I hope our newsletter finds you well and that you are looking forward to the weekend.

I wanted to provide you with some updates involving our Field Division. First and foremost, I wanted to announce Mr. Joseph Hari’s departure from our Department. Joe has been in charge of the oversight of field staff (NEAs) working in South LA; Central; West and Harbor Areas. Today we said goodbye to Joe as he moves on to greener pastures. Joe will be sorely missed but we wish him the absolute best in his new professional and personal endeavors. Part of this new change will trigger additional adjustments in our workload, assignments and support. I will be notifying you of upcoming adjustments that we make in the field division shortly. For now, if you have any concerns you may direct to your Neighborhood Empowerment Advocates (NEAs) as usual and if you need to reach a higher level, please contact me.

Thank you to those groups that have submitted a complete roster at rosters@empowerla.org. As of today, we have 19 NCs that have not submitted a board roster and who need to send it to the above email address.

I would like to recognize the Northeast Area for your representation at last week’s Leadership Development Series with City Attorney’s Office. The room was full with more than 60 people in attendance. I have heard wonderful feedback on this session and we hope to bring you additional training of this type soon. A big thank you the Alliance of River Communities (ARC), mainly Mr. Hector Huezo not only for working in partnership with our Department to make this training possible, but also for conducting a session on “Intro to Parliamentary Procedures” Hector was electric and people took valuable lessons and information from the session. Thank you to Deputy City Attorneys Darren Martinez and Alois Phillips for all their time and diligence in answering all your questions. Kudos to Department NEA Lisette Covarrubias for organizing, and coordinating the training pieces and conducting outreach to ensure that the session was successful. A big thank you to Monique Collins and Sevak Paramazian for their supporting roles – what a team!

Thank you as well to the West Area for your representation at last night’s Open Government and Funding training. I understand that it was an exciting evening and that there were many questions for City Attorney’s Office and staff. Please know that it does take us some time for your Ethics certificate completion to be up to date on the website, so bear with us. Thanks to NEA Thomas Soong and Funding staff members Betty Wong-Oyama and Mario Hernandez for their attendance and role in leading the funding session.

Please continue sending your agendas for review and posting to NCSupport@lacity.org. Please be reminded that we review your agendas for proper content that is in line with guidelines and laws governing neighborhood councils. Your agenda should come in pdf format to NC Support and should also be in its final format, barring any edits and or feedback we provide, and thus should be free of misspellings such as your NCs name and/or committee name, etc. Once we receive your agenda, we do our best to post it on the Early Notification System as soon as possible.

This week our staff received a delegation from Afghanistan, who came to learn about the Neighborhood Council System. The delegation was comprised of some government officials as well as religious leaders, who wanted to know how NCs resolve conflict. They enjoyed the visit and left Los Angeles with newly found knowledge about our system. Thanks again to all staff who participated in welcoming this visitors.

If you have any questions, please contact us at (213) 978-1551 or via NCSupport@lacity.org.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Best,

Leyla Campos
Director of Field Operations