As Chairman of the Council’s Personnel Committee, Dennis P. Zine was woefully uninformed about the City’s civil service system. He seemed sadly unaware that employment tests that are not job-related have been rejected by the United States Supreme Court. Worse, he seemed not to understand that invalid employment tests allow poor/marginal employees to achieve career status and claim property rights to City positions for which they were not properly tested. Mr. Zine seemed not to care that invalid employment tests dumb-down the system and jack up the cost of City Services!

Incredibly, the Council’s Personnel Committee sat and watched while department heads continued to use invalid employment tests — continued to rely on appraisals that are inherently unreliable. Under Chairman Zine, that Committee allowed department heads to continue mismanaging the City’s Four Billion Dollar Workforce — allowed them to continue wasting the City’s human and fiscal resources!

As Chairman of the Personnel Committee, Mr. Zine had the power to conduct investigations. But as a member of the Mayor’s gang, he seemed unwilling to use that power. He was asked to investigate written allegations that City employment practices trample the City Charter, violate the rules of the Civil Service Commission, dismiss the Uniform Guideline on Employee Selection Procedures, and ignore a raft of significant court decisions. He rejected that request and refused to discuss the issue.

As this column comes to an end, readers may join me in asking, “Why hasn’t this scandalous situation received more public attention?” How is it that Angelenos have been denied factual information about their government? Who’s responsible for treating the people of Los Angeles like a mushroom farm?

This situation is not new. It goes back to 1993. That’s when Richard J. Riordan was elected Mayor of Los Angeles. He was not a Civil Service fan! He wanted to make fundamental changes at City Hall, but he could not be sure the voters would share his views. So he — and his Council coalition — decided to give Civil Service a radical make-over — and to do that by stealth, without authority, without public notice.

What’s important is what readers of this column do now that they know the ugly truth about City Hall in Los Angeles. At the very least, Angelenos should use the 11 months available to them to learn as much as they can about the individuals who are campaigning to lead the City after the March 5 elections.

You can send your questions or comments to samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

Angelenos aren’t stupid. They know they’re being ripped off. They’re aware that over half the city budget goes to support an under-utilized workforce. They also know the mayor and council aren’t moving a muscle to end that enormous waste.

Indeed, the mayor and council are a major part of the problem. They lie about the size of their workforce. The mayor claims to have a staff of 94 employees, when in fact, the number reported by the controller’s office is 180. Similarly, the council says it hires 108 employees. But the controller’s number is actually 344.

The mayor and council want Angelenos to think they’re doing everything possible to cut costs. They laid-off hundreds of employees and forced thousands to take unpaid furloughs. But they found $15,000,000 to fund a useless Board of Public Works because, critics say, that provides jobs for five campaign contributors.

The mayor and council approve the continued use of employment tests that are not valid, and which would almost certainly be vulnerable to legal challenge. They leave department managers free to violate the city’s selection procedures.

Under city procedures, probationary employees must demonstrate their fitness for the job by the actual performance of their assigned duties and responsibilities. Here’s how that requirement is spelled out in the civil service rules:

— Sec. 1.26. PROBATIONARY PERIOD means the working test period during which the employee is required to demonstrate his/her fitness by the actual performance of the duties and responsibilities of his/her position and during which he/she may be terminated without right of appeal….

Now, in light of this rule, why is the LAPD allowed to use the same rating form to evaluate probationary performance in such diverse classes as Clerk, Painter, Delivery Driver, Accountant, Photographer, Storekeeper, Garage Attendant, Welder, Equipment Mechanic, Equine Keeper, Nutritionist, and 100 other job classes in which the police department utilizes civilian employees?

Angelenos may ask what it is about probationary ratings the mayor, council and police chief don’t understand. Are they baffled by Rating Content? Well, ratings are supposed to focus mainly on the probationer’s job performance, not on a set of personal traits and work habits long since abandoned by HR experts.

Is it the Rating Procedure those folks don’t understand? Well, the procedure is quite simple: compare what the probationer actually did with what he/she was assigned to do; measure job performance against performance standards.

The Rating Purpose shouldn’t be hard to grasp: it’s to keep poor/marginal performers off the city payroll. Continued failure to do that makes civil service a haven for mediocrity and jacks up the cost of municipal government in L.A.

