WE NEED YOUR ADVICE - When the City Council charged the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment with providing recommendations on Councilmember Paul Krekorian's Neighborhood Council Reform Package, we knew that any proposed solutions would be created in a collaborative effort with the Neighborhood Council leaders.
To make that happen, we planned mini town halls around the city on the reforms and partnered with the regional Neighborhood Council alliances to hold them.
So far, we have had town halls with the Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Coalition, the Harbor Alliance of Neighborhood Councils and the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils and are planning more with the North East Los Angeles Coalition (September 22nd), the South Los Angeles Alliance of Neighborhood Councils (October 1st) and, the North East Central Alliance of Neighborhood Councils.
The Westside Regional Alliance of Councils is planning on convening all eleven member councils at one meeting to provide their input on the reform motions.
The objectives of the town halls are to:
1. Educate people on the motions.
2. Determine which motions will require further fine tuning in work groups.
3. Request work group volunteers.
For those of you who can't join us at a town hall, we set up an online survey to capture your ideas.
This survey will be available until September 30, 2011. (Link)
After the town halls, we’ll be holding work groups to work out the details of the specific reforms for three weeks. We plan to have draft reports in November for everyone to review and final reports to the City Council by the end of November.
This very quick time line is to meet the requirement in the motions that these reforms take effect in the next fiscal year. The City Council starts budget planning for the next fiscal year in December.
We have already received valuable feedback on how Neighborhood Council leaders see the future of the Neighborhood Council system in the town halls we’ve conducted, which we will be posting online this week.
We will also be launching a blog for everyone to comment on one another’s ideas, too.
I cannot emphasize how important it is for Neighborhood Council leaders to weigh in on the reforms.
We will need solutions that work both for Neighborhood Councils and our department. The only way we can come up with the next evolution of the Neighborhood Council system is by working together.
My staff and I look forward to seeing you at the town halls and groups.
(BongHwan (BH) Kim is the General Manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. For more info: EmpowerLA.org) -cw
Tags: neighborhood councils, reform motions, neighborhood council reform motions, Krekorian Reform Motions, Paul Krekorian, BongHwan Kim, DONE, EmpowerLA, Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, forums, neighborhood council forums, alliances, regional alliances, VANC, LANCC
CityWatch
Vol 9 Issue 73
Pub: Sept 13, 2011
