General Manager's Update 

 

I hope this newsletter finds you well. It has been a marathon of 12-14 hour days this week to try and get everything completed by the end of the fiscal year. Again, I want to appreciate our staff for stepping up to make sure all the funding documents and Board of Neighborhood Commissioners reports were completed on time. Controller Wendy Greuel and her staff really deserve some special recognition as well for going above and beyond to support us and Neighborhood Councils not only these past few days and weeks, but the last year, too.

 

Some great highlights from the past week have been:

• Speaking with the NorthWest San Pedro Neighborhood Council at their great retreat last Saturday where their moderator made this amazing flow "bridge" of civic engagement.
  I hope your Neighborhood Councils make time for retreats to talk about your goals for the year, which would be great for your strategic plans due with your budget package on July 12th.

• Watching the three Plan Review Committees meet and struggle over Neighborhood Council issues later the same Saturday. It is obvious that every one of them really cares about the future of the system to invest this many hours.  They are planning one more meeting to wrap up their recommendations. A big thank you to them!

• CivLAvia on Sunday with Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council and Mid City West Community Council (more below)

• Meeting with a delegation from Syria on Monday who wanted to learn about effective civic engagement 

• Launching the workshops for the new Funding Program finally on Tuesday! Just this week, over 200 Board members have either watched it online or come in person (108 in the Valley, which felt like the temperature outside, too!). A huge thank you to our Funding Program Director, Armando Ruiz, who has led on this project. Check out the links below to get your training completed.

• A marathon four hour special Board of Neighborhood Commissioners meeting to approve all of the Board structure and boundary adjustment applications last night and send out proposed Plan Review Committee motions for Neighborhood Council input (more below). This was President Paul Park's last meeting because he will be moving outside of the City. We really appreciated his leadership this past year, and I'm hoping I can talk him into running for a Neighborhood Council since he still works in LA. 

We look forward to July 1st when our new Mayor and City electeds start their first day. It's especially exciting to see Controller-elect Ron Galperin and Council District 13 Councilmember-elect Mitch O'Farrell, who were part of our Neighborhood Council family, step into their new leadership roles. EmpowerLA will have a table at Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti's inauguration on Sunday so please come and join us at 5 p.m. on Grand Park to celebrate and talk Neighborhood Councils.

 

I'll be staying cool in the Harbor area tomorrow for our EmpowerLA Advocacy and Funding Workshops so hope you stay cool, too, this weekend!

 

Best,

 

 

Grayce Liu,

General Manager

Department of Neighborhood Empowerment  

 

Empower Yourself.

Empower Your Community.

Empower LA.

    

After completing the Downtown to Venice Beach CicLAvia months back, I was looking forward to the Iconic Wilshire Boulevard ride last Sunday. Starting in Downtown at One Wilshire and ending in Miracle Mile at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, it was a six mile route, flanked by beautiful, but often overlooked, architecture "from Victorian vision to modernist experimentation; massive towers of business to intimate houses of worship; world class museums to working class mercados" as CicLAvia's website describes it...

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This past week, more than 200 Neighborhood Council Boardmembers participated in funding program workshops that introduce the impending changes in funding processes and requirements. There were workshops at City Hall, in the Valley, and in online Webinars. The NC Checking Account Presentation can be viewed by visiting SlideShare or downloading this PDF. Sample documents that are addressed in the presentation are the:...

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NC Plan Review Committees issue recommendations Last Saturday, the NC Plan Review Committees issued multiple recommendations to the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners regarding important policies which govern the Neighborhood Council system. Last night at a special meeting, the Commission discussed the recommendations and decided to postpone voting on them for 60 days to allow Neighborhood Councils and stakeholders the opportunity to weigh in. All Neighborhood Councils are asked to agendize, discuss and issue official board resolutions expressing their views on the recommendations, and submit them to the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners. Individuals are also encouraged to weigh in by sending emails or letters...

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Neighborhood Council Leaders
Launch ARC 

Neighborhood Council leaders from and around the East Planning Area gathered on Wednesday to plan and launch a neighborhood alliance to help amplify the voice of residents and stakeholders in the east and northeast areas of Los Angeles. The newly formed group represented a diverse swath of neighborhood leaders from Los Feliz to the east city border and from Eagle Rock south to the Hollywood freeway...

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Partner with City Planning in creating livable communities, encouraging sustainable development, and fostering economic vitality. re:code LA is a new, five-year initiative that will provide the first comprehensive update of the Zoning Code since 1946. This initiative will create a modernized and accessible zoning code for the City of Los Angeles. The project aims to establish a new code with clear, predictable language. It will offer a wider variety of zoning options and community planning tools to better address neighborhood concerns and improve the quality of life in every community...

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The Mayor and City Council approved the dissolution of the Community Development Department (CDD) effective July 1, 2013 in line with efforts to simplify and consolidate the City's economic development processes. All functions, programs and services provided by CDD will be integrated into the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department (HCIDLA) and the Economic Development Department (EDD)...

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ProTips: The Etiquette
of the Blind Copy 

When you find yourself inclined to email a group of people larger than the number that comfortably fit on your sofa, stop for a moment and ask yourself a few questions about the recipients of your missive:

• Do they already know each other?
• Will they want to participate in a robust discussion that results more emails?
• Do they already have each other's contact information?..

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Neighborhood Councils can place banners on City of LA light poles in a process that is quite simple but can have dramatic results. All it takes is one phone call and a few simple decisions:

(1) What information and artwork will go on the banners? They can all be the same or there can be a variety of banners that are placed along the boulevard. They can be general information (Lincoln Heights NC) or specific to an event (Atwater Village NC).

(2) What size banners and will they be solo or double banners on each light pole? Banners come in two basic sizes,...

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A huge thank you to our staff and to the Controller's Office staff for helping us to close out the current Funding Program! We got to most of the 390 demand warrants we had to get through in the past month. For those that we couldn't get to, we'll be following up with those Neighborhood Councils to let them know how we can proceed in getting the funds paid out. We'll have final numbers for this current fiscal year in the next few weeks as well, which we will send out on our website...

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I would like to remind you about our last Board Development Series training, which is scheduled to take place in the Harbor Area tomorrow, Saturday June 29, 2013 at the Kaiser Permanente Conference Center, located at 25965 S. Normandie Ave., Harbor City, CA. The training will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Joining us to present will be Gerald St. Onge, Acting Director of Publishing Services, General Services Department...

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At its June 17 regular meeting, the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners passed a motion recommending to City Council that the current definition of "factual basis" stakeholder be removed from the City's Administrative Code and replaced with "community interest stakeholders, defined as persons who affirm a substantial and ongoing participation within the Neighborhood Council boundaries and who may be in a community organization such as, but not limited to, educational, nonprofit, and religious."...

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