Angelenos may wonder how the mayor and council can give the LAPD an Appropriation of $1,167,771,840, authorize a workforce of 13,877 employees, and leave the police department free to ignore city regulations — free to violate sound principles of workforce management. WHAT ARE OUR LEADERS THINKING?

You can send your questions and comments to samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

It’s not that Mayor Villaraigosa initiated the sneak attack on Civil Service. That effort was launched in 1993 by Mayor Riordan. It was allowed to continue by Mayor Hahn. But in 2005 (as well as on several other occasions) when he was asked to end that attack, Villaraigosa flat-out refused. Rather than serving his constituents, he has consistently supported Riordan’s crippling, illegal attack on Civil Service!

What Los Angeles needs now is for Mayor Villaraigosa to do a U-turn, to restore the Board of Civil Service Commissioners, and to require all department heads to bring their personnel practices in line with the City Charter and the Civil Service Rules. He’s not likely to do that, but he could. He still has 15 months left in the Mayor’s Office, and he’s done stranger things than a U-turn during his administration.

But whatever Villaraigosa does before leaving office, you and I must begin now preparing for the next mayoral election. Yes, I know; that election’s nearly a year away. It’s not scheduled till March 5, 2013. But there’s already a list of 12 candidates for that office. And since you and I will decide who the next mayor will be, shouldn’t we learn as much as we can about those 12 candidates?

Based on information posted by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, the following individuals have indicated an interest in being the next Mayor of Los Angeles: Austin Beutner, Theodore M. Crisell, Jose F Di Raimondo, Y.J. Draiman, Eric M. Garcetti, Wendy Greuel, Kevin James, Malcolm Mays, Addie M. Miller, Jan Perry, David Saltsburg, and Rick S. Young.

Each of these candidates has been asked to provide information that this column could share with you — information that would help you understand why the candidate feels qualified to be the city’s next mayor. Candidates will also be expected to answer questions about city revenues, performance management, access to public information, putting the public back in public service, etc.

My plan is to serve as a source of fair and relevant information about each declared candidate for mayor. With that in mind, I invite you to share your views and concerns with me. Are you concerned about the role of money in city campaigns? Do you feel the city’s news outlets — newspapers, radio stations, and television channels — provide sufficient information about local campaigns? If you have a question you’d like to ask about the candidates, share it with me at (626) 576-8396, or by e-mail. I’ll do my best to see that your views and concerns are addressed — that your questions are answered.

Dear Reader, the next Mayor of Los Angeles will inherit one gigantic mess; he/she will find there’s no one in charge at City Hall. The Chief Executive Officer position is vacant. The Board of Civil Service Commissioners has been stifled. The Personnel Department doesn’t administer the civil service system. And Department Heads, who run their own agencies, seek permission before making a move.

The next Mayor of Los Angeles will, indeed, find a challenging job waiting for him/her. And if he/she actually cleans up that gigantic mess at City Hall, you and I and 4 million other Angelenos will be well-served. But we can’t sit back and hope for that to happen; it’s in our interest to make sure it happens!

In our American Democracy, good government truly does begin with you, you, and me!

You can contact Sam at samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

Compared with the 1925 “Weak Mayor” Charter, the city’s new Charter greatly expands the powers of the Executive Branch. To manage those powers, L.A. needs a good, strong mayor!

Under the current Charter, the Mayor of Los Angeles is the city’s Chief Executive Officer. He/she is responsible for executing and upholding all city laws and ordinances. A good, strong mayor could use that authority to restore the Board of Civil Service Commissioners to its legal role in city government. A good, strong mayor could also require the Personnel Department to administer the city’s civil service system.

Moreover, the Charter now vests the mayor with management authority over virtually all city departments, agencies, and appointed offices. Thus, a good, strong mayor could raise the level of Human Resource Management throughout the city organization by requiring all responsible managers to bring their personnel practices in line with Best Practice Standards.

The mayor has the power and duty to appoint the heads of nearly all departments, bureaus, and offices in the city organization. A good, strong mayor could discharge his duty to the people by using his/her power to conduct nation-wide searches and to appoint the best qualified managers available anywhere in the country.

Subject to Council confirmation, the mayor has the power and duty to appoint the members of commissions and boards. A good, strong mayor would use this power to appoint qualified Civil Service Commissioners. He/she would work with the Commission to raise the level of Human Resource Management in all city departments, bureaus, and offices.

