I hope our newsletter finds you well.
It was a busy Saturday last week. After coming in on the tail end of the meeting for the busy Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates, who are meeting with Mayor Garcetti on Monday, we held our 2nd 2016 Neighborhood Council Election Town Hall where we discussed all things elections, including the online voting proposal. I’ve seen a lot of email discussions going back and forth about online voting with some incorrect information, so I encourage you to read our FAQ, contact me directly (grayce.liu@lacity.org) with questions and/or come to our 2016 Neighborhood Council Election Town Halls around LA (next one is tomorrow in Glassell Park). The proposed online voting contract with Everyone Counts will be on the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners’ agenda again on Monday, March 16th, so you can also send comments to them via Janet.Lindo@lacity.org.
After the Town Hall Saturday, it was such a pleasure to be part of the launch of the Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance at the beautiful offices of TreePeople. The work that Neighborhood Councils are doing across the City on green issues was impressive. Ted Bardacke, Deputy Director for the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and Commissioners Len Shaffer and Eli Lipmen were there as well with many Neighborhood Council leaders and community organizations. See below for more info on the meeting. Congratulations to NCSA Chair Laura Mack for doing such a great job on the launch! I expect to see wonderful work from this alliance in the future.
I was fortunate enough to spread the good work of the Neighborhood Councils again this week teaching Professor Terry Cooper’s students at USC Price School of Public Policy. In addition, I was delighted to meet Greg Lawson of New Orlean’s Mayor’s Neighborhood Engagement Office yesterday. Greg works to empower the 243 neighborhood associations in New Orleans. A big fan of our system, they had originally named their department the Mayor’s Neighborhood Empowerment Office after us and still look to us as a model to make improvements to their system after 5 years in business. We had a learning exchange and promised to keep in touch to support one another’s efforts. Next week, we’ll be hosting a delegation of women leaders from Columbia who want to learn about Neighborhood Councils.
I’m really happy to share that after many months of development, we are ready to launch our Neighborhood Council case management system, which tracks the work we do with Neighborhood Councils. All staff interactions with Neighborhood Councils will be tracked via case numbers, which our staff will provide to you for your reference starting in March. We hope this tracking system will help to improve our service to Neighborhood Councils. In addition, with HUGE thanks to our City Attorney Darren Martinez and Director of Field Operations Leyla Campos, we now have a Neighborhood Council Board Member Code of Conduct online training for those Board Members who still need to comply with the Commission’s Code of Conduct Policy and prefer a training video as opposed to just signing the form. Many thanks as well to Director of Outreach and Communications, Stephen Box, and his team, particularly Arin Abedian, for creating the training video.
Check out the Wonder Woman Tech Hackathon this weekend on the Westside. We’re happy to support this important event along with Mayor Garcetti and Councilmember Mike Bonin amongst others. If I don’t see you there or at our 2016 Neighborhood Council Election Town Hall, enjoy your weekend! Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday, March 3rd!
Best,
Grayce Liu,
General Manager
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment aka EmpowerLA
