Resident brief / printable edition
A serious question.
A case residents can check.
City of Westside is a public effort to determine whether Westside communities should leave the City of Los Angeles and form a safer, cleaner, more responsive, and more accountable city of their own.
Use your browser’s print dialog to print this page or save it as a PDF. Navigation, controls, and decorative elements are removed in print.
City of Westside is an exploratory civic initiative, not an existing city, government agency, ballot measure, service provider, emergency service, or official source. This site does not claim government authority, an adopted boundary, a completed feasibility study, a public mandate, staff, an agency agreement, a connected service, an application status, or a start date.
What this is—and is not
The Westside can do better: safer neighborhoods, cleaner streets, faster city services, clear accounting for every tax dollar, and decisions closer to home. This initiative is testing whether a new city can deliver that standard; it does not assume incorporation is feasible or preferable.
A smaller city could focus entirely on Westside results. It could also cost too much, take on serious duties, or depend on agreements it cannot secure. The facts about money, law, services, fairness, the environment, workers, regional responsibilities, and public consent could support the proposal, require changes, or show that it should stop. Remaining part of Los Angeles stays in the comparison.
A question on a map, not a legal boundary.
Six planning areas help start the discussion
Brentwood–Pacific Palisades, Westwood, West Los Angeles, Palms–Mar Vista–Del Rey, Venice, and Westchester–Playa del Rey are familiar area names. These Community Plan Areas do not establish a legal boundary for a new city.
Two major boundary questions remain open
LAX and Bel Air / the western hills are shown separately because no inclusion or exclusion is claimed. Official review must address airport operations, hillsides, wildfire, evacuation, public services, infrastructure, law, costs, and community ties.
Independent neighbors
Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and Malibu remain independent neighboring municipalities outside proposed territory. No coordination, agreement, support, or participation is claimed.
Make service simple and accountability clear.
These are standards for how a possible City Hall should treat residents. They are not active city services, deployed software, or connections to any agency.
- 01
One place to ask for help
Start with a resident’s need, whether it arrives online, by phone, at a counter, by mail, in the field, or without a smartphone.
- 02
One person or department responsible
Show who owns a request, why a decision was made, whether work is complete, and how to seek review or appeal.
- 03
Human public authority
Keep consequential decisions with authorized people who can explain, correct, and be held accountable.
- 04
Open by default
Make budgets, contracts, service standards, and decisions public within lawful privacy and security limits.
- 05
Service during an outage
Keep essential work running safely during internet, power, vendor, or facility failures.
- 06
Public control of information
Limit why information is collected, keep records portable and open to audit, set deletion dates, and make it possible to replace a vendor.
Protect continuity before redesign.
For an emergency, call 911 and use alerts and instructions from official public agencies. This website does not dispatch help, operate 311, or provide official alerts.
- Boundary and law: official property records, community ties, current LA LAFCO requirements, and advice from qualified counsel.
- Money and obligations: revenue, costs, major investments, public property, debt, workers, labor duties, and any current law governing financial effects on affected agencies.
- Resident service: a clear way to request help, with human, multilingual, accessible, phone, counter, mail, and privacy-protecting options.
- Police, fire, EMS, and 911: lawful authority, provider acceptance, command, dispatch, contracts, records, mutual aid, cybersecurity, exercises, and fallback.
- Infrastructure and regional responsibilities: confirmed ownership, condition, funding, utilities, transportation, the environment, education, health care, and work with neighboring governments.
- Public controls: representation, accessibility, equity, language access, records, civil rights, human authority, public engagement, and independent review.
Answer each question before taking the next step.
There is no target date and no claim that any step will begin or finish. Current law, the facts, LA LAFCO, responsible agencies, required public proceedings, and qualified counsel control what happens.
- 01
Ask the questions residents care about
Define the possible benefits, risks, alternatives, affected communities, information needed, and reasons to stop.
- 02
Compare boundaries, services, and costs
Use official property records and current information to compare service responsibilities, money, infrastructure, workers, fairness, environmental effects, and government accountability.
- 03
Invite independent and public review
Publish sources, calculations, assumptions, and conflicts in accessible languages. Correct the proposal or stop if the facts do not hold up.
- 04
Confirm what the law requires
Only if the facts support more work, confirm current LA LAFCO, legal, environmental, financial, hearing, protest, and election requirements.
- 05
Let the lawful public process decide
Follow all required hearings, approvals, and voting rules. Participation here is not a petition, hearing, application, endorsement, or vote.
- 06
Do not interrupt services
Only after every required approval, confirm funding, workers, public property, records, cybersecurity, accessibility, mutual aid, backup plans, and uninterrupted services before any lawful start date.
Do not hide what remains unknown.
- Which property-by-property boundaries should be compared with remaining part of Los Angeles?
- Should LAX or Bel Air / the western hills be inside or outside a possible boundary?
- Could any boundary support reliable services and long-term finances while treating residents and affected agencies fairly under current law?
- What form of representation would be lawful, accessible, accountable, and preferred by voters?
- Who could provide resident services, 911, police, fire, EMS, and utilities without interruption?
- What public property, infrastructure, workers, labor duties, debt, contracts, records, and information would be involved?
- Which answers would require residents and public officials to change or reject the proposal?
Share a concern, correction, or alternative.
You can correct a source, identify an affected community that is missing, challenge an assumption, share a public record, or propose another choice. Participation here is not an endorsement, petition signature, survey result, public proceeding, agency record, or promise of review.
The organizing hub uses prefilled email links. They open a draft in your email provider and do not imply a response, role, endorsement, or relationship.
Check the law and public record.
- Los Angeles City Planning: Existing Community Plans
Official information about the named Community Plan Areas. These planning areas help identify neighborhoods, but they are not proposed legal boundaries.
- LA LAFCO: Los Angeles County LAFCO
Official website of the county commission that reviews proposals to form cities and change local government boundaries.
- California Legislative Information: Government Code, Title 5, Division 3
Official access point for current California codes. Research should review Government Code section 56000 et seq. and verify every applicable provision at the time of use.
Legal and source warning: These official links do not establish a legal boundary, feasibility, required procedure, agency position, or public support. Links, laws, policies, and responsibilities can change. Recheck complete current sources and obtain official boundary records plus qualified legal, financial, environmental, engineering, labor, accessibility, emergency-management, cybersecurity, and independent review before relying on the proposal. This brief is not professional advice.