Come on, L.A., you can do better than this

A tour of City Hall's grounds reveals monuments to neglect

- STEVE LOPEZ COLUMNIST

UNHOUSED people at the Frank Putnam Flint fountain, stained and marked by graffiti, at City Hall.

(Photographs by ALLEN J. SCHABEN/ Los Angeles Times)

At one time, the Frank Putnam Flint fountain on the south side of Los Angeles City Hall had three things going for it:

A likeness of the former U.S. senator, a plaque detailing his service, and, of course, water.

The fountain has none of those things today, and hasn't for years.

The marble structure is, however, still a monument of sorts. Graffiti and all, it's a monument to neglect, to failed leadership, and to the sense of surrender that afflicts so many public spaces in Los Angeles.

DEAD FRONDS hang from palm trees at Felipe de Neve Plaza.

This is an election year, and it's fair for taxpayers to wonder whether the care and maintenance of their neighborhoods will ever improve if the people who run the city can't manage their own property.

The fountain, by the way, didn’t just dry up yesterday.

When I told my editor what I was working on, he dug up an L.A. Times story from 1997 that was titled: “On the blight side.”Times reporter Paul Dean noted that Flint helped tap the Owens Valley water that irrigated L.A.’s growth and prosperity, but the fountain named for him had not been in operation for 30 years. It was later restored, but shut down again a decade or so ago. So going back nearly 60 years, the late Mr. Flint has been left to quietly suffer the indignities of desecration and abandonment, but for temporary intervention.