Department of Neighborhood Empowerment

DONE Newsletters 2006

November 22, 2006

Re: Message from new BONC President

Dear Neighborhood Council President, Board Members and Stakeholders:

I wish to take this opportunity to introduce myself, Linda Lucks, as President of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) as well as the six other Commissioners, Rev. Dr.  Lewis Logan II, Vice President of the Board, Tsilah Burman, Daniel Gatica, Eun Sook Lee, Diane Middleton and Michele Siqueiros. It is our desire to bring real value to the overall Neighborhood Council System.

Neighborhood councils are to be the voice of local communities. Neighborhood council board members and stakeholders have the right to a safe and welcoming opportunity to share their priorities and concerns to City Hall.

This is the first of many communications we will disseminate with you as we move forward. As you know, the BONC, per the City Charter and Citywide plan, is the body that oversees the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, approves Neighborhood Council certification and decertification applications, sets policy and approves various contracts. We recently held our first Board retreat during which we discussed the direction we wish to pursue. One of our focus areas will be identifying opportunities to increase the effectiveness of neighborhood councils when working with our City government.

Our goal is to promote greater stakeholder participation in government, emphasizing inclusiveness and diversity. To reach this goal, we need your help since policies cannot, or should not, be established in a vacuum. In emphasizing this last point, we will work to place policy issue adoption on the agenda at more than one Board meeting and notify you when and where the meetings take place, so as to give ample time for stakeholder participation.

Thus, we invite you to attend our meetings which are held on the first Tuesday of every month at 6:30 PM and the third Thursday of every month at 6 p.m. Our next meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at Belvedere Elementary School located at 3724 East First Street, Los Angeles, CA  90063. Meeting locations rotate among all areas of the City so as to facilitate greater and more diverse attendance.

We hope you will join us at our meetings to share your best practices, so that we in turn can share them with other neighborhood councils. We will make every attempt to attend as many of your Neighborhood Council meetings as possible.

For your information, we will host a series of special hearings beginning early next year that will allow us the opportunity to hear from you on a range of topics. Your input will help guide the Commission as we increase our efforts to set effective policy in support of the neighborhood council system.

We are requesting joint meetings with the City Council's Education and Neighborhoods Committee and the 912 Neighborhood Council Review Commission in order to address issues collaboratively and to improve our communication and outreach.

We look forward to working with you to make our City the best it can be.

Wishing you a prosperous holiday season!

Sincerely,
Linda Lucks, President

Rev. Dr.  Lewis Logan II, Vice President
Tsilah Burman
Diane Middleton
Eun Sook Lee
Daniel Gatica
Michele Siqueiros

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Lisa Sarno, Interim General Manager
done@lacity.org

Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
334-B E. 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

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