Your friendly neighborhood council is having elections

photo

With the city on the brink of anarchy and devastation, here is your chance to do something about it. By joining your local neighborhood city council. Fellow Boyle Heightian, “Rob” notified me about the  elections that are going to be taking place from March through June all over the city. How cool is that ? Neighborhood councils act as the eyes and ears of the the City council and of the council members in keeping up with what’s going on in the streets, but from the looks of things you would think that community blogs, like this one, are the new eyes and ears of the city. Anyway, having covered council meetings at school, I have some grasp and understanding as to how the councils work, the power they have and the positive changes they can make, with the right people in place. That and having utter contempt for Roberts rules of order. I motion to stick it where the sun don’t shine. I digress from my point, which is why you should join your neighborhood council or at the very least, be more active and show up to meetings.

Since I live in Boyle Heights, I will stick to what I know, but for everyone else who is interested in being active in their barrio council, look them up online and at your local library. They post up meeting times and days once in a while to notify residents. Here is a link to the pdf file that shows when each barrio is going to be holding their own election, BH is on April 29 from 2 to 8 p.m. With 35 different positions available, from President, vice, treasurer ect. any one can be part of council and know what is going on in their community. The requirements are “stakeholders who live, work, own property or who declare a stake in Quadrant 1 and affirm a
factual basis for it and who are 18 years or older.”

There are 7 main positions that have 4 year term limits. From there you got quadrant positions. Each barrio council is broken up into quads, here in BH there are 4 quads and someone from each quad can be that quads rep or rep at large. For quad reps there are 3 seats open and for quads at large there are 4 seats available, both with 2 years terms. That’s pretty much the jist of it. Anyone that wants to run has to go through the city clerks office, fill out the paper work and tell people to vote for them. I myself and seriously considering being part of the council for the seat of Special Events Officer aka dude who puts the parties together.

At the same time The Adelante Eastside Project Area Committee (PAC) here in BH are also having elections. Everyone talks about stopping gentrification, well put your money where your mouth is. There are various projects already happening here in BH and community input is needed in helping the CRA make these projects happen. If anything, this is the one one that counts and for sure I’ll be going to the meetings to seriously run for a position. If elected, I’ll tell everyone what’s going on because I was there 🙂

How do I get more information?
Visit our website at www.crala.org/projects/Adelante or contact Carlos Alvarado at 323.307.8807

“Get Involved! Make Your Voice Count. The Adelante PAC is looking for leaders with passion and commitment who are concerned about economic prosperity. As a spokesperson for your project area, your voice will help shape the future of your community. Candidates are needed from within the Adelante Eastside Redevelopment Project Area to represent each of the following categories:

• residential owner occupants
• residential tenants
• business owners
(non-manufacturing/non-industrial)
• manufacturing/industrial
business owners
• established community organizations

The Adelante Eastside Redevelopment Project was developed in partnership with the community as a 30-year plan designed to bring back the vitality of Boyle Heights and portions of El Sereno and Lincoln Heights. Since CRA/LA will be working in collaboration with your community until 2030, your input is indispensable to us. As a potential new PAC member, you will be directly involved in laying the groundwork for economic prosperity for generations to come. ”

Meetings will be at Boyle Heights Senior Citizens Center
2839 E. Third Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033, except on Tuesday, February 9, 2010*.

Adelante Eastside Pac Pre-Election Procedures Meeting & Registration Session For Candidates & Voters

Tuesday, January 26, 2010
6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Registration Session for Candidates & Voters
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Registration Session for Candidates & Voters*
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

El Sereno Senior Citizens Center
4818 Klamath Place, Los Angeles, CA 90032
Final Candidate & Voter Registration Session,
PAC Election Day
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
6:00 – 7:30 p.m. (Registration only)
Election meeting will start immediately following
the close of the final registration session

4 thoughts on “Your friendly neighborhood council is having elections

  1. The neighborhood council that was actually voted on and installed by the citizens of the city, not a pet project my any politician. Hell what politician would have to guts to form a citizen advisory board that can rebut them. The neighborhood was added into the city charter, so the city council isn’t able to do away with the NCs. The city does propose to reduce the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which is tasked to manage and oversee the 90 NCs. The reduction in DONE is fine by most NCs accounts, the department has done a horrible job of overseeing the NCs aswell. The following article does a good job of explaining the issue (http://citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3176 ) further more the site citywatch.com provides a good coverage of NCs issues and City Hall.
    With all that said its safe to say the NCs are not going anywhere but there finances are threatened by the city, reduced but not totally eliminated. People would rather see the council members slush funds, perks and salaries cut before the NCs funding.

    On the issue of the NCs elections every council has there own bylaws. So though the elections maybe overseen by the city clerk, the details vary from neighborhood council to council. So the number of offices and length of term in Boyle Heights may not be the same as Highland Park or Lincoln Heights.

  2. Clarification of Neighborhood Council information, not all NC are set up in the same way Boyle Heights NC. Some have adopted the Quadrant affect from BHNC to be able to outreach more people, but so far is not utilized to its potentials. The quadrant have failed to meet on a regular basis. Look at quadrant 3, two meeting in the last two years.

    NC should be for the people by the people, in BH we have over 90K stakeholders, in comparison to the 5 to 8 attendees at the BHNC meetings, not a valid representation.

  3. i dont understand the logic:
    LA Budget fiasco will eliminate neighborhood councils, yet, electeds are too scared/gutless to make budget cuts?? isnt that an oxymoron? errr…ok…

  4. Still not sure what exactly the Neighborhood councils exactly do, besides get a little budget to spend on events/street furniture. They tend to be mostly advisory & really have no say in Planning Commission (citywide nor area) decisions. They mostly take positions, which in the SFV seems to be against everything. Let’s build a park! “NC: HELL NO, TRAFFIC” etc etc etc. Then the chickensH** council person bows down.

    Kill them for all I care.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *