I hope this newsletter finds you well. This has been a pretty great (and busy!) week starting last Saturday with Controller Ron Galperin and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck taking the time to visit with Neighborhood Councils at the LANCC. That day was also filled with the Congress Planning Committee, the NC-LADWP MOU Committee and the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates meetings. After watching the Budget Advocates plan for their regional Budget Day on October 11th, I swung by North Hills West Neighborhood Council’s excellent Community BBQ, which brought out nearly 500 stakeholders.
On Monday, our Deputy City Attorneys Darren Martinez and Alois Phillips, held a roundtable with North Valley board Presidents and legal liaisons to discuss effective meeting operation techniques. They’ll be doing a tour around the City in the upcoming year. The reviews from our Neighborhood Council leaders were excellent so please be sure to attend if you get the chance. We’re also working with the City Attorneys to finalize an events checklist for Neighborhood Council events by the end of the month so keep an eye out for that.
Darren also accompanied me to the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils meeting last night where City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell spoke on his priorities in the City, including homelessness, planning/land use issues and animal rights. Darren clarified some questions that have come up when multiple Neighborhood Councils are meeting and provided a very helpful handout on the subject. I was really excited to see the VANC give a great training by Linda Gravani from Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council on how to submit Community Impact Statements, which is an exclusive tool for Neighborhood Councils to weigh in on Council Files before City Council. This was followed up by Glenn Bailey from Northridge East Neighborhood Council on the top 3 Council Files to weigh in on now: CF 13-1493 (street vending), CF 14-0163-S3 (sidewalk repair), CF 11-1018 (NC grievances). Under VANC founder and Chair, Jill Banks Barad, the VANC is also hosting the only Board of Supervisors debate between Sheila Kuehl and Bobby Shriver on October 9th as well as doing a VANC Planning Forum on December 11th. Amazing!
If you want to know Jill’s leadership secrets, please register for the Congress of Neighborhoods, which is Saturday, September 20th, since she is teaching a class on leadership skills that day. If you haven’t already looked, there are many super workshops to assist you in your Neighborhood Council’s success. I’m really looking forward to seeing all of our Neighborhood Council leaders learning and sharing that day.
Speaking of Neighborhood Council successes, I found out today at a meeting to advance women’s leadership roles, which was organized by First Lady Amy Elaine Wakeland and Mayor Garcetti’s Chief of Staff, Ana Guerrero, that our Neighborhood Councils have the highest number of elected women officials! I thought that was pretty neat that we are modeling women leadership roles. I was very grateful to Mayor Garcetti, Amy and Ana for making this a priority for the City as well.
PlanCheckNC is cancelled tomorrow so have a relaxing weekend!
Best,
Grayce Liu,
General Manager
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment aka EmpowerLA