The mayor has the power and duty to prepare and submit his proposed budget to the City Council. A good, strong mayor would discharge his/her duty to Angelenos by cutting fat from the budget. For example, he/she could eliminate the full-time Board of Public Works, reduce the number of highly-paid exempt employees, including some Mayoral Aides/ Council Aides.

As the city’s most powerful official, a good, strong mayor could use Joint Labor-Management Partnerships to improve working conditions for City employees. Such partnerships could assist managers in maintaining a supportive work-place environment. They could work with managers to consider if traditional personnel practices are still effective. And LMPs could help managers appraise supervisory effectiveness in their departments.

There’s no question that Los Angeles needs a good, strong mayor; the question is can such a mayor be found among the current group of declared candidates?

 You can contact Sam Sperling at samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

The first speaker was Council Member Jan Perry. She told the audience about her background, about her decision to run for a seat on the City Council, and about the work she’s done for her constituents in the Ninth District. Then she listed some of the things she’d like to do if she makes it to the mayor’s office.

As Mayor of Los Angeles, Jan Perry would like to build a city that doesn’t require everyone to drive a car. She’d like to build a city in which the mayor has a seat on the School Board, and in which poor communities would have better access to grocery stores. After answering several questions, Ms. Perry turned the podium over to the next speaker, Austin Beutner.

Candidate Beutner told the audience that in his youth he’d washed dishes in a restaurant, and that he’d driven a delivery truck. He talked briefly about the time he fell off his bicycle and broke his neck. But, since a recent newspaper article had described him as an investment banker, the audience may have expected to hear something about his business experience.

Mr. Beutner did tell the audience he’d spent a year at City Hall in Los Angeles. He reported that City Hall didn’t listen — that there’s a lack of teamwork in city government. He had a lot to say about the need to improve the city’s schools through community involvement. And he said Los Angeles could do what New York has done to enhance its tourist industry.

The third speaker last night was Wendy Greuel, the City Controller. Born and reared in Los Angeles, she helped manage a family business and served on the City Council before running for the Controller’s Office. She talked about the need to put people back to work in Los Angeles. One way to do that, she said, is to eliminate business taxes for small businesses that create jobs

With respect to the city budget, Ms. Greuel said, “Every dollar counts. As mayor, I’ll hold all department managers accountable.” She said it’s important that Los Angeles have a Minority Business Owners Program. She also said the city may not be collecting all the taxes it’s owed.

Eric Garcetti, the fourth speaker at last week’s event, began his presentation with a biblical story which, he said, teaches us that before we can go forward, we must go inside. We must help Angelenos believe in their city — help them celebrate their city. We must put Angelenos back to work. And to bring companies back to Los Angeles, we must abolish the business tax.

Mr. Garcetti, who’s serving his second term as Councilman in the 13th Council District, told the audience that Los Angeles has much about which to be hopeful. His District has cleaned up the drug and prostitution problems, and based on those successful efforts, he feels that other city problems can also be resolved. “We just have to get back to working together,” he said.

The next mayoral candidate to address the audience at Holman was Y.J. Draiman. Curiously, prior to last night, he’d received virtually no publicity in the Los Angeles media. But based on his presentation and on the emails I’ve received from him (he’s the only candidate who responded to my request for information), Draiman’s campaign for mayor should be taken seriously.

He’s President of the Northridge Neighborhood Council, he’s now working on a Doctorate in renewable energy and, as he told the audience last night, he thinks Los Angeles must become far more business friendly — that It must rejuvenate manufacturing, and that to do all this, the city must make full use of its natural resources (an idea he promises to explain at a later time).

When Kevin James was introduced, the audience had already heard from five speakers. But when he started talking, everyone leaned forward and listened. He’d been a radio talk show host, and he’s an experienced attorney. He connected with the audience when he said the Department of Water and Power needs to be given a top-to-bottom audit.

He charged that the city’s business tax is 50 times as high as the tax in the rest of the county.

He talked about the city’s dysfunctional system of stop signals, about city man-hole covers that aren’t level with the street, and about the need for street maintenance. He called for long-term budgeting, and for the reform of city government which, he said, had recently been described as “corrupted.”

Addie M. Miller, native of Los Angeles, was the seventh speaker of the night. She confirmed that she is, indeed, a candidate for mayor. But she made it clear that she is not seeking campaign contributions. She told the audience that if anyone wants to help her serve the needy, she’d accept the time they devote. But if anyone wants to contribute money to her campaign, they should give it to the needy.

