A Threefold 'Thank You' to Los Angeles
Canter's & Ice Cream Sandwich Could Live in Perfect Harmony
Dear Los Angeles: I'm Thankful For...
-thumb-110x110-213475.jpg)
A Photo Gallery of the Things I am Grateful for This Year
7 Reasons to Love L.A.
Today's Daily News discusses yesterday morning's Congress of Neighborhoods where city's 89 neighborhood councils met in a convention style environment to learn skills such as media relations and working with city departments.
Throughout the day, one major focus of chatter surrounded how to "wield their increasing influence." The Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council recently succeeded in a community effort in halting a Home Depot from coming to their neighborhood. The Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council is fighting a major development with two other councils.
While certainly an important issue, land use will and always be a hot-button issue, with or without Neighborhood Councils. Development successes should be touted, but do not necessarily mean an increase of influence to the city... yet.
So what if only a few (and literally, a few) of 10,000 possible constituents vote someone into a Neighborhood Council position? What does that say to the leaders down at City Hall? It's definitely not, "I'm a force to be reckoned with all the people who stand behind me." Unfortunately, this is the case for many, if not most, elected neighborhood councilmen and women.
The true power for Neighborhood Councils will come with voter participation. And to get that voter participation, a Neighborhood Council must walk the talk first to get noticed by the public, which leads us full circle back to how Sunlund-Tujunga got noticed.
It is this revolving circle that will eventually make Neighborhood Councils a strong and powerful entities with influence. Until the voters really start churning out, everything they do today is resume building, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Do you know what your local neighborhood council has done for your neighborhood?
Photo of the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council (disclosure, author is a member of this council) by Zach Behrens/LAist
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
History is being rewritten. It was not the Sunland-Tujunga NC that stopped Home Depot, in fact,
it was a group called The No Home Depot Campaign.
This group is made up of individuals that are not elected members of the STNC. The STNC is being given, or they are taking, way more credit than is due to them.
Also interesting is that the link provided in this story (halting a Home Depot) takes you to the No Home Depot Campaign website and not the Sunland-Tujunga NC website, and yet the story gives the impression that the STNC was responsible for stopping Home Depot.
For those of you who live in East Hollywood, the newly formed East Hollywood Neighborhood Council will be holding their first election tomorrow, Tues. Oct. 30th, from 3pm to 8pm at Barnsdall Art Park.
http://www.EastHollywood.net/vote
So come on out and vote. There will also be a service fair with booth from various community organizations.
Neighborhood Council meetings are held on the second Monday of each month.