Coming to a Lamppost Near You: Eagle Rock Pride

The Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council discussed but then postponed a vote Tuesday night on a proposal to spend up to $10,000 on the installation of lightpole banners designed to enhance civic pride among ER residents and stakeholders.

The proposed banners will line Colorado Boulevard and possibly Eagle Rock Boulevard. The ERNC board agreed that whether every lightpole—or every alternate lightpole—on a particular street will get a banner is an issue that will be discussed and decided later.

Up to $12,500 was approved for the banners unanimously, with one abstention, at the May 7 ERNC meeting, and $2,500 from the previous fiscal year's budget already spent on the project. But because the board did not vote on the 2013-14 ERNC budget until June, the board was unable to allocate funds from the current fiscal year. 

The ERNC board voted 12-0 on the preliminary design of the banner, which depicts the historic Eagle Rock looming above the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena. The image (see attachment) is in the collection of the Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society, which would be paid a licensing fee as well as for the design work already done on the project. At the bottom of the banner are the logo of the ERNC, the City of Los Angeles and—for mandatory outreach purposes—the URL of the ERNC website.

The ERNC board initially voted unanimously on a motion by Vice President David Greene to fund the $12,500 project. The vote was, however, rescinded and tabled when former ERNC Secretary and Outreach Committee Chair Robert Guevara pointed out that it would be against the Brown Act to vote on an intended expenditure not listed on the meeting’s agenda.

According to the July 2 public meeting notice of the ERNC, the board was scheduled to discuss and vote on the design of the proposed lightpole banner. There was no mention of any expenditure. (See item "O" on the ERNC agenda.)

"We thought the funds had already been approved [in May]," and the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment didn't tell the ERNC board that it would have to vote again on the remaining $10,000 "until just before the meeting," Greene told Eagle Rock Patch.

Before the vote was tabled, however, the ERNC board discussed the possibility that as much as $9,610 of the $12,500 budget for the roadside banners might come from funds meant for a bus-bench project in 2010 that were never spent and which were refunded to the council in late 2012. 

"Because the ERNC cannot accept checks, the money went directly to the City of L.A.," Greene explained, adding that to get the money back,  Councilmember José Huizar would need to get the City Council to vote on the issue of returning the money from the reserve fund. Whether the money would come from the city's reserve fund or Huizar's remains unclear.

In a related but separate action (item "T" on the agenda), the ERNC board voted unanimously on a motion proposed by President Michael Nogueira to write to DONE's Budget and Finance Committee as well as the Education and Neighborhoods Committee to refund the $9,610 from the ERNC’s 2012 budget. (DONE has a use-it-or-lose-it rule for the annual budgets of neighborhood councils.)

A copy of the ERNC’s letter to DONE requesting the refund would be sent to CD 14, according to Nogueira’s motion that the ERNC board unanimously voted on.

This article has been amended since it was originally posted.