|
At Saturday's meeting of the LA Neighborhood Council Coalition, the discussion of the city's budget and the role of Neighborhood Council's got real with City Watch LA Editor Ken Draper, long-time Venice activist Dede Audet and others challenging the grassroots movement to act aggressively instead of talking issues of importance to death.
Michael Cohen captured the discussion in this video made from the more then three-hour meeting. A followup meeting is scheduled for Sunday at 1:30 pm at a location to be announced.
Here is Cohen's report, watch his video and read Draper's article:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Budget
"Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition (LANCC)
January 2, 2010 discussion and action planned:
What will be the “new” role of Neighborhood Councils with the City
in the era of massive layoffs and budget constraints.
Such considerations, however, didn’t stop the City Council from authorizing bonus and pay raises for the DWP employees for the next five years. Nor prevent the Mayor from gallivanting around.
Will neighborhood councils continue, as most are, to just be concerned about activities such as redecorating a median strip or giving away money to non-profits –activities not mentioned in the charter or neighborhood council plan as required activities, such as:
1.Collaborate with the Mayor on Budget
2 Be the voice of your neighborhood
3 Increase civic engagement.
4.Monitor the delivery of services and hold city hall accountable.
-- The next LANCC meeting is scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 10, @ 1PM, Location TBA
Check back later for announced location.
All neighborhood councils and the public are invited to attend.
---Michael Cohen
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coalition Calls Emergency Meeting of LA’s NCs
Will discuss City’s financial and services crisis and lack of NC action
By Ken Draper
Los Angeles is in the midst of the worst financial crisis in its history and its neighborhood councils are MIA. Missing in action for the acronym impaired.
LA’s Fire Department has instituted rolling closures for fire stations.
The Planning Department lacks the personnel to create a Granny Flats ordinance.
The Department of Transportation has lost 160 employees so far, will likely lose its regional offices and lacks the personnel to implement a Memorandum of Understanding with NCs if they had one.
Lines for building permits has lengthened. Services that once took a week now take months.
Councilman Parks says the City is running out of money and is likely headed for bankruptcy.
Word is that another 2,000 city employees will be laid off. 2400 employees have been nudged into early retirement … costing the City uncountable years of experience and institutional memory … and another 300-plus have applied for the early retirement package. More furlough days will be required and more city phones and emails will go unanswered.
Whole departments are going to be cut, departments may be privatized and some departments may be merged. Services will continue to dwindle. Some will disappear.
The City will … say experts … face a coming budget gap of more than $500 million . Could be closer to $1 billion.
As LADOT GM Rita Robinson told some neighborhood councils leaders last month: “The City will never be the same.” And yet, to date, not a single neighborhood council has agendized this crisis or made an effort to ensure that NCs are at the table when the reshaping of their city is addressed … or made plans for informing and energizing their stakeholders of the seriousness of the City’s financial meltdown and its consequences. This despite the fact that providing their communities with a voice at City Hall is the principal reason neighborhood councils were given birth.
The LA Neighborhood Councils Coalition (LANCC) voted on Saturday to call an emergency meeting of LA’s councils for this Sunday to attempt to extract their brethren from the headlights they appear to be caught in.
LANCC Chair Len Shaffer says, “We will have an emergency meeting next Sunday to discuss the financial and service crisis facing the city. I expect this to be the first of a series of meetings to address this subject.
“I think the Sunday meeting should concentrate first on making NCs and stakeholders aware that there is truly a crisis situation (they've become desensitized over time to "budget crisis") and then to start the process of determining how NCs get a seat at the table where the hard decisions are going to be made.”
Neighborhood councils have … for reasons hard to comprehend … continued their new found purpose … doling out city funds to neighborhood causes … as though nothing has … or will … change.
Councils will be affected directly. NC funding will be slashed in the upcoming budget … so there will be very little to dole out. There is little doubt that the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment will again experience personnel and dollar cuts. Perhaps a reorganization if some City Council members have their way.
More importantly, neighborhood councils were created … and overwhelmingly supported in 1999 by the voters of LA … to give voice to their stakeholder’s concerns, beliefs and dreams. To hold City Hall accountable. To collaborate on the City’s budget.
This isn’t an option. It’s not an opportunity. It’s a responsibility.
As the city’s financial mess swirls down the toilet bowl, if LA’s neighborhood councils do not step up and fulfill their mandate it is likely that among the changes LA’s future will experience is the diminished perception of the significance of these same neighborhood councils.
If NCs are not here to represent and inform their communities when the hard stuff hits the fan. Why are they here?
NCs need to step up to their mandate. Help save the City. Help save themselves.
|
