Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Newsletter

March 5, 2003

Re: Congress of Neighborhoods is Coming. Welcome the New City Council Members. ENS Working Group Met. Next Treasurer Training.

Sorry that it’s been so long since the last newsletter, but we’ve been swamped trying to put together the next Congress of Neighborhoods.

CONGRESS OF NEIGHBORHOODS IS COMING

Very, very shortly you’ll receive detailed information about the Congress of Neighborhoods that will be held on April 5 at the Convention Center. We expect it to be the largest empowerment conference ever held in the nation. The theme will be “TeamWork LA.”

The breakfast, registration, and networking will be from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m.
The opening session will be from 10:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.
There will be four one-hour workshop sessions with a lunch break in between, and then a brief closing session. Some of the workshops will actually be two hours long with a short break in between.

The first shot at reserving seats for the workshops will go to governing board members, and the three to five people who signed the applications for those groups that have been certified but haven’t had their election yet.

For the first time in the City’s history we’re going to try on-line registration, but our system will provide equal opportunity for those who don’t have a computer. Details to follow.

When that registration period is over, the remaining workshop seats will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you just want to come by to network, eat the food, visit the departments, or take your chances on the workshops, there’s no need to pre-register.

WELCOME THE NEW CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS

If you’re in an area that has a new City Council member, you might consider getting together with other Neighborhood Councils in the area and inviting him out to meet all of you. Understand that he will probably need some time to get together a staff first. Everyone will be vying for his attention, so if you can arrange one large meeting, as opposed to several meetings with each Neighborhood Council, you’ll likely get a better response. Councilmember Parks has already been sworn-in to fill the unexpired term of Mark Ridley-Thomas. Councilmembers Cardenas and Villaraigosa will take office on July 1. You should consider calling their campaign office now to get contact numbers that you can use in the following weeks.

When they come to the meeting, I recommend that you make them as comfortable as possible. This is no longer a campaign meeting. There is no need for surprises. Feel free to tell them in advance what subjects you’d like covered, and what questions they are likely to receive. Understand that they might not know as much detail about what’s happening in your neighborhood as you do, and they would likely thank you if you were able to provide them with notes about the answers that the stakeholders would appreciate hearing.

You get the choice of whether you want the new Councilmember to come to your meeting and tell you what he’s going to do for you, or if you want him to understand in advance the things that you can do together. Will your Neighborhood Council lead or follow?

EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM WORKING GROUP MET

At the last meeting of the Education and Neighborhoods Committee, I was directed to put together a working group that includes: City Attorney, City Clerk, Information Technology Agency, Chief Legislative Analyst, the President's office, and Neighborhood Council leaders.

The group met on Thursday, February 27 for two hours. It was very productive although the group only made it through the first six items, which were the proposals in the Hahn- Greuel motion. Another meeting will be announced soon, and we’ll take a stab at the other 10 proposals. All of the information that was provided for this meeting is still on our Web site home page at www.lacityneighborhoods.com.

NEXT TREASURER TRAINING

The March training will be held on the 12th at our Lincoln Heights office, 3516 N. Broadway Avenue, Los Angeles 90031, corner of Lincoln Park Ave. at 6:30 p.m. The April session will be at the Congress of Neighborhoods. Past sessions, including questions and answers, have lasted about 90 minutes.

Greg Nelson

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