Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Newsletter

November 14, 2005

Re: COMMUNICATING WITH STAKEHOLDERS CLASS.  THE EFFECTS OF THE HIRING FREEZE.

COMMUNICATING WITH STAKEHOLDERS CLASS ON WEDNESDAY

Here's a reminder about a valuable training session provided by our Empowerment Academy. Learn how to reach out to more stakeholders with some tricks of the trade for communicating with your stakeholders. The class has been of value to forming and certified Neighborhood Council board members.

It's free of course. It will be provided on Wednesday November 16, 2005 from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the Empowerment Academy Training Center at 305 E. First Street, Little Tokyo.

The instructors discuss the development and delivery of message to community stakeholders through various communication methods such as websites, e-mail, mail, flyers, direct outreach, newsletters, and special events. They will also explain how to target the audience method to receive and incorporated stakeholder feedback.
For more information, please call (213) 485-1360 (toll-free at 3-1-1), or register online at www.lacityneighborhoods.com

THE EFFECTS OF THE HIRING FREEZE (BEAR WITH US)

When City Hall imposed the hiring freeze on departments about three years, the small departments, such as ours felt the brunt of a system that attempts to manager through attrition. If you lose too many of the critical people, you're in trouble. For most of this period we had a vacancy factor of 25%. Now that the freeze is over, the "thaw" is hitting us. The reason is that departments, especially the large departments, are able to fill most vacancies and thereby offer promotional opportunities to those who ranked high on the promotional lists but couldn't move up because of the freeze. We currently have a vacancy factor of 20% and rising. Within the section that runs the Funding Program and manages our administrative matters, we've replaced or are in the process of replacing 11 of the 16 employees. You always hope that the outgoing employees thoughly brief their replacements, but sometimes they never meet because of the time it often takes to find the new employee. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS INVITED TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING DIALOG

One of the most life threatening issues affecting Los Angeles today is human trafficking and sexual slavery, a 9 billion dollar a year industry. According to the FBI, it is the third largest criminal activity in the world, drugs and guns being first and second, respectively. This modern day slavery is occurring right in front of us, so we need to learn to look beneath the surface.

The Commission on the Status of Women invites the leadership of Neighborhood Councils to learn more about this heinous crime and get the message out to your stakeholders.

Join the Commission on Thursday, November 17, at the National Council of Jewish Women: 543 North Fairfax Avenue (corner of Clinton Street, one block south of Melrose Avenue), from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. There is free on-site parking at rear of building. Also present will be representatives from LAPD's Narcotics and Vice Divisions, the Fire Department, the FBI, the District Attorney's Office, and Councilmembers Jack Weiss and Tony Cardenas.

If you have any questions, please contact Anne Dunn, Assistant Executive Director, Commission on the Status of Women, at (213) 978-0300, or Norma Foster, Advisory Committee Co-Chair and representative for Neighborhood Councils, at (323) 460-7170.

HOW TO SUBMIT A COMMUNITY IMPACT STATEMENT INSTRUCTION SHEET AVAILABLE

Over the year, the department has send out tons of information about how we help Neighborhood Councils get their work done, and specific instructions about how to do certain things. But it is largely mushed into years of past newsletters and it's not easy to find.

We are now starting to take this information and organize it into a collection of simply written "How To" sheeets that we will post on our website. The first one explains how Neighborhood Councils can submit Community Impact Statements and have them printed on the agendas of the City Councils, its committees, and city commissions. There is no other city in the nation (maybe in the world) that provides this opportunity for the public's voice to be heard.

Our home page has been modified to include a button labeled "How To". Click on it and you'll see a growing list of these helpful information sheets. To go straight to the CIS sheet, click here.

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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