Patch Blog: What Should be the Function of a Neighborhood Council?

As a board member of the I find there’s a lot of things that we on the board do not agree on and that’s something that I think community discussion or input should be sought to aid in the purpose of the NC. 

The next question, in the Eagle Rock locale, may very well be: “What is the purpose of the neighborhood council?” And to that, there are many different replies, depending on who is asked.

In the community at large, I would expect that my past experience in hearing comments, one answer might be: “To make rules that they decide for us or their friends.”  And like most things, even completely with critical remarks, there is some validity contained. We also may be viewed as a funding source for whatever needs funding, which answer may be the more encountered response. That function really is a lesser priority for an NC’s task under the City Charter and needs to be revisited.

What also should be the better answer would be, “It’s part of the city system to let the community have a larger input into how city government should operate and to let us know what the city is doing in providing us with services and spending tax money it collects.” That’s just a nutshell sort of answer that I will use as I bring up a few other things about the NC system. 

Overall, there are 95 certified NCs in the city, mandated by the City Charter amendment approved by city voters over 10 years ago. The creation of the system was something of a defensive response by the city government to the secession movement that was gaining ground in the San Fernando Valley. Briefly, it was in the Valley where there was a growing feeling that the city was treating the area as second-class, taking in tax dollars that were not returned in any corresponding form of services, as well as sensing a different level of concern by City Hall. 

The NC system was supposed to bridge the gap between the general constituency and the city hall government to enable a more responsive and relevant city government. That sounded like a useful function for this system of local bodies across the city to examine what the city was doing and responding with community information on the needs and interests held by the constituents of each NC area. So you should have a better voice in City Hall with this system in place, shouldn’t you? I don’t see that is what is happening as it was designed or envisioned by the Charter Amendment and I don’t think I am alone in that opinion.

What we have after years of existence is not quite like that reflection of community views being conveyed to CMs and city hall. Each NC operates under the umbrella of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, “DONE” for short. But each NC operates differently within the system, depending on the nature of the community, its problems and concerns, and the direction that its board moves it, reflecting or possibly not reflecting the concerns of the community members generally. 

I want to get to a lot of aspects of the system and how the ERNC affects and is affected now. We can go over NC elections, bases for annual NC funding amounts and the spending decisions made by any NC, the interaction with city council members, the “CMs,” and their responsiveness to the NCs within their districts. So with all that, and there is a lot left unmentioned that will be discussed in some order, I wanted to use the blog format to provide some information that otherwise doesn’t get out, or, doesn’t get out very reliably to a large number of people. My first area of concern here would logically be “outreach” that’s happened and the outreach that’s not happened, all of which results in the inability to find much positive response for questions about the purposes of the NC system.

Another reason for getting to the point to produce any blog information in Eagle Rock is that with all else available in the ERNC, I am not able to convey most of what I want to mention because I have too many “opinions”(and my "observations” appear to fall in this category, too) that are viewed to be inappropriate for posting on the ERNC website or the ERNC Facebook since they have not been approved first as an ERNC-approved position. 

To some extent, I agree with that restriction, but the practical effect is that we have no information to share because the ERNC meets only one time each month and only can act on what is on each agenda.  The Agenda requirements of the Brown Act law sometimes works as an impediment to progress. A lot happens in city government during that time between our meetings. 

My thought has been to present things that I find so people can consider the material and go from there, but others interpret such postings differently if there is any personal “position” taken by me or the subject article. So making relevant communication in a timely manner doesn’t happen under our existing “social contact” mediums.

Before the time arrives in NC meetings to be able to address many topics, the decisions are already done at City Hall. The meetings and discussions at City Hall are then on their way to a conclusion and the moment for a meaningful examination locally is past as the subjects’ ripeness for consideration has passed.

The Result: We wind up in the same spot that we started from, being uninvolved and not providing the information to the ERNC constituency that’s composed of residents and businesses. Not a good condition when there’s so much information that should be considered for a proper evaluation of any topic.

What does happen for us in the day-to-day result is “surprise changes” in city actions.  The city parking meter rates that tripled almost overnight way back about 3 Christmas seasons ago was a “surprise” to many, but it was a product of City Hall committee meetings and with approvals by the City Council members and the Mayor made months earlier to enact the changes.

One sample of odd city facts in closing for now: Did you hear that the since the 1980’s the City has owned a million dollar yacht? It was the subject of a Channel 2 investigative report aired in early February by David Goldstein. It was further disclosed that, while in dry dock from around August, its two engines were being upgraded (“replaced”?) to be “emission-compliant”—that’s “green” in city talk—at the cost of about $700,000 (also “green” in any talk), with the majority of the money used for this “upgrade” coming from federal stimulus funds. 

To me, in these tough financial times that we all see, keeping this 73-foot yacht (called “a boat” by the seafaring expert, Antonio Villaraigosa, spoken in his favorite setting, in front of a camera) is an unneeded expense that is bad enough at that point, but to plow well over another half-million dollars into it to make it “green” is the icing on the cake for bad city decisions.

Summing it up, the impact is that the city has a million-dollar city yacht that shouldn’t have, and it is spending over $700,000 on the upgrade that it shouldn't do if we didn’t have this in the first place.

Check the report and see that, like any city action, someone finds a reason for it to be that way. Public Relations is often the biggest of the possible reasons. I would say that we could probably rent a yacht much more economically on an as-needed basis if the Port of L.A. thinks it’s that important for tours instead of bearing 100 percent of the expense that 24/7 ownership includes. 

If you did not know of this situation, neither did each of the few of my fellow ERNC board members whom I questioned on this situation. It’s maybe not the biggest news but it is a sample of numerous City Hall activities, and many being much more important ones, that go on with little knowledge of we “outsiders”—and we on the ERNC are just that: “outsiders” when it comes to getting information from city sources. And that’s a topic for another day.