I hope this newsletter finds you well. The Board of Neighborhood Commissioners took their first step in addressing the harassment and bullying issues in the Neighborhood Council system by approving their Neighborhood Council Board Member Code of Conduct Policy at their Monday meeting this week. This new policy will require all board members to sign a Code of Conduct in order to serve on their Neighborhood Councils. On our side, we are finalizing how we will be implementing and tracking this policy and will be releasing instructions in early October to all board members.
At the same time as the Commission meeting, our field staff were discussing Neighborhood Councils with the second delegation of government officials from Afghanistan. They were particularly interested in how we were able to get people from all different religious and ethnic backgrounds to work together as that is one of the major issues they have. They acknowledged that our system would simply not work in their current situation, but maybe one day in the future. Again, our staff were left with a greater appreciation of just how lucky we are with our Neighborhood Council system.
On Wednesday night, I had a bittersweet moment when I stopped by Pacoima Neighborhood Council’s meeting on my way to visit with Canoga Park Neighborhood Council. The PNC board was holding my and our department’s feet to the fire due to their perception that we had not supported the board in their meeting operations. During my public comment on the matter, I let them know that on the one hand, I was so very proud that they are doing exactly the job of Neighborhood Councils to hold City elected and departments accountable while on the other, I was sad that it was our staff and me they were having issues with. In the end, I’m glad to say that we will be working together to figure out what happened and to hopefully make our services better not only for PNC, but for all the Neighborhood Councils. Afterwards, I was happy to stop by CPNC at their invitation to thank the board members for their service and for fitting a board orientation training in their meeting with one of our great NEAs, Amber Meshack.
Heads up to Save the Date for some upcoming Funding Trainings and Feedback Townhalls in October. We’ll be holding feedback sessions on the checking accounts along with a trainings on the new system. We’d love to get your input on your experiences so far and recommendations for efficiency and accountability changes. The dates are: Oct 1st (South LA), Oct. 2nd (Harbor), Oct. 6th (2 sessions in North Valley and West), Oct. 8th (East and North East LA), Oct. 14th (South Valley) and Oct. 15th (Central). The sessions are from 6-9 pm and more info to come next week.
I’m spending the day today at a General Managers retreat with Mayor Garcetti and his team. We’ll be working on identifying shared priorities and finding opportunities to collaborate between the City departments. Just know that I’ll be pitching Neighborhood Councils wherever I can. After we finish up at the retreat, I’ll be helping to set up for the Congress of Neighborhoods in the evening. A lot of wonderful work went into planning this event by your Neighborhood Council leaders in the Congress Planning Committee, chaired by the awesome, Cindy Cleghorn, so I’m expecting to see you there for a day of learning and connecting. If you haven’t already registered, please do so now.
I’ll see you at the Congress of Neighborhoods tomorrow!
Best,
Grayce Liu,
General Manager
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment aka EmpowerLA
