I hope our newsletter finds you well. I was happy to hear that the Department of Building and Safety General Manager Raymond Chan was appointed to Interim Deputy Mayor for Economic Development by Mayor Eric Garcetti last Friday. Ray is a wonderful public servant with 32 years of service and a recent recipient of the City’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Award last month for his great work. Along with fellow new appointee, Brenda Shockley, who will serve as Deputy Mayor for Economic Opportunity, they will carry out Mayor Garcetti’s economic policy agenda. You can read more about the appointments here.
If you haven’t already appointed your two Neighborhood Council Budget Representatives, please do so as soon as possible. The Neighborhood Council Budget Day is on Saturday, July 30th, where all the Budget Representatives from the 96 Neighborhood Councils will convene to select their 36 Budget Advocates for next fiscal year. The Budget Advocates always do an amazing job delving into the City budget. For more information, click here.
Many thanks to LA Department of Transportation General Manager Seleta Reynolds for organizing a presentation by virtual reality civic engagement specialist, Owlized, yesterday for City staff. There are so more and more digital civic engagement platforms each day, and I am excited by the opportunities that Neighborhood Councils now have to engage their communities. We’re checking out other potential partners in the next few months so stay tuned!
We’re super busy this weekend with Pop-Up Polls and Harbor City Neighborhood Council selection tomorrow and Region 11 elections on Sunday. For extra election fun, SORO Neighborhood Council will be holding their elections at their annual SoRo Community Festival. The Neighborhood Council-LADWP MOU Committee and the LANCC are also meeting tomorrow. Our staff will be attending several board retreats tomorrow to conduct orientations, too. We have also extended the Civic Youth Leadership Academy application deadline to Tuesday, June 7th, so please encourage your youth board members to apply.
If I don’t see you this weekend, have a great one!
