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Health & Fitness

ERNC Candidate Forum Gives a Glimpse of Many Hopefuls for the Next Two-Year Term.

The Candidate Forum was held last night at The Center for the Arts with a sizeable number of the candidates attending. My name is Robert Guevara and I am running for the newly created office of "At-Large Director."

The absentee candidates really missed this one collective moment of exposure that allowed candidates to make their case for getting the vote on Saturday, ERNC's election day. The audience turnout was disappointingly low, with comments made about the general absence of notice of this event, even with a Facebook mention by ERNC. An audience member said that the change in location was only just discovered. It was moved from the Eagle Rock City Hall, the initially announced location.

My observation was that there was little promotion and no flyers, with my information coming from the emails separately sent directly to candidates.

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On this point of promotion and dissemination of information about the Candidate Forum to the public, aka "stakeholders," I think it's representative of ERNC's continuing areas of weakness in providing information to the public, all part of "outreach." The idea of giving out information in an early and effective manner might get a better response for all ERNC endeavors, with just that little bit more of effort to communicate effectively being key.

It's been the ongoing ERNC pattern of issuing agendas for the monthly meeting at the minimum time allowed before a meeting, while still being in compliance with the Brown Act's requirements. ERNC regularly releases agendas very close to the "72 hours before the meeting," the Brown Act's minimum notice for posting of such agendas. The minimum stated has been taken by this NC as "when" to act. The law does not say to do it AT that time, but that the agendas must be posted "AT LEAST 72 hours before the meeting."

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We have a lot of new board members, from the outcome of the October 2012 election. 15 of the 19 seats on the board were filled with persons of little or no earlier experience in NC procedures and operations . The inexperience may have created certain interpretations of requirements, but none really being the best way to handle things.

The ERNC's insistence on near-last minute notice greatly cuts down on time for people to find out what's happening and when agendas could be issued a day or two earlier, at least, since the agendas are SET at the Executive Committee meeting that is routinely scheduled 7 days before the meeting. As the agenda is set, it's taken down by use of a laptop making it even more able for a quick production of a finished Agenda for release right away.

An explanation in recent months that accompanied the very last-minute delivery of the agenda on the internet stated that the lateness happens due to agenda packages not being supplied early enough, some sort of information packets, by persons set to appear for their own agenda item. That may be what is believed by ERNC, but incorrectly so. The agendas only have to "give notice" the nature of the item for consideration of any action by the board to allow the public the opportunity to know what generally is up for decision and to allow a decision to be heard to oppose or support the agenda matter.

All the extra material that may come in later has to be available to stakeholders but it does not have to be available for distribution of the agenda. Those are two separate matters and so to hold up the agendas for that stated reason is needlessly delaying release of the agenda and preventing it from being as widely circulated as it could be, which might help get more people to attend the meetings.

But all this aside, the Candidate Forum did give us all the opportunity to hear what each candidate considers as reasons for running for office and reasons for getting the vote. Most of the candidates attending were not among current ERNC board members, and many had not attended any meetings before becoming candidates.

I think that, again, the outreach for candidates could have been stronger. I did not see at least flyers during the time candidate recruitment was going on. For a lot of persons, and I think, possibly most in Eagle Rock, the ERNC is not even known, and among those that know OF it, they really are not clear on what it is ABOUT.

For any neighborhood council, the "about" part can be very different from the operations and focus of any other NC. Some tend to work on giving out funding for projects and programs, seeing that as a major purpose of the organization. Others work toward community events that have can range from matters primarily of entertainment, like outdoor movie nights during the summer, to hosting information fairs on health, disaster preparedness, education and including many participants to provide related information, both from the public and private sector.

The candidates offered a wide range of reasons and experience to bring out in the effort to be elected to the board. The current inadequacies of outreach might be improved with the addition of a changing roster of ERNC board members.

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