I hope our newsletter finds you well. City Council’s Health, Education and Neighborhood Councils Committee will be meeting on Tuesday, August 8th, at 1 pm in Room 1010 of City Hall to discuss Council File 15-1022-S2 about Neighborhood Council elections and online voting. Currently, Neighborhood Council elections are moving forward in 2018 without online voting. We submitted another elections report yesterday addressing only the timing of elections, which we recommended moving to 2019, and online voting, which we recommended an opt-in option for the 50 Neighborhood Councils whose online voting/voter registration have already been built out if elections continue in 2018. This report is in addition to our report on Neighborhood Council election recommendations from January 17, 2017. The online voting vendor, Everyone Counts, will be at the committee meeting to address any security questions so please come and provide feedback, particularly if your Neighborhood Council has filed a Community Impact Statement on this Council File.
I was happy to stop by the Southland Regional Association of Realtors on Wednesday morning to conduct a Neighborhood Council 101 information session with their members. Many thanks to Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council board member and Neighborhood Council Budget Advocate, Howard Katchen, who invited me to speak. Our staff will be looking for opportunities to do such presentations so please let us know of them. We’re happy to partner with Neighborhood Councils to get the word out about our awesome system.
Last night, while the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners honored Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council, Arleta Neighborhood Council and Sun Valley Area Neighborhood Council for their 15 year anniversary, we were also holding the Hermon Neighborhood Council selections. I stopped by to hear candidate statements and bumped into Joe and Wendy Riser, who were instrumental in getting the ordinance changed to allow for subdivision. They calculated that it had taken 70 months from the first day they started advocating for an ordinance change to yesterday. Congratulations to our Neighborhood Councils for yesterday’s big accomplishments!
The Neighborhood Council-LADWP MOU Oversight Committee and the LANCC meeting tomorrow, and the Congress of Neighborhoods Planning Committee meeting on Sunday. Our collaboration with the Planning Department on the Neighborhood Council Planning 101 Workshops continues on Monday in the East area. Check out our EmpowerLA Calendar for all event time and locations.
Have a wonderful weekend!
