Two televised mayoral debates are being sponsored next month by the Citywide Alliance of Neighborhood Councils. With that name, you might think it's an alliance of the 80-some official neighborhood councils in Los Angeles. It's not, argues Robert Gelfand, a longtime San Pedro activist who attends its meetings (including Saturday's where rules for the upcoming debates were, um, debated.) The alliance has not gotten any councils to join, according to Gelfand and its own website, and its steering committee is not identified anywhere that I could find. Gelfand, writing in the online American Reporter:

The debate has been packaged to look like a real advance in grassroots power. Superficially, it reads as if the neighborhood councils all around the city have banded together to host the mayoral candidates. This would be a significant misunderstanding....

Contrary to what its name suggests, the Alliance is not and has never been a coalition of neighborhood councils or even some sort of creation of the neighborhood councils. It was, rather, the brainchild of Bill Christopher and a small group of supporters. As the Alliance's web site explains, it is a private organization that exists under the umbrella of PLAN/LA (People for Livable and Active Neighborhoods in Los Angeles), a nonprofit corporation Christopher had created earlier.

What apparently irked Gelfand is that the "steering committee" decided to exclude minor candidates from the Feb. 7 debate on KCAL-9 and the Feb. 28 follow-up on KCBS-2. Also, the only participation by actual neighborhood councils is that the presidents of each can submit names of seven people who will get to attend the debates at CBS Television City and possibly ask questions.