Where Cities Fail in Los Angeles County

Few citizens have any understanding of what councilmembers do other than attend social events, talk with the media, and council meetings.
If a councilmember is hardworking, the job involves attending many meetings at the county, state and even national level. One of the ways I served during my terms as a mayor was to attend the monthly meetings of the City Selection Committee, which chose different council members to represent the cities on such boards as the Air Quality Management District.
In 1993 the City Selection Committee needed to fill a vacancy on the AQMD board, and Nell Soto of the Pomona City Council let us know she would like to be selected. I don't recall anyone else being interested. I was certainly busy enough teaching full time (to earn a living) and serving on the council, taking my turns as mayor and participating on various committees.
It seemed that Nell would be appointed right away.
However, the process took ten months because three cities led by Bob Bartlett argued that Nell was not qualified, and refused to vote for her. She had the support of at least 60% of the mayors, but a two-thirds approval was required, and the simple fact was that usually a third of the mayors did not even show up at the monthly meetings. For nine months we were a few votes shy of electing Nell Soto to the ACMD board. During that time Bob Bartlett never explained why he opposed Nell, or why he felt she was not qualified. Bob Bartlett did not run for the seat, or get anyone else to run.
One evening we found ourselves one vote away from having the two-thirds and we agreed to stay until we could get one more mayor to show up. Someone had John Ferraro's number. Neither he as the president of the Los Angeles City Council (and the Mayor's alternate) or the Mayor of Los Angeles ever attended the meetings, but that night John Ferraro agreed to get up, get dressed, and attend our meeting.
Nell Soto got the job she wanted, led the charge to clean up the perchlorates poisoning the groundwater of the San Gabriel Valley, and later served in the state assembly and the state senate. She died February 26, 2009, at the age of 82.
Sadly, our cities went without any representation on the AQMD board for almost a year because a few mayors did not see the point in taking their time to make the system work.