The final speaker was Ted Crisell. He wants to be elected Mayor of Los Angeles, but he promised he’d accept only one dollar a year, and he’d serve only one four-year term. He talked about the homeless in Los Angeles. He said there are over 50,000 individuals in our city who have no place to sleep. Moreover, he said, with a concerted effort the homeless problem in Los Angeles could be resolved rather quickly.

The next mayoral election is not scheduled to be held till March 5, 2013. That means we all have about a year to figure out whom to support. And it means we must learn all we can about these candidates!

You can contact this writer at samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

Riordan’s first action was to degrade the Board of Civil Service Commissioners. In doing that, he violated Charter Section 101, which vested the Board with rule-making power. Moreover, he ignored four court decisions cited in that Section that amplified the Board’s rule-making power.

Riordan also trampled Charter Section 102, which required that all rule changes be printed for distribution by the Board, and published in the official paper. Section 102 also required that the public be given 30 days to obtain copies of all such changes before they become effective.

And when he downsized the Board and usurped its powers, Mayor Riordan violated Charter Section 114. That Section provided that “the Board shall investigate the enforcement of this Article and its rules, and the conduct and action of the appointees in the classified civil service of this City.”

Obviously, Mayor Riordan was not greatly burdened by his promise to uphold the City Charter.

As a successful venture capitalist, he’d been openly critical of civil service. It was his view that a part-time Board could simply not hold department managers accountable.

Under the Riordan Paradigm, the Board would have no oversight responsibility. Department managers would be given more power; within limits, they’d be expected to operate their own agencies, and they’d be accountable only to the Mayor’s office.

For his first seven years in office, Mayor Riordan was busy setting up and defending his Managers Must Manage plan. Simultaneously, he was working to get a new City Charter approved by the voters. His hope was that the new Charter would look more like his plan, less like civil service.

Well, the City’s new Charter was approved by the voters on June 8, 1999. It would become effective on July 1, 2000. But to Riordan’s bitter disappointment, the new Charter retains an active, semi-independent Board of Civil Service Commissioners.

With one year left before he’d be termed out, Riordan insisted that the new Charter allows the City to ignore two Sections listed under the heading “PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT”: Section 540, Powers and Duties of the Department; and Section 541, Board of Civil Service Commissioners.

It may sound like a bad joke, but both of Boss Riordan’s successors, Mayor Hahn and Mayor Villaraigosa, embraced the New Paradigm! And like the Boss, they refused to explain how the people of Los Angeles benefit when the Charter the voters approved is trampled — when the City’s civil service system is routinely violated.

The current Mayor, Antonio R. Villaraigosa, has about one year left before he’s termed out. But before he leaves, he must be held to account for his seven-year record of corrupting the City’s civil service system. Villaraigosa has previously ignored questions that must now be answered:

— With the civil service system dismantled, who enforces the personnel-related provisions of the Charter, and the rules of the Board of Civil Service Commissioners?

— With the Board of Civil Service Commissioners degraded, who determines if new rules are needed, or existing rules need to be amended to comply with Federal regulations?

Contact this writer at samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

Some Angelenos speak fluent English; some speak English with a noticeable accent. Others, who may speak little or no English, are fluent in one or more of the 120 different languages/dialects spoken in Los Angeles.

Some Angelenos are wealthy; others are very poor. Some are well-educated; some are virtually unschooled. Some Angelenos enjoy robust health; others are disabled. Some are employed, some are unemployed, and others are retired.

Some Angelenos are employers. They manage business organizations and make goods and/or services available to the public. They create jobs, generate taxes, and strengthen the City’s economy.

Angelenos represent an incredibly diverse slice of humanity. We have widely different views about everything. But occasionally we do find common ground. Take, for example, our views on religion.

Some Angelenos are deeply religious; others are turned off by religious talk. But regardless of our views, most of us would probably agree that the Golden Rule — a religious principle — is a good guide for our secular society.

Or consider what we Angelenos think about politics. Some of us are politically active; others have given up on politics. But it’s a good bet that we all want our government to be effective, efficient, and responsive to the will of the people. It’s an equally good bet that virtually none of us is totally satisfied with the way City government actually operates.

And that, Dear Reader, is a huge part of the problem! Like constituents all over the world, we Angelenos gripe about our government. But that’s all we do — gripe! We don’t do anything! We don’t spend any time or energy trying to fix the problems we complain about.

