Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Newsletter

November 30, 2005

Re: CITY GOVERNMENT 101.  TREASURER TRAINING.  WEBCASTING. BONC REPORTS AVAILABLE.

CITY GOVERNMENT 101

The city of Los Angeles is a corporation with nearly four million stockholders that provides ambulance, police, sanitation, and fire services; maintains streets and parks; furnishes water; and supplies electricity. It has a mayor-council-commission form of government. How many elected officials does it take to run this corporation? What are the functions of its departments and bureaus?

We invite you to join us for “City Government 101,” an exciting training and discussion in your area, conducted by Gary De La Rosa from the Human Relations Commission on December 7, 2005 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Empowerment Academy Training Center: 305 E. First Street, Little Tokyo . Learn the essentials about the City of Los Angeles ' history, city leaders, departments, bureaus and services, and how to advocate for the issues of importance to your neighborhood council. You will also receive a valuable listing of department contacts and numbers.

If you are interested in attending, please register online at www.lacityneighborhoods.com or by email to anataly.dejesus@lacity.org, or by phone to (213) 473-4656. 

WEBCASTING

The Education and Neighborhoods Committee is discussing a report dealing with the webcasting of Neighborhood Council meetings. You can view it click by clicking on the link above or going to our website and looking in the right-hand column. 

We would like to know of any Neighborhood Councils that either tape meetings and make them available on the Internet, or that webcast them live on the Internet.

TREASURER TRAINING

Having a trained treasurer and "second signatory" is required before a Neighborhood Council can spend the taxpayers' money.  If you want to take this training, for whatever reason, let us know.  We want to ensure that you ability to spend this money is not delayed.

BONC REPORTS AVAILABLE

The next meeting of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners will be Tuesday, December 6 at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall.  As is our practice, as soon as any written reports are available, we post them on our website.  Click here for a direct link, or from the home page click on Commission>Staff Reports.  Additionally, the commission invites all Neighborhood Councils to address the commission to share best practices, great achievements, and other good news.  At this meeting, the commission is especially interested in hearing best practices that relate to increasing public participation and outreach.

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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