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Sharing Power with the Unwashed Masses |
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Empowerment Report
By Greg Nelson
A few years ago I was invited to attend the equivalent of the Congress of Neighborhoods in Minneapolis.
 They wanted to know how to become a political force so they could fend
off attacks against their system by elected officials who don’t enjoy
sharing power with the unwashed masses.
I told them that our system allows neighborhood councils to have City Council and commission agendas e-mailed to them. It was kind of a throw-away line because I had come to think of this service as a no-brainer.
But a hand flew up, and a person in the audience asked, “You mean that the city REALLY wants people to know what it’s doing?”
Los Angeles could continue to brand itself as the pre-eminent city in promoting public participation and transparency by making a few no-cost enhancements, and the best leader by their example could be the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners.
Here are 13 culture changes that it could make in its policies and procedures:
1. Establish an earlier deadline for the posting staff reports and agendas on the DONE website so that neighborhood councils have an adequate amount of time to provide comments – a guaranty provided to them in the City Charter. The reports are usually available toward the end of the day on Friday whether the commission meeting is on Monday or Tuesday.
2. Use the newsletter to announce when the staff reports are available on the website,
3. Agendas should describe the issue as clearly and completely as possible.
4. If an item is only to be discussed and not voted upon, the agenda should clearly state that so people can decide whether or not to attend.
5. Use the DONE newsletter to promote its meetings by previewing the interesting items, and to announce when the draft minutes and transcripts have been posted.
6. Ask DONE to make it possible for commissioners, from time-to-time, to engage in real-time “chat” sessions with the public.
7. As often as possible, commissioners should feel free to briefly respond (legally permissible) to comments they receive during General Public Comment time. For all other comments and suggestions it receives, the commission should develop a policy through which it responds.
8. Whenever BONC is considering a new policy, or making a recommendation to the City Council, it should draft an “Empowerment Statement” that would describe the extent to which the recommendation before them increases or decreases the “cost of participation” in the neighborhood council system.
9. Recordings of meetings should be provided to the public for free because very few requests are received, and that the money received for them is less than the cost of processing the payments.
10. Establish a policy through which BONC describes which of its records will be automatically be released to the public after a request is approved.
11. From time-to-time, use the DONE website to conduct surveys of the public, and of neighborhood council presidents and board members, not as a scientific exercise, but rather to get a general feel of public opinion and to generate more public interest in its work.
12. As a matter of policy, and to increase public participation, should permit General Public Comments at both the beginning and end of its meetings, and give people the option of providing their comments on each agenda item before or after the members’ discussion. Some people wish to speak first in order to influence the discussion, and others would prefer to know what the motions are and comment on them.
13. To have the maximum impact on the decision-making process, neighborhood councils need to participate in the earliest stages of discussions before recommendations are developed. The ad hoc committees should be converted into standing committees, or be open to the public. This is collaboration. (Greg Nelson participated in the birth and development of the LA Neighborhood Council system and most recently served as the General Manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. Nelson now provides news and issues analysis to CityWatch.) You can reach Greg Nelson at
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CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 34
Pub: April 25, 2008
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