For many of the neighborhood council leaders who gathered at City Hall this weekend, it must have seemed like deja vu all over again.

Led by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and hammered at by other city officials, the message was: "This time, we're serious," about the city's budget problems.

And it is not just the present budget - which remains in limbo as the Coalition of City Unions votes on its new contract and negotiations continue with police and firefighters - but also next year's budget.

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana has already held two meetings with city department heads on planning for next year's budget and warning that this time every city program is on the table.

"I've told them to look at every program to determine if it is needed, who would be affected if it is cut and what it would be like without it," Santana said.

Also, Santana said the number of city departments could change dramatically.

"We are looking at consolidation of services and consolidation of departments," Santana said.

Among the proposals being studied are plans to privatize the Los Angeles Zoo and turn over the Animal Services Department to a humane organization.

Los Angeles has had a problem with an ongoing structural deficit that runs anywhere from $200 million to $400 million a year. Officials have estimated the city is spending $1 million more a day than it receives in revenue.

The Los Angeles Police Commission held its final meeting in its cramped room at Parker Center last week, prompting some commissioners to reflect on their own personal history in the building.

Commissioner Andrea Sheridan Ordin remembered when she was a novice prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in 1966 and part of the training involved a tour of Parker Center. She walked in the building with 11 other new attorneys and the first place they were brought was the jail.

"I was only woman among the group and I was asked to please sit outside," Ordin recalled. "They told me it was for my own safety and I was not allowed to walk through the jail with my fellow deputy prosecutors.

"As I look out at the LAPD today, I am proud to see so many women and people of color on the department. Times have changed."

Commission President John Mack noted: "Not all of us have such fond memories."

Mack once headed the Urban League and was involved with a number of controversies with the LAPD over the years, from the shooting of Eula Love in 1979 to the Rodney King beatings in 1991.

As Police Chief Bill Bratton continues his final tour of the city before stepping down Oct. 31, he wanted to kick off his latest anti-crime proposal, iWATCH, but lamented the lack of a strong public response to the plan.

"Maybe we need an animal spokesman, like McGruff or Smokey the Bear," Bratton said. "We need to get on that."