Valley biz group suggests ways to increase L.A. revenue

The Valley Industry and Commerce Association, which the LA Weekly called ” the most powerful business group north of Mulholland,” has released a list of ten ideas for the City of Los Angeles to generate additional revenue, and another 40 ideas to balance the city budget. Some of my favorites:

Require the City to act on its plan for parking meter upgrades, and institute a standard of 99 percent operation of meters at all times (current operation is at approximately 85 percent). Revenue: $20-$45 million at a cost of $5 million to implement per year for the next five years.

Attract a National Football League team to Los Angeles.

Eliminate positions for calligraphers to decorate City proclamations and honors and program computers to do this. Savings: $500,000.

But please, don’t even touch this one:

Eliminate irrelevant programs for City workers such as “stick-play and sphincter control classes.”

Two ideas resolved around the idea of selling naming rights to city property, and providing branding opportunities on city owned vehicles. I wrote more about this approach a couple weeks ago on L.A. Metblogs.

Most of the other ideas seemed either so full of common sense or were too complicated for a layman like me to understand that I won’t mention them here. Words like “public private partnerships,” “consolodating agencies,” and “reviewing standards” gave me a headache, especially after reading the mere suggestion of eliminating sphincter control classes.