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Pushing the NC Ball Up the Proverbial Field |
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Empowerment Report
By Greg Nelson
As October’s Congress of Neighborhoods is being planned, reasonable minds can argue about what the purpose of the event should be:
A trade show, a classroom or an opportunity for neighborhood councils
from all over the city to come together and move forward together.
I fall on the side of using this rare event for neighborhood councils
to share their best ideas, and find agreement on ways to move their
political “football” further down the field.
If would be a shame to waste this valuable opportunity to benefit from the best grass-roots and government minds.
Neighborhood councils, and their limitless potential to dictate how government makes decisions, are evolving at glacial speed. It’s not entirely their fault.
City Hall has done little to do what the City Charter expects of them to nurture the neighborhood councils. But the councils need to voice their demands.
It hurts when neighborhood councils sit by quietly and let City Hall take back gains they’ve been able to achieve.
In 2002, it was a big deal when Councilmembers Janice Hahn and Tom LaBonge introduced the motion that created the Community Impact Statement process.
It allowed a neighborhood council to take a formal position on a matter and have a 100-word summary of that position printed right on the agendas of the City Council, its committees and the commissions. That was unprecedented in the nation.
For years, certain council members would repeatedly urge neighborhood councils to take advantage of this opportunity. A few did. Many didn’t.
Last year, the Neighborhood Council Review Commission urged the city to go to the next level and print on the agendas and any and all statements it receives on a given issue, not just the first one.
But last March the City Council unanimously approved the City Clerk’s recommendation that ended the printing of statements on any agenda. Click here to read the report and see the vote.
Neighborhood councils were sacked for a loss of yardage, and nobody seems to care.
Now, one of the ideas for a workshop at the Congress of Neighborhoods is an explanation of how a neighborhood council can submit Community Impact Statements.
First of all, the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment has a clear explanation of this simple process on its website, so there is no need to devote time to “how to” classes like this. (It does need to be updated to reflect this five-month old change in the rules.) Click here to read it.
Instead, the time would be better spent developing a strategy to reverse the City Council’s action.
On Tuesday, the Education and Neighborhoods Committee listened to the last-minute pleas of neighborhood councils concerned about the plan to require all neighborhood council board members, who are “just volunteers”, to file a new conflict of interest statement. Kudos to Len Shaffer and Jill Banks Barad especially.
So, here is another possible subject to be tackled at the Congress of Neighborhoods if the goal is to move forward. The attendees should try and develop best practices through which neighborhood councils can get actively involved earlier in the process, and through which they can act quickly and officially when something questionable is being rushed through City Hall that affects them, such as this financial disclosure forms.
Yet another workshop would be one in which participants are asked to list the kind of support and the changes they expect from City Hall over the next few years. With help from DONE, the discussion could continue over the Internet until a battle plan is developed.
And the best workshop would be one that would begin building enough political strength among the councils so that City Hall can’t tread on them or ignore them any longer.
(Greg Nelson participated in the birth and development of the LA Neighborhood Council system and 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 74
Published: Sept 12, 2008
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