We had an outstanding Congress of Neighborhoods on Saturday with nearly 700 Neighborhood Council leaders at our beautiful City Hall. Council President Herb Wesson kicked off the Congress at the opening session to a standing room only crowd in City Council chambers. Seven hours and 40 workshops later, Mayor Eric Garcetti closed the Congress with a still standing room only crowd in City Council chambers by launching the Clean Streets Team and asking Neighborhood Councils to partner in keeping our City beautiful. 
Mayor Garcetti and Board of Public Works Commissioner Heather Repenning met our first Neighborhood Council Clean Street Heroes at the Congress, Tom Johnson from Northridge West Neighborhood Council and Cheron McAleece of East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, who are both doing amazing work in their communities (more info about the Congress and the Clean Streets Team below). As always, I must again thank our wonderful Congress Planning Committee, chaired by Cindy Cleghorn, staff (particularly Tom Soong) and our great City family, Neighborhood Councils and Congress volunteers for making the event possible.
Mayor Garcetti also addressed the issue of homelessness in LA in his Congress speech and how we must all pull together to create a solution. The City Council introduced Council File 15-1138 this week to declare a State of Emergency on the homelessness issue. Please look at your Neighborhood Council Profiles this month for our new Council File Analysis service where we break down the actions of the Council File so Neighborhood Councils can more easily submit Community Impact Statements on them. Every Neighborhood Council should be weighing in on this Council File and informing their stakeholders on the issue as homelessness and the resources it will require to address it affects all Angelenos.
Some of our staff are doing pretty cool things this week. I sent a team of staffers to the Code for America Summit this week to learn about innovative projects in government across the country so we can bring these ideas to our Neighborhood Council system. Last year, when I went to the Summit, it was incredibly inspiring to see the possibilities of government serving the public. From that visit, we brought the Denver Peak Academy green belt and black belt training to our staff on process improvement and are still working on some neat tech ideas for Neighborhood Council services. So I’m really excited to hear the new ideas this year from the Summit when our staff gets back. 
Also, our staffer, Tom Harvey, is riding his bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles this week to raise awareness on arthritis, and he brought ELA to spread EmpowerLA love all the way down the coast!
The Neighborhood Council LADWP MOU Oversight Alliance and the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition meet tomorrow at a new location – LaFayette Multipurpose Community Center, 625 Lafayette Park Place LA 90057. Also, the 8th Annual Valley Disaster Preparedness Fair is tomorrow in Granada Hills.
If I don’t see you tomorrow, have a great weekend!
Best,
Grayce Liu,
General Manager
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (aka) EmpowerLA
