I hope this newsletter finds you well. A big congratulations and thank you to Park Mesa Heights Community Council for their awesome Unity Fest event on Saturday in South Los Angeles! Nearly 1,000 people came by to get connected to their local government services and businesses at Van Ness Park while enjoying music and BBQ. I especially appreciate PMHCC’s President, Ted Thomas, and Treasurer, Kim Moore, for being a test case for our Neighborhood Council event pre-approval process. Along with our great staffer, Mario Hernandez, they worked hard to get all the liability issues settled prior to the event. If your Neighborhood Council is planning an event, please give us the details at least 30 days before the event so we can make sure the review and necessary liability coverage is completed in time prior to any expenditures.

Just a reminder that your Neighborhood Council budget packages are due on Monday, September 1st, in order to have continued access to your funds. Don’t forget to include your self-assessment and strategic plans. Here’s a well done example of a strategic plan by one of Del Rey Neighborhood Council’s committees. Also due 10 days after your August meeting are your Neighborhood Council’s Monthly Expenditure Reports for July. We will be following up on these reports as the information will be posted to the Controller’s Control Panel website to show how Neighborhood Councils are using public funds. Our funding staff is also monitoring all 95 checking accounts on a weekly basis and will contact your Treasurers if they see any questionable spending activity. See Armando’s report for more funding information.

For those of you who still need to satisfy your ethics training to vote on funding matters, we have a new online ethics training site. Once you complete the training, you will be able to download a certificate. Please sign and complete the certificate and email it to EmpowerLA.Ethicstraining@lacity.org so we can update your training records. If you’d like to take the Ethics training live, the City Attorney’s Office will be partnering with our funding team to conduct a training in the West Area on Thursday, September 4th so please check our calendar for more informationDeputy City Attorney at ARC

Last night, our Deputy City Attorneys, Darren Martinez and Alois Phillips, partnered with the Alliance of River Communities Chair, Hector Huezo, and our NEA, Lisette Covarrubias, to conduct board member leadership training in East Los Angeles. I stopped by to see the over 50 Neighborhood Council leaders discuss and share strategies for their meeting operational challenges. Big thanks to the attendees, the trainers Darren, Alois and Hector and to Lisette for her help organizing the event!

Today, we hosted an African delegation of over 20 people from different countries who were here to learn about Neighborhood Councils. One of the very impressed visitors stated that our system sounded “nice and perfect.” We assured them that there are definitely challenges in every democratic process, but that we did indeed think our Neighborhood Council system was pretty amazing. We ended with a request from the Mayor of the Republic of Benin to partner with his city to create a Neighborhood Council system there, which we were happy to accept. Thanks to our staffers, Melvin Canas, Amber Meshack and Leyla Campos, and to Deputy City Attorneys, Alois Phillips and Carmen Hawkins, for joining me in the discussion.

The Board of Neighborhood Commissioners will be meeting on Tuesday, September 2nd, in Arleta, and they will be discussing their draft Neighborhood Council Board Member Code of Conduct Policy. If you’d like to provide comment, but can’t make the meeting, please email Janet.Lindo@lacity.org.

Remember our offices are closed on Monday, September 1st, in observance of Labor Day.
Have a relaxing weekend!

Best,

Grayce Liu,
General Manager
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment aka EmpowerLA