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Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Newsletter
February
8, 2005
Re: Form
700 Exemption Approved by Cith Council Today. Funding Program Improvement
Aapproved by E&N Committee. The $100,000 Street Services Plan
Announced. Los Angeles Mayorial Debate Recap.
FORM 700 EXEMPTION
APPROVED BY CITY COUNCIL TODAY
The proposal
to exempt Neighborhood Council board members from filing out the
financial disclosure reports (aka Form 700) was unanimously approved
by the City Council today during its second and final vote. It goes
to the Mayor for signature.
FUNDING PROGRAM
IMPROVEMENT APPROVED BY E&N COMMITTEE
On Tuesday,
February 1, the Education and Neighborhoods Committee unanimously
approved the proposal to allow Neighborhood Councils to use its
city money to make grants to individuals or nonprofit organizations.
Next, it goes to the full City Council.
THE $100,000
STREET SERVICES PLAN ANNOUNCED
Yesterday, Mayor
Hahn announced his plan to allow each Neighborhood Council with
an elected board to determine how $100,000 worth of street repairs
should be spent.
Let me clarify
some of the information about this that you might have read in the
papers or heard through the grapevine.
The money comes
from new Gas Tax money that can only be used for things like street
repairs. It can’t be used for more police officers.
The money will
not be transferred to each Neighborhood Council’s budget. That
wouldn’t make any sense, because it would have to be sent right
back to the Bureau of Street Services. Each Neighborhood Council
will be asked to provide he Bureau of Street Services will a list
of projects.
This plan would
be part of the new city budget that the Mayor is developing. The
budget requires City Council approval. It is not possible at this
moment to state exactly when the Neighborhood Councils should start
meeting. Street Services has produced 60 street assessment reports
to Neighborhood Council, so their next step is to produce assessments
for the remaining Neighborhood Councils. This will provide each
Neighborhood Council will helpful information about the condition
of the streets in their area.
You can expect
to learn more about this plan through the Neighborhood Council Federation
meetings through the Mayor’s Area Director for your Neighborhood
Council.
What is especially
interesting about this is that this will be the first time (that
I can remember) that project priorities will be discussed and determined
in a public setting.
LOS ANGELES
MAYORAL DEBATE RECAP
If you were
at the debate last night at CBS Television Center, you might have
seen me there will a crew from Channel 35. As I had mentioned at
a Citywide Alliance of Neighborhood Councils meeting a few weeks
ago, we are taping footage for use in a “Making Of” show
that we plan to show as part of the Neighborhood Café series.
To debunk one
urban myth before it gets started, the Department of Neighborhood
Empowerment, the City of Los Angeles, and I had no involvement in
the organizing or sponsorship of the debate. The credit goes to
the Citywide Alliance of Neighborhood Councils, CityWatch, KCBS
(Channel 2), and KCAL (Channel 9). Something that you may not have
known is that during the debate, a car chase broke out. To their
credit, Channel 9 decided not to break into the debate or even use
an insert box to show the chase. I was so impressed by this, and
the fact that KCAL agreed to show the forum without commercial interruption,
that I will be sending a personal note of appreciation to Paul Skolnick,
Managing Editor, KCBS2 and KCAL9, at pdskolnick@cbs.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greg Nelson
gnelson@mailbox.lacity.org
866 / LA HELPS
213 / 485-1360
213 / 485-4608 fax
done@mailbox.lacity.org
email
www.lacityneighborhoods.com
website
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