I hope our newsletter finds you well. We had a great Neighborhood Council Elections Town Hall last Saturday. Many thanks to the Neighborhood Council leaders who attended to make sure that our 2016 elections are awesome! We've worked with our partners at the City Clerk's Office to incorporate as many suggestions as possible. In the meantime, we're locking down election dates and locations. Neighborhood Councils should have received the second Elections Stipulation Worksheet this week in the monthly profiles. Please finalize the information on polling location and languages so we can all dive into the fun part of outreach to your stakeholders.

We're excited that LA Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette has asked to partner with Neighborhood Councils. Like the Neighborhood Council Public Works Liaisons, there will now be an Animal Services Liaison for each of the 96 Neighborhood Councils. They will be invited to work with Animal Services on creating their new strategic plan and to continue communications with Animal Services for their communities. We're looking forward to this new partnership!

Controller Ron Galperin invited the City's General Managers this week to have a conversation with him about how the Controller's Office can assist them in creating efficiencies in our work. As an Angeleno, I am very appreciative of Ron's successes in bringing open data to the public via his amazing Control Panel. As a General Manager, I am even more thankful to Ron and his team, especially Principal Deputy Controller Vijay Singhal, because they have been so responsive with Neighborhood Council funding requests and with staff needs. Ron released the MyPalLA app this week after seeing that City employees are checking their payroll information, which has to be done at work, a million times each year. Assuming the average time to check is 3.5 minutes, that equates to the work of 50 full time employees each year! With this new app, City employees will be able to check their payroll information and download paystubs all from their smart phone. Thank you, Ron, for your innovations!

I was happy to receive an invite to the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council on Wednesday night to see them in action on a planning and land use issue. Over 300 community members came to weigh in on a shopping center project that was 10 years in the making. Councilmember Mitch Englander attended the meeting as well to address the standing room only crowd, praising the volunteer board members for their work and the stakeholders for caring about their neighborhood to collaborate with their Neighborhood Council in providing feedback on the project. BIG thanks to the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council for doing a great job connecting the people to City Hall!

If you haven't already registered for the Congress of Neighborhoods on September 26, 2015, please do so now. It's a wonderful event with 40 workshops on various subjects important to your community. Also, new for this year, is the EmpowerLA Awards and Neighborhood Council Recognition Event, on Friday, September 11, 2015, at City Hall from 6 pm to 8 pm. We're looking forward to celebrating the fantastic work of Neighborhood Councils so please join us.

The LADWP MOU Oversight Committee and the LANCC meet tomorrow. Don't forget that we are closed on Monday to celebrate Labor Day. Much appreciation to our staff for their great work and wishing them and you a relaxing Labor Day weekend!