Congress -- Outreach, Outreach, Outreach !!

To: All LANCC Members
Subject: Outreach
Date: July 7th, 2006

My Fellow Senators,

On Friday, June 16th, the day before the Congress at the Convention Center, I decided to do an outreach effort to all Neighborhood Councils who have not joined the Congress.

I took the list of our current members from the Congress web site. That list apparently needs some correcting but I used it nonetheless.

I then went to the DONE website and checked all the listed councils by planning area. They actually total up to 97. I realize that only some 86 have been certified but I decided to send to the presidents of all councils who were not members anyway.

The breakdown of our membership by planning area is as follows:

East - 5 of 12
So. Valley - 11 of 17
North Valley - 4 of 17
West - 7 of 12
Central - 6 of 17
South - 1 of 15 !
Harbor - 4 of 7
--------------------
38 of 97

I found a President for 49 of the 59 remaining non members and emailed all of them entreating them to join our Congress.

The following is an example:

Letter to Non Participating Councils - pfd file

I gave all of them my cell phone! I have gotten responses ranging from we're taking their power to wanting a presentation to be made.

I did see Julian Rogers at the Convention Center and he has agreed to work with me on this issue going forward regarding the South area.

I just wanted you to know the level at which I think this issue needs to be addressed. I look forward to tomorrow when I can get your further input on this most important matter.

Gary Baratta
Gary_Baratta@arcscommercial.com

Immediately following the Alliance meeting at LACC, on Vermont Ave

LANCissues - Meetings at the Congress (and Alliance)

Dear LANC Stakeholders:

The last Congress of Neighborhood Councils was held on June 25 at the LA Convention Center (they're held twice a year), and the LANC Citywide Issues Group once again convened there.

You can pre-register to participate at these free events at the DONE website.

By all accounts, the LANC Citywide Issues Group (CIG) workshop at the Congress of NCs on October 9, 2004 was a big success (they're held every six months and our group always does a presentation or workshop there). You can read the full report on the Oct 2004 event here:

LANCissues at the Congress, 10/9/04

Ken Marsh of the Mar Vista Community Council did a wonderful job producing a new flyer and brought hundreds of copies that were distributed liberally both to the workshop participants and at the general assembly.

The flyer is very clean and succinctly features a general description of our group's efforts as well as the LANCissues website and e-group info. It's a tool we'll be able to reproduce and use for quite some time (here it is in PDF format for anyone to download and distribute:

LANCissues FLYER

Additionally, Heinrick Keifer of the Historic Highland Park NC produced a simple and very tasteful PowerPoint presentation based on the flyer and some additional information.

We're now planning for how we'll participate at the next Congress, held twice each year.

The next Alliance of NCs Forum is in November, at LACC. We hope to see some of you there ...

We generally meet immediately following the Alliance meeting at LACC, on Vermont Ave (Alliance meetings are held every two months, generally on the third Saturday).

There were several topics discussed at recent meetings. This is a brief summary of some of the high points, as presented by Bob Gelfand of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council.

Some LANC Citywide Issues Group Actions

1) Entertainment Industry Development Corporation: The EIDC is the corporation appointed by the city to handle applications for location shooting. If a film or television company wants to use your block, or the house next to yours, or the corner of Wilshire and Westwood, the EIDC is who they go to. There has been little or no public input into how permitting is done, how the rules are established and enforced, or the ability of neighborhoods to redress grievances. The citywide issues group agreed to propose a committee to carry neighborhood and residents' concerns to the EIDC process. A member of the EIDC Board of Directors was present at the meeting and spoke in support of the idea. We will be preparing a message to go out to all neighborhood councils and residents' organizations on our list, inviting them to nominate people to the proposed committee.

2) Outreach: We agreed to begin the process of doing personal visits to the neighborhood council meetings all around the city in order to introduce our organization and explain the service it tries to perform. We took the names of volunteers who have agreed to oversee the seven regions of the city. We need additional volunteers. You can agree to visit as few as one NC meeting, or as many as you like. We expect these visits to take two or three months to complete.

3) Cable TV franchise renewal: We discussed the cable tv proposal prepared by Ken Marsh, and how it might be used as part of our outreach plan. Few people we have talked to are happy about the cable rates, but there is a very limited scope to any negotiations the city can do about the pricing structure. Beyond that, there are lots of possibilities for obtaining additional services of the "peg" category -- public, educational, and governmental. We have discussed proposals which ask the city to negotiate for the additional services, and your neighborhood council has received the proposal to consider and, we hope, act on.

4) As always, the current City Watch, the citywide newsletter on neighborhood council issues, is available here on the LANCissues website. All past editions are archived on our site, too. Feel free to download these pdf files, and take advantage of the information they contain.

Yours in service,

Bill Murray

Arroyo Seco NC
www.ASNC.us