Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Newsletter 9/11/02

September 11, 2002

Re: Town Hall in Committee; DONE Staff; Early Notification System; Council File Index.

"TOWN HALL" IN COMMITTEE
A (Greuel-Hahn) motion to change the ordinance to permit Neighborhood Councils to use a "town hall" style of governance will be heard by the Education and Neighborhoods Committee on Tuesday, September 17 at 2 p.m in Room 1060 of City Hall. The motion is attached as a .pdf file. The members of the committee are Janice Hahn, Alex Padilla, and Tom LaBonge. One way to contact them is through the city's Web site at www.lacity.org.

EDITOR'S NOTE: click here to read the Town Hall Motion.

THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING
Like most of you, I've been used to having field representatives from the City Council and Mayor's offices regularly community meetings. Thanks for understand that this is more difficult for the DONE field staff to do.

Our staff is strictly regulated by the federal Fair Employment Practices Act. Employees cannot work more than 40 hours a week without being compensated for overtime. Since the recent Congress of Neighborhoods chewed up the overtime account, we're limited to forcing our staff to take time off. Interestingly, the field staff of elected officials are not covered by this law.

So if our field people are not able to attend all of the meetings you would like them to attend, please understand that it's not their fault. It's us in management carefully watching their time in order to avoid a lawsuit from their union or legal action from the federal government.

Our goal is to maximize, and make the best use of their time. We try to have them at the meetings where they have something important to contribute, or when there's something crucial for them to learn that they can only learn from being there. At any given time, there are 4 or 5 Neighborhood Council meetings be held each night. Using e-mail, telephone, cell phone, and faxes we'll continue to try and meet all of your needs.

EARLY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM
The city's Early Notification System is unquestionably the best in the nation, and it's not stopping there. I want to draw your attention to one of the best kept secrets of that system. The City Clerk maintains a list of the council member motions and communications from the Mayor and other departments that get referred to a City Council committee. This is truly your first notification about an item that has entered into the City Council's system. Then you can track it.

You can have these "referral sheets" send to you automatically through the Early Notification System. Go to the city's home page at www.lacity.org. Click on Early Notification System. Click on City Council Mailing List or ENS Subscription. Under the City Clerk, you'll find the box to check called "New Council Items – Referrals." Go for it!

You can find the library of these referral sheets by going to the City Clerk's site at www.lacity.org/clk/index.htm, and picking "View Referral Memoranda."

While you're plowing around, you might want to check out the Council File Index where the history of each City Council file is maintained. These computerized records go back to 1980.

Greg Nelson

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