I hope this newsletter finds you. Today was the Neighborhood Council Purchase Card deadline, and I know that we received a ton of paperwork for exemptions to use the card. I want to really appreciate our funding staff who sorted through everything to make it possible for Neighborhood Councils to do their final purchases this fiscal year: Betty Wong Oyama, Jessica Pua, Mario Hernandez, Tony Chavez and of course, Armando Ruiz, who leads the Funding Team. Thank you as well to our Neighborhood Council leaders for supplying the documentation we need to meet the funding rules. I know it was stressful for all at times, and I can only say that lovely changes are coming with the checking account system (we opened our first account today!!!), which I shared with the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils last night in this handout.

At the VANC, we also discussed the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners harassment training policies that I mentioned in last week's newsletter. This discussion started at the LANCC on Saturday and will be making its way around the City to the various alliances. The Commission will also take feedback at their next meeting in City Hall on Monday, June 16th. If you can't make any of the meetings, please send your comments to Janet.Lindo@lacity.org.

On Monday, we had a great Election Wrap Session in Hollywood, where we honored some of our election volunteers with Neighborhood Council Ambassador pins for their service during the elections. We'll be sending out the final election survey next week in case you didn't have a chance to let us know what worked and what could work better. Our final election report will be coming out in July.

On Tuesday, I was happy to welcome another international visitor, Daniel Lindvall, the Deputy Director of Sweden's Ministry of Justice - Division for Democratic Issues. He wanted to learn about Neighborhood Councils as a way for the Swedish government to connect to their local immigrant populations more effectively. As always, Neighborhood Councils made a very good impression on our international visitor from the work of the EmpowerLA Award winners to our creative election outreach methods that resulted in a 30% increase in voters from 2012.

Who wouldn't be impressed with Neighborhood Councils and their abilities to connect the community to make a positive impact? On Monday, when the police were trying to capture a gunman in North Hollywood, the neighbors on the street where the gunman was barricaded were calling one another and checking in because they knew one another from the block parties that Neighborhood Council Valley Village supports. They'd even had one on that street the night before. I live nearby there, and my neighbors were using one of the Neighborhood Council outreach tools, Nextdoor.com, to warn one another to stay in their houses while giving each other updates.

I love hearing about and sharing great things that Neighborhood Councils are doing in their neck of the woods so please email me at grayce.liu@lacity.org to let me know about them. For example, check out Studio City Neighborhood Council's Picture This: A Day in the Life of Studio City outreach event tomorrow where they invite their community to take pictures around Studio City and submit them for an exhibition. Very cool!

Thanks again for all the great work that you do, Neighborhood Councils! Have a super weekend!