General Manager's Update 

I hope this newsletter finds you well. Congratulations to the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates on their meeting with Mayor Villaraigosa this week! Mayor Villaraigosa was impressed with the amount of work the volunteer Budget Advocates did in researching the budget issues to come up with some viable solutions in 16 main areas, which included the Economic Development Department, salary, healthcare and pension reforms, and centralized collections. A big thank you to all the Budget Advocates and their Co-Chairs, Jay Handal and Marcello Robinson, for all their work. I also want to appreciate the Mayor and his budget team for providing this opportunity to work with the Budget Advocates on finding solutions to the City's budget challenges. The Mayor's proposed budget will be released on April 19, 2013. 

I'm happy to report that the City Council reviewed our funding report on Tuesday and asked the City Attorney's Office to begin drafting the ordinance to authorize Neighborhood Council checking accounts. Many thanks to Councilmember Parks for leading on this change in the Education and Neighborhoods Committee. Neighborhood Councils can still weigh in because the ordinance language must go through 2 readings before becoming final so please submit your Community Impact Statements or opinion letters for the City Council in the next month.

 

In other news, I had an opportunity to meet our City's new Chief Technology Officer Steve Reneker to chat about how ITA can collaborate with Neighborhood Councils. There's some exciting possibilities coming down the road, but Neighborhood Councils can introduce the City's new 311 App [Click here to download the app from the Google Play store. Click here to download from iTunes.] to their stakeholders so they can start easily accessing City services. Read more about Steve below.

 

Just a reminder that tomorrow's Board Development Workshop in the Harbor area has been cancelled and will be rescheduled.

 

As always, thank you for all you do to Empower LA and have a great weekend!

  

Best,

 

 

Grayce Liu, 

General Manager

Department of Neighborhood Empowerment  

 

Empower Yourself.   

Empower Your Community. 

Empower LA.

    

In what was described as one of the most productive meetings of the past several years, members of the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates backed many of the proposals made by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to cut city spending. "The mayor looked at all our proposals and disagreed with only a couple," said Jay Handal, chair of the Budget Advocates committee. "We agreed with him that dealing with the structural deficit is the main challenge the city faces."...

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In the middle of the room where a soft light seemed to perfectly shine through large windows and land on a huge conference table, sat the Mayor, his team, and the Budget Advocates, all poised to discuss the 16 issues that affect the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates '13 (NCBA13) and the communities it represents. Oddly enough at first glance, you cannot tell the Budget Advocates from the Mayor and his team. There is an atmosphere of oneness and respect. The meeting carries a peaceful and quiet tone of professionals eager to be heard, but more eager to listen. It is at first an eery feeling, because the Budget Advocates do not seem their usual selves. They tend to be direct, to the point, and at times downright loud! Their passion for the community is raw and Politicians can expect a direct verbal warfare if any dishonesty is detected. However, today is a different day.......so I thought!...

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Each One Teach One

One of the fastest ways to learn is to become the teacher, an application of the "Each One Teach One" principle in which a community grows stronger as members pass on their skills and knowledge to others. EmpowerLA's community of 95 Neighborhood Councils is strengthened through a peer mentoring program called Councils for Councils, made up of "expert" Neighborhood Council members who serve as mentors/trainers for less experienced Neighborhood Councils...

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Valley Unites to Fight Gangs

The City of Los Angeles has seen its crime rate decrease each year for the last ten years, earning it the title of America's Safest Big City, something that Mayor Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief Beck attribute to LA's commitment to community policing. One of the best examples of the power of community policing takes place in the San Fernando Valley where the Coalition on Gangs has been active for the past decade, bringing together representatives from all walks of life, from the LAPD and City Attorney's office to local schools and churches, to community organizations and Neighborhood Councils, to elected officials and non-profit organizations...

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ITA's new GM and new Opportunity

LA's Information Technology Agency (ITA) has a new General Manager, Steve Reneker, who also serves as LA's Chief Technology Officer. Reneker most recently served as the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) for the City of Riverside and as the Executive Director for SmartRiverside where he developed programs to attract and retain High Technology companies in Riverside and to operate a citywide wireless Internet project with Digital Inclusion that provided free training, computers, and internet access for low-income families...

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One of the best ways to connect with the Mayor and your City Councilperson is to subscribe to their newsletter and email updates. If you are not sure of your City Council District, you can enter your address here and you will find all your representatives, including your Neighborhood Council. To subscribe to the Mayor's updates and your City Councilperson's newsletters, use the following links:

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Thank you to those Neighborhood Councils who have submitted their outstanding Purchase Card quarterly reconciliations. The deadline for submission is 5 p.m. on Monday, April 1, 2013, and any Neighborhood Council that does not submit by that deadline will have its funds frozen. There will be no extensions of the deadline because of the necessity to bring Neighborhood Council funding records up to current policies and procedures so we can revamp the program to the new checking account system...

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