In and all-or-nothing vote, the City of Los Angeles passed into law a completely new City Charter in the late 90s, and one of the reasons the take-it-or-leave-it document gained grassroots acceptance was the addition of a specialized mechanism touted to allow regular Angelenos the ability to have a say in public policy and choices for their communities.
The "Neighborhood Councils" were created, along with a Charter-designated City Department, DONE (the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment) which was designed to first help create and then support the emerging NCs.
Eventually 90 Neighborhood Councils came into being, originally supported by $50,000 worth of funding from the City (later reduced to $45,000 annually) meant to support both their work as well as seed monies for community worth projects (which the NCs each decided independently of each other).
The DONE will be disbanded soon, as you'll see in the articles below, and the Neighborhood Councils themselves, some of which have been more successful than others, will more than ever be left to their own devices.
Among other things the NC's were to be holding elections soon .. but even that's not a for sure thing. Will the City Clerk be able to carry them off? Will the volunteer community people be willing to run for office?
There's plenty of problems, and plenty of "blame" to go around .. and at stake is nothing short of the success or failure of LA's "experiment" in community government.
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DONE expected to be folded into another agency to save money
by Rick Orlov
LA Daily News
02/21/2010
In the continuing effort to reduce city costs, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to announce plans today to fold the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment into another city agency.
A recommendation to the mayor on Sunday calls for placing the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, or DONE, within the Community Development Department and reducing its staff from 42 to about a dozen.
DONE has a total budget of $3.2 million.
Under the action, DONE General Manger BH Kim is expected to step down as director. Responsibility for the agency will be placed with CDD Director Richard Benbow.
Villaraigosa, who last week folded the city Environmental Affairs Department into other city agencies and ordered the closing of the Human Services Department, is taking the action at the urging of his staff to further save money.
The recommendation was submitted in a memo to Villaraigosa, officials said, and he is expected to formally announce the decision today.
Several Neighborhood Council leaders were briefed about the recommendation last Friday by Deputy Mayor Larry Frank.
The action is not expected to go down easy among the 90 neighborhood councils, which have been increasingly at odds with the city.
Al Abrams, vice chair of the Board of Neighborhood Councils, sent out an open letter over the weekend warning of the impact of the action, especially taking money away from Neighborhood Council elections.
"Their goal: Take the balance of money that is left in the elections account and leave the NCs to `do their own thing,"' Abrams wrote. "They're hiding behind the statements of `giving back the elections to the Neighborhood Councils.' This is a false and insincere attempt to gut the NC system.
"The truth is this will be disastrous for NCs. Without a staffed department there to help them, which is about to be `scrubbed clean' and without any funding for any elections, NCs will be left out in the cold to fend for themselves."
The Board of Neighborhood Councils Commission is expected to remain in place and Abrams is asking the groups to contact council members to keep the election funding.
What is uncertain is how much money will be provided to Neighborhood Councils to fund projects this year. The City Council already has allocated $1.5 million in money it has been holding onto for various other projects.
This year, neighborhood council funding was reduced from $50,000 to $45,000 for each group. Another proposal has threatened to cut that amount further down to $17,500 for the coming year.
Aides to Councilman Paul Krekorian, who chairs the Neighborhood and Elections Commission, said they were unaware of the proposal.
Neighborhood Councils were created in the new City Charter approved by voters in 1999 and began to flourish under former Mayor James Hahn, who provided them with an annual budget.
The councils are composed of volunteer residents and most have been able to operate with little controversy. However, some have had difficulties in conducting their own elections while others were accused of fraud and embezzlement of city funds.
For the most part, the groups were able to band together to fight a number of city proposals, mostly involving the Department of Water and Power. The DWP also created a Neighborhood Council oversight board that has been active in voicing criticism of the agency.
Villaraigosa and the City Council have been moving on a number of fronts to try to save money as the city faces a $212 million shortfall this year and another $484 million next year in balancing the city's $7.01 billion budget.
Among the actions has been the elimination and consolidation of city agencies and a call to lay off up to 4,000 workers.
The decisions came just as Moody's Investor Services warned that the city is being placed on a watch list, its status changing from stable to negative, and a threat that the city's credit rating could be downgraded.
The change in rating would increase the cost of borrowing money to operate.
http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14445265
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Villaraigosa proposes merging 2 city agencies to save $2 million
February 22, 2010
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday he hopes to shave $2 million from the city's budget by folding the department that oversees the network of 90 neighborhood councils into another agency.
The plan would push the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, created by voters more than a decade ago to increase citizen participation at City Hall, into the Community Development Department, which oversees the distribution of federal grant funds.
That move could draw a legal challenge from backers of neighborhood councils, who contend the City Charter calls for a Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.
“I would be surprised if this is legal, and I would be surprised if the city attorney has been asked about this,” said Greg Nelson, who ran the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment from 2001 to 2006.
Nelson warned that neighborhood councils would be “the stepchild of a much larger department” under the proposed arrangement. A spokesman for City Atty. Carmen Trutanich did not immediately comment.
