I hope this newsletter finds you well. I've been walking around the office today with a goofy smile on my face because Neighborhood Councils are awesome. I am still blown away regularly by the passion and tenacity of our Neighborhood Council leaders, who are finding ways to make delicious civic engagement lemonade out of lemons after hustling to find some water and sugar as well. Thanks to their ingenious pluck, we are having record candidate recruitment and voter turnout for the Neighborhood Council elections.

After the elections for Region 3 on Sunday and last night for Region 4, we have finished elections in the Valley with a total voter turnout of 8,270, which is up nearly 59% over 2012. The Valley generated so much election excitement that even Councilmember Krekorian showed up to vote, proudly displaying our "I Empowered LA" voting sticker on his tie for each Neighborhood Council he voted at yesterday. While Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council has the highest voter turnout in the Valley at 730, it is Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council with 444 voters that has the most significant improvement from their 2012 voter turnout - a 246.88% increase. So Lake Balboa takes the lead for having Mayor Garcetti personally swear-in their Neighborhood Council board.

While we've seen great ideas on election day to draw in voters from BBQ's to food trucks to blood drives to engaging candidate corrals, what is clear is that great voter turnout is the result of engaged and passionate candidates. For weeks before their election, I drove pass dozens of campaign lawn signs for President of Neighborhood Council Valley Village, Tony Braswell. They read simply: Braswell and Neighborhood Council. Tony even invited me to their election and asked for my vote (for the record, I'm not voting in any of the Neighborhood Council elections because you're all super in my eyes). On the day of the election, Tony was on the street corner (outside of the electioneering zone) holding signs and campaigning. His efforts paid off as he was re-elected last night, and today, he's already emailing and welcoming the newly elected board members. What an amazing leader! 

Tony Braswell in the middle advocating

There were still bittersweet moments during the Valley elections, and I hugged a lot of Neighborhood Council leaders who, despite a lot of outreach efforts didn't get the voter turnout they wanted and/or didn't get re-elected (see Denyse Selesnick's Citywatch article on "Losing is not fun"). Sometimes things don't happen the way you plan (hello, Neighborhood Council checking accounts), but we just have to pick ourselves back up, learn our lessons and get at it again. This resilience seems to be the backbone of the Neighborhood Councils.

As we move over the hill and into the other election regions next week, I have to thank all of our election staff led by Stephen Box and Glenn Bailey, our funding team led by Armando Ruiz as they frantically process election purchases, our election partner - City Clerk Holly Wolcott and her team, our wonderful Valley Independent Election Administrators - Jose Sandoval, Tony Wilkinson, Kevin Taylor and Alisa Smith), our Valley Board of Neighborhood Commissioners - Len Shaffer and Lydia Grant, who were doing candidate forums, finding volunteers and even working the polls, our Neighborhood Council leaders and of course, our election volunteers without whom we could not run the polls. If you have any time to volunteer to assist at the polls, please do so because we need you! Contact Elections@EmpowerLA.org and help us continue making the Neighborhood Council elections fantastic through the rest of the City.