Jim Newton signs off with some suggestions for Los Angeles

Jim Newton, the editor-at-large and Monday columnist on the LA Times opinion page, is leaving the paper for a newly created position at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs. He devotes his final column to some recommendations for fixing LA based on his experience as a Times reporter on the LAPD beat, on the mayor's office and City Hall beat, as the bureau chief over city and county coverage, and as an editor and columnist. You may remember that in 2007 he became the editor over the editorial pages, but after 14 months he resigned and said he would go off to write a book on Dwight Eisenhower. Newton returned a few months later, after David Hiller was removed as publisher, then a year later left again to go finish the book. That's when Nick Goldberg became editor of the editorial pages.

In 2010 Newton began writing his op-ed column for the Times. His fixes proposed in the final column include ending term limits — ex-mayor Richard Riordan told him pushing term limits for city elected officials was "the worst mistake of my life" — expanding the City Council to 45 members but slashing their budgets, abolishing the school board and appointing the currently elected sheriff.

A snippet of his thinking:

Efforts to improve local government and the services it provides have come and gone over the 22 years I have covered Los Angeles for this newspaper. Some have been successful: The Christopher Commission reset the accountability systems at the LAPD, and two charter reform commissions joined forces to make important changes to local governance. Others, too numerous to mention, fizzled into insignificance.

Even the less memorable reform efforts, however, left bread crumbs to follow on the path to improvement. Since this is my last column and the end of my tenure at The Times, I thought I would gather up a few of those from over the years and offer my own thoughts on a handful of changes that might make a big difference. Most would require changes in state or local laws, and some would face formidable opposition, but here are my nominations.

Newton's departure from the Times is a bitter pill for some of the reporters and editors who were hoping (and apparently kind of expecting) that new publisher Austin Beutner would name him editor of the paper. At UCLA, he will take a larger teaching role and also launch a new journal of ideas about Los Angeles.