But Councilman Richard Alarcon pointed out that the City Charter prohibits the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment's duties from being transferred to another agency only during the first five years of its existence. After that, the department can be moved into another agency by city ordinance, he said.
“I think it can be done legally,” Alarcon said of the mayor's proposal.
Villaraigosa released a statement Monday saying the merger would eliminate 27 jobs and place the network of neighborhood councils into a “more efficient” department that works better with neighborhoods.
“The consolidation effort will not only create cost savings, but will serve to take the bureaucracy out of community empowerment,” he said in the statement.
The proposal led to the announcement by BongHwan Kim that he will resign by June 30 as head of the Neighborhood Empowerment Department. Richard Benbow will run the renamed Department of Community Development and Neighborhood Empowerment, according to the mayor's statement.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/villaraigosa-proposes-merging-2-city-agencies-to-save-2-million.html#more
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Neighborhood councils fear impact of consolidation
by Rick Orlov and Kevin Modesti
LA Daily News
02/22/2010
The decision by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday to merge the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment into another city agency has raised concern over the future of the city's decade-old experiment with grass-roots democracy.
To Villaraigosa and many city and neighborhood council leaders, the proposal - which will eliminate some two dozen positions and save an estimated $2 million - will help chip away the bureaucracy at City Hall.
"The consolidation effort will not only create cost savings, but will serve to take the bureaucracy out of community empowerment," Villaraigosa said in a statement. "This consolidation is an opportunity to create the volunteer opportunities that engage communities and foster participation."
But leaders of several neighborhood councils said the mayor's proposal and funding cutbacks would gut the councils, and expressed fear that that's the aim of city leaders.
"If this is the beginning of killing neighborhood councils, it's a terrible loss," said Dennis DeYoung, president of the Northridge West Neighborhood Council. "The whole idea of neighborhood councils is a good one, and I think it's been a success. ... Neighborhood councils represent such a tiny fraction of the city budget. They're taking their eye off the ball."
`Diluting the department'
Villaraigosa's plan would make DONE part of the Community Development Department, with its general manager, Richard Benbow, taking on responsibility for both agencies.
BH Kim, who has been DONE's manager for three years, said he will resign his post on June 30, when the merger is expected to be completed.
"I do have concerns that this will give the perception of diluting the department," Kim said. "Putting DONE in such a large department will have an impact.
"We are the department that was involved in building relationships with the neighborhood councils. That's our job, to work with the neighborhood councils and step in when we have to when there are disputes."
Al Abrams, vice chairman of the Board of Neighborhood Commissions, said he is not bothered by merging the department into the Community Development Department.
"I think most of the neighborhood councils will see this as a boost and giving them more freedom," Abrams said. "What I am concerned about is whether we are allowed to go ahead with this year's elections.
"A lot of them are scheduled for next week, and it's a big deal to the neighborhood councils and the hundreds of people across the city who have made the decision to get involved. It is not something that is easy. They are putting their names out there, making speeches and campaigning and spending their own money. I just think it would be unfair to stop that process now."
Councilman Dennis Zine, who was on the Appointed Charter Reform Commission that created the neighborhood council system in 1999, said he wants to allow the elections to go ahead.
"Most of the ($1.5 million) budgeted for the elections has been spent," Zine said. "We made a promise and we should keep it. And we can look at how we should change the system next year."
The amount the consolidation of the department will save is just a tiny fraction of the city's $212 million budget shortfall this year. Next year, the gap will widen to $484 million out of the city's total budget of $7.01 billion.
"But it's a step in saving money," said Councilman Bernard Parks, chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee. "And, it will be an annual savings."
Skepticism over motives
Mike O'Gara, president of the Sun Valley Neighborhood Council, said he was "shocked" by the news that came out over the weekend about Villaraigosa's proposal.
He said he thinks neighborhood councils - established in the new City Charter approved by voters in 1999 - are less popular with city leaders "as we mature, and more and more we show up at city council hearings and say we'd like changes."
Ken Draper, publisher of CityWatch LA, which reports on the neighborhood council issues, said he is concerned not about the loss of a separate department but about the message it sends to neighborhood councils.
"There's a lot of hysteria out there and some confusion," Draper said. "What people have to remember is that DONE and the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners exist to serve the neighborhood councils.
"I think once the neighborhood councils see how it's working, it will give the neighborhood councils more freedom," Draper said.
Zine said he believes the city also needed to change the funding mechanism for neighborhood councils. For several years, each of the neighborhood councils - the city now has 90 - received $50,000 a year for programs or services they wanted in their communities. Last year, it was dropped to $45,000, and it has been proposed that be cut in half, to $22,500 for this coming year.
Zine said all the money should be put in one account with the neighborhood councils putting in their funding requests through the commission for approval.
Garth Carlson, a board member and past chairman of the Reseda Neighborhood Council, said most councils would be willing to take a small cut in funding but that the proposal is unreasonable.
Neighborhood council leaders said they'll try to aim public pressure at City Hall.
Said Carlson: "Whenever the neighborhood councils have reacted to bad decisions by the city and made a large clamor, the city has turned around and stopped." |
