Department of Neighborhood Empowerment news

August 21, 2002

FREE E-MAIL ADDRESSES

One of the Neighborhood Council members provided an analysis (in .pdf) of some of the major e-mail address providers that she found.

There are two excellent locations on the Web to find free e-mail addresses and other related stuff.

www.fepg.net/usa.html
They have highlighted the ones they feel provide the best free e-mail service.

www.emailaddresses.com
Free addresses and a ton of other free things. A literal candy store.

FREE WEB SITES

www.neighborhoodlink.org
793 neighborhood groups in Los Angeles alone have gotten free Web site from here.

BUILDING THE VISION TOGETHER

At the Congress of Neighborhoods, we ran out of time in the opening session. Most of the departments that came bearing "gifts" for the Neighborhood Councils didn't get a chance to present them. That will happen fairly quickly in the days to come. We also ran out of time for me to mention some of the projects that are available for Neighborhood Councils to participate in.

As you may know, one of the workshops was for those who felt that they might like to participate in the planning of the next Congress of Neighborhoods. That group will be contacted soon.

I'd also like to know if there are any people who would like to assist our department in designing its long-range plan. Traditionally, this is done by each department in relative isolation. But DONE is different. It exists to assist the Neighborhood Councils. Predicting what will happen too far into the future in next to impossible, because the department is dependent upon the unknown needs of some unknown number of Neighborhood Councils. Yet, we must now begin designing our budget for the 2003-04 fiscal year. We invite your participation. If you think you'd be interested, contact me.

CHANGING THE LAWS THAT GOVERN US

When the Brown Act and the ethics laws were enacted, they did not anticipate that there could be a grass-roots, participatory system of Neighborhood Councils. Some feel that we should give some thought to amending some of these laws. Why should laws that apply to decision-making bodies like City Councils apply equally to groups that just advise those decision makers? Why doesn't the Brown Act apply to State Senators and members of the State Assembly, but yet it applies to Neighborhood Councils?

Should we change the City Charter, our governing ordinances, or our Plan for a Citywide System of Neighborhood Councils?

If this interests you, let me know and we'll get everyone together to discuss it.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Someday, someone will ask what you've done now that you're certified as a Neighborhood Council. We'd like to have those answers all ready to go. If it's a reporter on a deadline, we must be able to find the information instantly. Therefore, we encourage you to keep us informed about the accomplishments about which you are the most proud. We'll list them on our Web site at your spot under Neighborhood Councils. (This part of the Web site is being assembled right now.)

Greg Nelson

213 / 485-1360
866 / LA HELPS toll-free
213 / 485-4608 fax
done@mailbox.lacity.org email