A ROAD MAP T NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL POWER—Part III-In my last two columns I shared thoughts about how neighborhood councils could essentially run the city … or at least have a significant voice in its decisions.
It begins with modernizing how people participate. Using the 19th century method of requiring people to attend meetings, and then checking off that box, has proven to be wholly inadequate.
Next there needs to be a better job of marketing the councils, thereby giving people reasons to devote a portion of their valuable time to participating in government.
The final step is to ensure that those who decide to give this “participation thing” a try have a purpose that is meaningful enough to keep them engaged.
There are some who are perfectly happy to sit through monthly board meetings, considering the meeting a success if they get to the end of the agenda. I’m not one of them.
At the end of each week, I want to have good answers when I ask myself what I did to promote public participation in government.
● (Check out Greg Nelson’s “Road Map to Neighborhood Council Power” Part I and Part II)
Think of what a better place the city would be if neighborhood councils would identify just five fundamental changes they want implemented, and organize their considerable strength behind them.
For the time being, divisive issues such as legalizing marijuana should be set aside. At the start, the goal should not be to polarize the councils but to unite them.
With a list in hand, the councils should let out the word that it needs a few good people to develop each issue by involving the neighborhood councils boards and stakeholders in designing a solution and an action plan for its implementation.
Council boards must abandon the belief that passing a motion of support is the last step.
This is quite a bit like the tactics used by special interests groups and PACs, except that the neighborhood councils would do it in the public arena and not in smoke-filled rooms.
Politicians use campaign contributions from special interests to buy love. They flood mailboxes with slick brochures, and buy radio and TV ads in an attempt to win the affection of voters who can only differentiate between candidates based upon carefully crafted media blitzes.
If neighborhood councils could back up their demands with the very real threat of sending people to the polls in numbers that could help or hurt any candidate, they will become a counterforce like the city has never seen.
In the 2001 runoff election, when only 38% of the registered voters bothered to lift a finger, Antonio Villaraigosa lost to James Hahn by only 40,000 votes.
There are 2,000 neighborhood council board members. If each made the effort to get 20 friends and neighbors to cast a ballot from the comfort of their homes, they could have determined who won.
In that same election, Rocky Delgadillo beat Mike Feuer by 26,000 votes to become the City Attorney.
At the City Council level, Eric Garcetti edged Mike Woo by 1049 votes. Jack Weiss bested Tom Hayden by 369. And in the Valley, Dennis Zine nipped Judith Hirshberg by just 88 votes.
If neighborhood councils can flex enough muscle to obviously affect the results of one or two elections, they will have generated enough respect and fear to drive home their legislative program.
And in the process, they will become the national model for participatory democracy that the architects of the system hoped would be the result.
(Greg Nelson is a former general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, was instrumental in the creation of the LA Neighborhood Council System, served as chief of staff for former LA City Councilman Joel Wachs … and occasionally writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
Tags: Greg Nelson, Empowerment, Neighborhood Empowerment, neighborhood councils, neighborhood council power, power, influence, elections, lobbying, politicians
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 57
Pub: July 17, 2012