NEIGHBORHOODS LA-For those who read my last two articles: “Councilman Bernard Parks to NC’s: Stop Whining” and “Those Damn NC Rules,” one would think that the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council system is mostly dysfunctional and comprised of a bunch of complainers. Thankfully, that is not the whole picture!
I consider myself to be an equal opportunity critic and cheerleader, which means today we are looking at some of the real positive differences made by the Neighborhood Councils in the last year. EmpowerLA and the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) have singled out ten Neighborhood Councils for “Empowerment Awards”. These ten performed heroic and varied projects during the last fiscal year.
Surprisingly, forty-five NC’s entered the competition, which is remarkable in itself. Forty-five different neighborhood communities thought their projects were award worthy, and each of them helped their stakeholders.
In the last week’s article regarding the C4C program I discussed how the DowntownLANC had “graduated.” They also captured the Empowerment award for having some terrific public policy successes. Helping to bring “green” into the concrete area, they opened the Spring Street Park between 4th and 5th Streets, as well as two smaller green spaces in the same area.
They also organized a high level Town Hall to address the TB outbreak and have an ongoing Skid-Row resident-led clean-up campaign. This is a community that has a huge homeless problem side-by-side with upscale apartments, condos and stores.Talk about a challenge…President Patricia Berman has her hands full but with a huge “can do” attitude.
Here are more Neighborhood Council accomplishments as described by Empower LA. These awards were announced at the LA Neighborhood Congress and at a special presentation last month in the City Hall Council Chambers.
Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council has worked hard over the past year to elevate its presence and connect with stakeholders in the neighborhood and surrounding areas. They are an inspiration to all Neighborhood Councils struggling to engage their communities. Under the new board leadership, including the very effective President Monica Alcaraz, the community has come out in droves to candidate forums (one offered in two languages), business mixers and meetings where they focus squarely on addressing local needs. Since their stepped-up focus on outreach began, hundreds of people have participated in their activities, which they attribute to relevance, savvy social media efforts, and sweat equity invested in getting people to come out.
Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council has effectively galvanized their community to address the needs of youth. Most impressive was their work to create “Pathways to Employment,” an event in partnership with San Pedro Rotary and Harbor Communities Benefit Foundation to provide this important population with employment skills through training workshops, practice interviews, and presentations by many of the 36 businesses present. In addition to addressing the career needs of youth, they are providing recreational options as well through the soon-to-be-opened skate park at Peck Park, a project, which they initiated and worked with the Council Office and Department of Recreation and Parks to realize.
Northridge West Neighborhood Council will celebrate three years of Operation Clean Sweep with eight to fifteen volunteers showing up every week on Thursday for four hours to clean sidewalks, parkways, and gutters. How many NC's can boast this kind of consistency in the work to make their community a more beautiful and walkable place? Subscribing to the broken window theory, they have had a big impact on the local crime rate by ensuring their neighborhood is well cared for.
Reseda Neighborhood Council’s Economic Development Committee in 2011 began discussing the downward trend in the economy and what sort of community level initiatives could be helpful to small businesses in Reseda. After researching successful small business development efforts across the country, they launched a local program on their own (Spend $25 on the 25th in Reseda). It caught the attention of the citywide ShopLA program and American Express, both of which then partnered with ShopRESEDA.
In conjunction with these efforts, the ShopRESEDA Discount Card was launched at a national news conference and now includes 200 local business partners (ShopResedaCity.com). This concept of “shopping local” has successfully encouraged a lasting sense of community pride and spirit as well as encouraging more participants in Reseda’s local economy to engage in the NC process and the greater City.
South Robertson Neighborhood Council encompasses several neighborhoods known over the years by other names: Pico-Robertson, Palms (in some areas), and Beverlywood (in others). Building a coherent and recognizable identity out of all the different neighborhoods has been a challenge, but an important one: neighborhoods decay when no one cares. So they have focused on building local community pride by increasing the sense of identity by “branding” the neighborhood as SORO.
To this end, they display street banners, which make the SORO name visible, and host the well-attended annual SORO Festival. Most notably, they are sponsoring an innovative partnership with KCET Departures to create a series of video profiles, articles, and photo journals that tell the story of, and strengthen pride in SORO.
When plans were made to move the Space Shuttle Endeavor through their communities, four Neighborhood Councils knew it was going to cost them a lot of trees. So Empowerment Congress West Area, Park Mesa Heights, Empowerment Congress Central Area and Empowerment Congress North Area came together as the Space Shuttle Task Force to mitigate the negative impact of the historic event on the neighborhoods, negotiating an agreement that improved the quality of life in their neighborhoods.
The number of trees to be cut down was reduced by hundreds and those that were destroyed were replaced four-to-one. In addition they will receive sidewalk repair, money for tree trimming, fifty youth scholarships, and five professional development programs for teachers at South LA schools.
At the Congress, Councilman Paul Krekorian offered simple advice for future potential Neighborhood Council members, “If you want to have a say in what City Hall does, if you want to have a say in how your neighborhoods are represented here in this City Council Chamber, one of the best ways you can do it is to get involved in your Neighborhood Councils.”
If your NC is doing something that you think should be recognized…. don’t wait for the Empowerment Awards let me know. I love sharing good news and success stories.
(Denyse Selesnick is a Board Member of the Tarzana Neighborhood Council and Vice Chair of the Outreach Committee. She is a former publisher/journalist and is a contributor to CityWatch covering the activities of NC Land.
You can reach her at [email protected]. Comments are always welcome.)
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 93
Pub: Nov 19, 2013
