I hope our newsletter finds you well. I’m excited to share that our Neighborhood Council family is continuing to evolve and grow from the needs of the community. We expect to add our 96th Neighborhood Council at next week’s Board of Neighborhood Commissioners meeting on February 3rd in South Los Angeles. The Zapata King Neighborhood Council certification application will be going before our commission, and I want to thank the community members for stepping up to organize and to our staff, especially Neighborhood Empowerment Advocate Taneda Larios, for supporting their efforts. We also have a new citywide alliance forming. The Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance will launch on February 21st to support effective engagement on LA’s new Sustainable City Plan, drought response strategies, the region’s Climate Action Framework and other timely sustainability initiatives. More info below!I hope our newsletter finds you well.
Thanks to all who have weighed in on the Neighborhood Council Funding Program forms and processes! We released the new forms last night during our funding training, which was live streamed and recorded. We’ll have the links up to the new forms and training on our beta website launching next week. Coming up next month will be end of fiscal year closing instructions and the budget package for fiscal 2015-2016.
Speaking of budget, the General Managers met with Deputy Mayor Rick Cole and CAO Miguel Santana last week and received updates on the state of the City budget. The good news is that we are slowly working our way out of the budget deficits of the past, and the bad news is that we are facing a $165 million shortfall next year. We are always looking for ways to create efficiencies and innovative collaborations though so I was grateful for the opportunity to take a training on Performance Leadership by Professor Bob Behn of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Many thanks to Emergency Management Department General Manager James Featherstone for organizing and hosting the training for all of the City’s executive leadership. It was excellent!
As the March elections draw closer, please be aware of the rules for hosting candidates at your Neighborhood Council meetings and taking positions on ballot measures. We’ll be starting our 2016 Neighborhood Council Election Townhalls next week after the LANCC meeting so hope to see you there. Have a relaxing weekend.
Best,
Grayce Liu,
General Manager
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (aka) EmpowerLA
