Road Trip

The agenda seemed to be written in a foreign language. The roll was called so fast observers could hardly tell where one name ended and another began. The sound system was so bad the audience could hardly hear.

The Los Angeles City Council took a road trip Tuesday to give the students at Manual Arts High School in South L.A. a live civics lesson, bringing democracy, as they say, to the people. But many of the teenagers--including those involved in student government and community service groups--found the council’s meeting a lot like their textbooks and classroom lectures: Bo-r-r-r-ring.

“I don’t even know what it’s for,” said senior Eddie Robinson, 18, who was seated in a far-back row. “This is about what? What are they talking about? If it was just my choice, I wouldn’t come. It’s nothing important to me.”

Welcomed by an arc of purple and gray balloons and a special H-E-L-L-O from the school’s cheerleading squad, the council droned through its 27-item agenda, approving many things without discussion before losing a quorum just before 12:30. (The audience, too, had largely gone to lunch.)

There was little participation from the students, except for a large burst of applause when Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas called for an end to an hourlong debate about the L.A. Marathon’s contract.

Still, Principal Wendell Greer was proud to play host.

“Any time you can bring the city government to the students, there’s better buy-in. Instead of seeing the picture, they can touch that person and see they’re just like everybody else,” he said. “Hopefully they’re fired up and it’ll bring their textbook to life.”

Students filed in and out of the auditorium, led by teachers who, in turn, were encouraged by Greer to participate. But few were prepared for what they saw. One group of English as a Second Language students came from classes taught in Spanish and could hardly follow the arcane bureaucratic discussions of commission appointments, library grants, alley closures and park funding.

“They’re just learning English, so they don’t really understand what’s going on, but it’s good just to watch,” said ESL teacher Diane Monteith, who brought about 25 students to the meeting. “They’re going to write about it when they get back.”

Asked in Spanish whether she understood what the council members were saying, 17-year-old Rosa Sola said: “Mas o menos.”

Tuesday’s was the latest in a series of field trips by the council, each costing about $7,000. Three recent meetings were held in the San Fernando Valley, and one in San Pedro. This was the first in South Los Angeles, and the first at a high school, in more than a decade.

Councilwoman Rita Walters, whose 9th District includes Manual Arts, tried to fashion the agenda to intrigue her audience, selecting items of pertinence to the neighborhood and to youth, such as parks. She also honored eight teachers with 30 years of local experience with council resolutions at the opening of the meeting, and asked her colleagues to give an ovation to the members of Youth Task Force-Los Angeles, a school service group.

The efforts were lost on even some of the likeliest supporters.

“I, personally, don’t know much about what’s going on. I never heard about any of these people before except Rita Walters,” said Senior Class Vice President Jasmine Tigolo, 17. “When they say jokes or whatever, I’m like, ‘Why is everybody laughing?’ If you don’t know anything about it, it’s hard to follow. They’re approving things real quick and they talk real fast.”

Robinson, who plans to attend Santa Monica College next year, said the problem was not so much that he couldn’t understand, but that he didn’t care about the council’s agenda.

“I know what they’re talking about--they’re just talking about money, what to spend it on. They should spend their money by helping the streets, helping the schools--the stuff they’re doing is unnecessary,” he said as discussion of the marathon contract continued. “They’re talking about millions of dollars and with millions of dollars, they could hook L.A. up. With all that money they could give people jobs. But they don’t understand that--they’re not from around here.”