Listen, Los Angeles! We can’t wait for the Poop Fairy to clean up the mess at City Hall! That’s a job we – you and I — must do for ourselves!

C’mon, Angelenos! That’s our government we’re talking about. We elected our leaders; we trusted them to do what they were elected to do. Then we left them with no effective oversight. And we’re shocked that our trust is being violated — that our leaders are putting their careers ahead of our needs.

We can do better. We can begin now preparing for the next Municipal Election. It’s set for March 5, 2013. That gives us a year to learn everything we can about the candidates for Mayor, City Attorney, and Controller. It gives us a year to learn all that can be learned about candidates who’ll be running for the odd-numbered Council Seats —1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15.

And it gives me time to remind you how the current crop of leaders is making us pay for trusting them — for not holding them accountable to the people!

You can contact Samuel Sperling at samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

Charter Section 242(b) provides that “…the duty of the Council and its committees is to become fully informed of the business of the City so as to oversee all the functions of the City government…”

But with respect to the City’s personnel function, Council has turned a blind eye to duty. It has — in my view — been criminally derelict. It has repeatedly refused to use its investigative powers to consider credible allegations of personnel mismanagement.

By refusing to do its duty, Council left the civil service system without any effective oversight. It allowed managers to use working tests that violate the “job-relatedness” requirement established by the United States Supreme Court.

By its dereliction, Council left managers free to use employee ratings that, like those described as “inherently unreliable” by an LAPD Board of Inquiry, do not accurately reflect what employees do on the job and that have little credibility throughput the City organization.

Without question, Council’s refusal to oversee the City’s personnel function has had a destructive impact on Civil Service in Los Angeles.

But long term, the most serious consequence of the Council’s failure is that it gives the Mayor — the City’s top politician — virtually unchecked control of the whole civil service system! Wow! That’s asking the fox to guard the hen house! Why on earth would the Council do that?

Someday, Angelenos will realize that the Mayor and the Council are ganging up on them. They’ll learn that a number of elected leaders are working to replace their civil service system, or at least to subject that system to a radical make-over!

While it’s not widely known, Civil Service in Los Angeles has been under attack since 1993. The City’s last three Mayors (Riordan, Hahn, and Villaraigosa) degraded the Board of Civil Service Commissioners and down-sized its role. They grabbed the Board’s powers, and turned the peoples’ civil service system into a collection of separate City agencies.

While the Mayors had the Council’s quiet cooperation, the changes they made are not legal! Equating Los Angeles with Havana, the Bosses didn’t put the proposed changes on the ballot! Have they no shame?

You can contact Samuel Sperling at samuelmsperling@yahoo.com.

To keep politics out of City Service, the Board built a system of competitive examinations and declared that appointment to positions in the classified service would follow the Merit Principle. While this didn’t completely eliminate politics at City Hall, it did replace the “spoils system” in which appointments were more likely to be based on connections than on competence.

To keep unqualified job-seekers off the City payroll, the Board adopted Civil Service Rule 1.26. That rule defined the probationary period as the working test and provided that probationers must be judged on what they actually do on the job. Regrettably, that rule was not — and is still not — enforced!

And to provide a pool of job-ready employees for City agencies, the Board kept a list of tested candidates for each job class in City Service. Agencies with a vacant position requested the Board to certify the names of all the candidates who could be considered for appointment. The agency would interview them and select the one best suited for the vacant position.

In these basic ways, the Board of Civil Service Commissioners has continued to serve the people of Los Angeles. While no one denies that it provides a reliable, generally competent workforce, some complain that it’s been reluctant to accept new developments in Human Resource Management — that it’s too inefficient.

Criticisms such as these cannot be ignored, but they would surely not justify the current effort to dismantle the system, degrade the Board, and usurp its powers. Nor do the Board’s shortcomings justify giving the City’s most powerful politician direct, unchecked control of the Civil Service! And how could anyone believe the system becomes more effective when Civil Service Rule 1.26 is routinely violated?

The simple truth is, beginning in 1993 the City’s Civil Service system has been under constant attack. A succession of three mayors (Riordan, Hahn, and Villaraigosa) stifled the Board, reduced its role, and grabbed its powers. And by changing the Charter without a vote of the people, they committed a criminal act.

There is an urgent need to restore the Board, to improve HRM throughout City Service. There is also a need to hold the power-grabbing mayors accountable.

You can contact Sam Sperling at samuelmsperling@yahoo.com