The Los Angeles City Council celebrated National Volunteer Week in Council Chambers by honoring seven Neighborhood Councils for the work they do in their communities. There are 95 Neighborhood Councils in the City of Los Angeles, led by over 1700 Boardmembers, and their Charter Mandate is to engage their Communities and to monitor the delivery of City Services. Last year, 55 Neighborhood Councils

In September 2012, a slate of twelve newcomers took control of the North Hills West Neighborhood Council after running on a platform to defeat a proposed 82,000 sq. ft. Restaurant Depot development in a single-family home residential community. On Thursday, January 24, the long fight resulted in victory, when the City Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny the Restaurant Depot proposal.

“You have to keep organizing all the time. You can’t ever stop organizing.” – Ted Thomas, President of the Park Mesa Heights Community Council “You have to keep organizing all the time. You can’t ever stop organizing,” explained Ted Thomas, President of the Park Mesa Heights Neighborhood Council. Though Thomas is a soft-spoken man in his 70s with a grandfatherly air, he is a force

EmpowerLA Awardee North Hills East Neighborhood Council (NHENC)was only certified in December 2010, but they have been busy reaching out to their community to fulfill the mission of Neighborhood Councils. Their Board members and volunteers have been working hard to promote citizen participation in government by trying different methods to spread the word about the Neighborhood Council to their diverse,

EmpowerLA Awardee Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) won for their outstanding community outreach and their "green" program, which has brought in many stakeholders from Mar Vista and beyond.   MVCC educated and actively involved participants in taking personal responsibility for reducing their footprint and water usage and planting drought tolerant gardens and food producing gardens.  Their

[caption id="attachment_10213" align="alignright" width="200"] Joel Jaffe, Chair of Environment and Energy Committee for Tarzana Neighborhood Council.[/caption] 1200 Tarzana-Area Youth Participate in Earth Day Poster Contest. Joel Jaffe of the Tarzana Neighborhood Council enlisted the artistic talents of 1200 local young people from Tarzana-area K-7 schools in an Earth Day poster contest in April

Bonney Klabunde’s neighbors affectionately call her “The Cleaning Lady,” but she said she doesn’t mind. In the last year, Klabunde (pronounced Klah-bun-dee) has made it her mission to sanitize the formerly garbage-strewn streets of her North Hills East neighborhood. “Before, the streets were just cluttered with trash – unbelievable amounts of trash,” Klabunde explained. “It could have

Julie Monroy Helped 400 Immigrants Become Citizens in Sun Valley “It’s really hard to live in this country without citizenship,” explained Sun Valley Area Neighborhood Council Vice President Julie Monroy. Monroy, an émigré from El Salvador, recalled that when she attended California State University at Northridge, she could not get student loans because of her citizenship status. She had to

Lydia Grant: From Quiet Volunteer to Leading LAUSD Reform Firebrand “Before I came out to the neighborhood council, I didn’t even want to speak at meetings. I was active as a volunteer, but I didn’t have a voice,” explained Lydia Grant, of the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council. Grant is now recognized as a leader in education reform in Los Angeles. She has led delegations to Sacramento

“I was a lucky person,” Anise Goldfarb explained, “I had a job.” Many of her friends at school were not so lucky, and they often complained that it was impossible to find work. Time and again, her fellow students would ask, “Do you know anyone who is hiring?” She decided to do something about it and used her position as youth representative on the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council