I hope this newsletter finds you well. As we just celebrated Labor Day, I wanted to take this opportunity to appreciate our staff. They've been amazingly supportive while I've gotten up to speed on all the General Manager duties this past month, getting the necessary work done while taking on changes for increased efficiency and transparency. The funding team is working strong on paying the bills while updating our new City Check tracker and providing the various budget updates the City requests. We're down to a 2 week turn around on demand warrants and are working out the kinks in the purchase cards now. We've also put together a year end summary of the last budget fiscal year for all the Neighborhood Council expenditures (more about that below). 

Our Neighborhood Empowerment Advocates, led by the talented Director of Field Operations, Leyla Campos, are busy working both in funding and the field to support the Neighborhood Councils. They are also gearing up to start EmpowerLA Leadership Academy trainings for all the new Boards being seated after the elections. Last, but not least, our elections crew is going full speed on the elections, handling deadline after deadline with swift efficiency. It's beyond intense, but luckily, they have the great Elections Coordinator, Stephen Box, at the helm making it happen. I'm also thrilled to welcome our new Neighborhood Council Funding Program Director, Armando Ruiz, who is coming from the Housing Department and will start next week. He has done some impressive work there, and we welcome his talents here. Along with our wonderful Independent Election Administrators and USC interns, we are all enthusiastically serving the Neighborhood Councils and their stakeholders.  Learn more about us on our website.

  

Region 2 elections are tomorrow so you'll find me driving around the North East Valley checking on the 6 Neighborhood Council elections in the afternoon. In the morning, I'll be at the Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Coalition meeting where our new Deputy Mayor, Torie Osborn, will be introducing herself to the Neighborhood Council leaders.  

In case I don't bump into you tomorrow, have a great weekend!

Best,