Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Newsletter

November 14, 2003

Re: City Events Calendar. Channel 35 to Post Event Notices and Televise Reoprt on Congress of Neighborhoods.

All forming, certified, and elected Neighborhood Councils should be aware of a special service that is provided by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and the City of Los Angeles.

As you are probably know, the City’s home page (www.lacity.org) includes the City Events Calendar, which is different from the Early Notification System (ENS). If you want to announce a special event, such as a street fair or a future Neighborhood Council meeting, we can post those on the City’s Web site. Since this isn’t part of the ENS system, people have to go to the Web site and look for the announcements. They are not sent to people automatically.

For security reasons, the City’s computer system is “firewalled” so that people from the outside cannot get into it and cause unspeakable harm. That’s why Neighborhood Councils cannot upload notices to the city’s computer system themselves. We’re happy to provide this service as a way of helping to increase interest in your meetings and provide people will a reliable way to get your agendas.

Be aware that the City Council offices and the Mayor’s Office also have this same ability. You don’t to go through us.

You can also include a PDF version of a flyer, agenda, or program.

Our first choice is to receive the attachments, if any, in PDF form because that’s the form in which they must be when we send them to the city’s main computer. Second choice is to have it in MS Word, or equivalent form, and we’ll convert it to PDF. Third choice is fax. We’ll scan it into PDF, but you know the quality of faxes. It’s likely to look like a photograph of the Rosetta Stone.

If your Neighborhood Council translates attachments into a language other than English, we will also upload them into the system.

In order to take advantage of this offer please assign two people, such as the Board Secretary and an alternate, who will be responsible for providing DONE with the text and the attachments, if any, and inform your Project Coordinator in writing.

We suggest that you include the obvious information: when, where, what, why, and who to contact. Include street addresses for the location, and if you really want to be cool, include the Thomas Guide page and grid.

We will make every effort to post your special notices on time, but please understand that the city’s main computer gets cranky from time-to-time, and then our role is limited to bringing the problem to their attention.

DONE will explain to the two contact people exactly where to send the information.

CHANNEL 35 TO TELEVISE EVENT NOTICES

Beginning, hopefully on November 29, Channel 35 will be taking information about meetings and special events from this Web site and posting on Channel 35 at specific times. On Saturdays and Sundays the events programming will begin at 8:30 a.m. During the week, it will be at 8:00 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., and 11:00 p.m. It is not known at this time exactly where in this segment the list of Neighborhood Councils announcements will appear. Wouldn’t it be great if they appeared first?

CHANNEL 35 TO TELEVISE REPORT ON CONGRESS

You may have noticed that a Channel 35 reporter was at the Congress of Neighborhoods preparing a story. That story will be broadcast starting tomorrow (Saturday) at 9 a.m. It will be repeated on Sunday at 9 a.m., and then Monday through Friday at 9 a.m., noon, 6:00 p.m., and 10:30 p.m. The program is called “L.A. This Week.” You can check on Channel 35’s programming by visiting its home page at http://www.lacity.org/ita/itacv1.htm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greg Nelson

866 / LA HELPS
213 / 485-1360
213 / 485-4608 fax
done@mailbox.lacity.org email
www.lacityneighborhoods.com website