I hope our newsletter finds you well. It was a very busy Saturday between presenting at the Empowerment Congress Leadership Institute and running between the Neighborhood Council events. I wasn’t able to get to all of the events (only 3), but it was wonderful to see our Neighborhood Councils in action on issues of public safety, green living and informing their stakeholders on City services. Check out EmpowerLA’s Instagram page for some great pics. The other exciting event on Saturday that I was happy to stop by was the selection of the first permanent board for Zapata-King Neighborhood Council. They had an impressive 457 voters turn out for their selections. Many thanks to Empowerment Congress North board member, Brett Shears, for organizing the selections along with the South Los Angeles Alliance of Neighborhood Councils, the ZKNC’s interim board and our staff, Taneda Larios, Stephen Box, Jose Galdamez and Sevak Paramazian for making it all happen!
Mayor Eric Garcetti released his proposed budget on Monday. We were very happy and grateful to see most of our requests were included in the budget. We’ve prepared a letter to the Budget & Finance Committee on our additional asks that still need funding and staffing, including online voting, funding staff and training materials for new board members. Our hearing with Budget & Finance Committee will be on Friday, May 1st, at 1 pm. Please let me know if there are any issues you’d like me to address during our hearing by emailing me at grayce.liu@lacity.org.
Mayor Garcetti Clean Streets Initiative photo by Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
I’m pleased to announce a new collaboration on the horizon for Neighborhood Councils with the Mayor’s Office and the Bureau of Sanitation. I attended the Mayor Garcetti’s press conference yesterday with Councilmembers Joe Buscaino, Gil Cedillo and Curren Price where Mayor Garcetti signed his Executive Directive No. 8 on the Clean Streets Initiative. In it, the Department will be working with Sanitation and Neighborhood Councils to create an outreach plan to recruit and train a Clean Streets Corps. Many Neighborhood Councils are already working on keeping their communities clean, and we’re looking forward to doing it in a systematic way throughout Los Angeles. More info to come!
As usual, our Neighborhood Councils are putting on some awesome events this weekend. Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council has their EmpowerLA Award winning Pathways to Employment event, Del Rey Neighborhood Council’s Live, Work Play in a Compassionate Del Rey and the Mar Vista Community Council’s famous Green Garden Showcase. Another great Neighborhood Council event next week on Thursday, April 30th, is Council District 4’s Candidate Runoff Forum between Carolyn Ramsay and David Ryu.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Best,
Grayce Liu,
General Manager
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (aka) EmpowerLA
