"Get Connected" will reveal
7 Social Media Secrets
at City Hall on Saturday |
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Saturday's NC Congress will offer two "Get Connected" sessions that
will unlock the mysteries of Social Media, providing an overview of the
most popular social media tools in the first session and then applying
specific advanced strategies for using the tools to connect
neighborhood councils with their communities in the second session.
The first session
of "Get Connected" is at 10 am in the Public Works Chambers on the 3rd
floor and promises to introduce the Social Media storm and cover the
most popular applications such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr,
MySpace, LinkedIn, and Ning. This is an introductory overview of the
Social Media arena and will empower attendees to select a tool or three
to include in their communication toolbox.
The second session of
"Get Connected" is at 1:45 pm, again in the Public Works Chambers on
the 3rd floor, this time digging into specific strategies for using the
most common Social Media tools for creating community, engaging
stakeholders, maximizing the impact NC communications, enhancing the
demographic spectrum of the neighborhood council, and getting more
message with a limited budget.
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NC Action Summit
Put 6 Action Plans in Motion
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 Last Saturday's NC Action Summit featured 6 issues, presented by
speakers who offered proposals and engaged in rigorous debate, all
resulting in calls to action from the attendees. The issues ranged
dramatically and drew different audiences, resulting in a crowd that
turned over a couple of times.
The participants for the opening
sessions on City Council salaries and the DWP Ratepayers Advocate were
long gone when the room filled for the animated and emotional session
on Medical Marijuana. Somewhere in between Cyclists turned out in
support of the Cyclists' Bill of Rights, a proposal for City Budget
Reform drew an animated response from city insiders and property owners
representing several viewpoints turned out for a presentation on
Sidewalk Repair options by Bureau of Street Services GM Bill Robertson.
The issues were presented, the details were debated, questions were called, votes were taken and action plans were initiated.
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LA Draft Bike Plan
5 Demands
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 The City of LA just released the Draft Bike Plan which, once finalized,
will replace the 2002 Bike Plan, an element of the Transportation Plan
which in turn is part of the City's General Plan. The Draft Bike Plan
is long overdue and short of substance. Here are 5 demands that
have been presented to City Planning and the Department of
Transportation by the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee, the Bike
Writers Collective, and the general cycling community. 1) Put the Cyclists' Bill of Rights in the Draft Bike Plan and use it as the basic foundation of the Bike Plan. 2) Lose the softly worded vision and replace it with the simple call for
"Consider every street in Los Angeles as a street that bicyclists will
use." 3) Extend the "comment" period from 42 days to 90 days so that neighborhood councils can participate and comment. 4)
Replace the soft words such as "should" and replace them with words of
imperative such as "shall" creating a real document of significance. 5)
Integrate the Bike Plan so that it is an integral part of planning,
operations, enforcement, maintenance, development and accommodation in
the City of Los Angeles. For more information on the Draft Bike
Plan and how it stands up to the Community Plans, the Specific Plans,
the Master Plans and the abundant authorities in the City of Los
Angeles, continue reading here. |
East Hollywood's
4 Acres of Green Space Vision
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LA's Bureau of Street Lighting has confirmed what many have claimed,
East Hollywood is the center of the city. Street Lighting revealed this
fact during a recent tour of their Lighting Yard Facility on Santa
Monica Boulevard, between Madison and Virgil.
It is from this
maintenance yard in this densely populated and park-poor community that
Street Lighting is able to service LA's lighting needs, from the Harbor
to the Eastside to the Westside to the far reaches of the Valley,
repairing and replacing the 75 light poles that are damaged by
automobiles every month, replacing burned out bulbs, conducting routine
maintenance and keeping 5000 miles of streets illuminated and servicing
400 types of lighting fixtures, all from this 4.2 acre slice of prime
real estate.
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LA Greensters Screen
3 Films at AltCar Expo
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 The LA Greensters, Hollywood's first all-pedal powered transpo team, appeared at Santa Monica's Alt Car Expo and created a doublewide
Park[ing] Booth which featured all of the amenities of a park plus the
screening of Reel Sustainable, Park[ing] Day LA and the Crenshaw Crush.
The
AltCar Expo was less about alternatives to the car and more about
alternative fuels, an auto-bias that focuses on the small steps but
that does nothing to address the congestion that holds our communities
under siege. That being said, the AlCar Expo was a fantastic
experience, highlighted by a visit from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
who heard all about sustainable film production when he stopped by LA
Greenster Park[ing] Booth and took a look at the Xtracycles, the trailers and the
pedal-powered team that is challenging the transportation limitations
of the industry.
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LA's relegates Cyclists
to 2nd Class Status
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 For all the talk of Share the Road and Equality and supporting all modes of travel, Los Angeles falls so short on the most basic of accommodations for cyclists that it is acutely evident that there are two castes in LA, those who arrive in private automobiles and those who don't.
Those who arrive on foot, by mass transit and on bicycles are definitely the square pegs in a society full of round holes and those in charge continue to greet us with suspicion and hesitation and often simple contempt as the non-motoring public continues to assault the stability of the community.
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1 Woman's View of the Streets
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 In community meetings to discuss urban planning, in advocacy meetings
to discuss bicycle planning, in neighborhood council meetings to
discuss public safety, our authorities give all sorts of advice on
appropriate behavior in the public place. We're told what streets to
use, what routes to ride, what facilities to use and typically, the
information comes from a male dominated world of planners and engineers
and law enforcement and transportation experts who see the world from
their positions of confidence and autonomy.
Enci wrote a great
article on the streets from a woman's perspective and urges us look at
our environment differently and to consider that a woman's radar is a
good barometer of safety and of security.
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NC Congress
Sat, Oct. 10
8 am - 3:30 pm Los Angeles City Hal
3rd Floor
200 N Spring St
LA 90012more info~~~~~~~~~~ East Hollywood GreensThurs, Oct. 15
7pmBARNSDALL ART PARK4814 Hollywood Blvd.
LA 20027~~~~~~~~~~ Bike Writers CollectiveSat, Oct. 17
6-7 pm~~~~~~~~~~ Without a Car
in the World
Sat, Oct. 17
1 pm
18th STREET ARTS CENTER
639 18th Street
Santa Monica, 90404
more info
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SLAP
Sat, Oct. 24
10 am
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RatePayers Advocate
Sat, Oct. 24
1 pm
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Sidewalk Repair
Sat, Oct. 24
1 pm
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LANCC
Sat, Nov. 7
10 am
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Budget Reform Task Force
Sat, Nov. 7
1 pm
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PlanCheck
Sat, Nov. 14
10 am
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Medical Marijuana
Sat. Nov. 14
1 pm
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Festival of
Rights
Fri, Dec. 18
6 pm
MULHOLLAND FOUNTAIN
Riverside Dr. &
Los Feliz Blvd.
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