Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Newsletter

January 23, 2006

Re: MANDATORY CONFLICT OF INTEREST TRAINING.  NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL INITIATIVES PROPOSAL PASSES FIRST VOTE.  NEW MEETING DATES FOR EDUCATION AND NEIGHBORHOODS COMMITTEE SET.

MANDATORY CONFLICT OF INTEREST TRAINING IS COMING

The State of California adopted a new conflict of interest training law, AB 1234, that became effective on January 1 of this year. It requires that "legislative bodies" that receive reimbursements be trained in the ethics and conflict of interest laws during the calendar year. The training would be good for two years.

As the bill was going through the state legislative process, the City argued that it should not apply to Neighborhood Council board members. In the end, the training will apply to the board as well as commissioners and City Council members. This is largely because of the fact that Neighborhood Councils are City entities, and because they have public funds to spend.

The City Ethics Commission and the Office of the City Attorney are designing training for th elected officials and the commissioners. We have joined with the City Attorney to design the training for the Neighborhood Councils. Training sessions will be conducted within the seven Neighborhood Council areas at various times throughout the year.

We are aggressively working on the development of online training that could be used as a more convenient way to meet the state's requirement.

We will inform you when more details are available.

This, and the messages about this requirement, are very important. We know that not all of the board members have access to computers and e-mail. We trust that each Neighborhood Council has a system through which this and other important messages are made available to those who cannot receive them online.

NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL INITIATIVES PROPOSAL PASSES FIRST VOTE

The proposal by many Neighborhood Councils to allow an official City Council file to be initiated by a Neighborhood Council and referred to a City Council committee was approved by the Education and Neighborhoods Committee by a vote of 2-0 on Friday. It was sent to the next stop along the way, the Rules and Elections Committee. Its new chair is Eric Garcetti, and the other members are Alex Padilla and Dennis Zine. If you subscribe to its agendas through the city's Early Notification System, you will receive the agenda.

NEW MEETING DATES FOR EDUCATION AND NEIGHBORHOODS COMMITTEE SET

New committee chair Alex Padilla announced that the new meeting dates for the committee will be the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month at 9 a.m.

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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