I hope our newsletter finds you well. Hello from Sacramento! I’m sharing about our awesome Neighborhood Council system today at Sacramento State’s Center for California Studies’ Our Voices: Advancing Civic Engagement in California, 27th Annual Envisioning California Conference. I’m also looking forward to hearing about other civic engagement best practices and bringing those ideas back to Los Angeles. Speaking of sharing, we also presented the Neighborhood Council system to an international delegation of Saudi Arabia women leaders from the State Department this week who later went to LA32 Neighborhood Council’s monthly meeting to see a Neighborhood Council in action.
Many thanks to staffers Betty Wong Oyama, Kathleen Quinn, Jasmine Duckworth and Tom Soong for hosting our very impressed guests! We’ll be hosting another international delegation from Central and South America next week and spreading the Neighborhood Council love.
Congratulations to several more of our staffers who completed the grueling 4 month Los Angeles Fire Department Leadership Academy yesterday! Neighborhood Empowerment Advocate, Barry Stone, and Senior Accountant, Man-Qin He, stepped up to take the LAFD intensive course on collaborative leadership straight from the West Point curriculum. HUGE thanks to Man-Qin and Barry for taking on the task of becoming better leaders! I also have to appreciate the LAFD for opening this wonderful free training to City departments. Having gone through it myself 4 years ago, I really think it should be for all City staff and have been diligent in sending as many EmpowerLA staff as possible. The LAFD provided an extra treat at this graduation by having Chris Martin from Coldplay as the keynote speaker on leadership. It was his first keynote, and he knocked it out of the park. Afterwards, the LAFD presented him with a thank you plaque for taking the time to speak with the graduates. 
Some more examples of great work from Neighborhood Councils will happen this weekend. Tomorrow, PlanCheckNC will partner with Glassell Park Neighborhood Council to host a Planning 101 workshop for their monthly meeting tomorrow. Check out the flyer below. On Sunday, the awesome Congress of Neighborhoods Planning Committee will doing a debrief to improve the Congress next year. For more information, check out our EmpowerLA Calendar.
Don’t forget that our office will be closed in observance of Columbus Day on Monday. As always, thanks for all that you do to EmpowerLA! Have a super weekend!
