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Dear LANC Stakeholders:

By all accounts, the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Citywide Issues Group workshop at the Congress of NCs on October 9th was a big success. You can read an account about it here:

LANCissues at the Congress, 10/9/04 - a report

We had a meeting of the citywide issues group on Saturday, November 13 at LACC right after the Alliance for Neighborhood Councils finished. There were several topics discussed. This is a brief summary of some of the high points, as presented by Bob Gelfand of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council.

Nov. 13 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) Mayoral candidates' debate: The Citywatch organization is sponsoring a candidates' forum to be held early in 2005 at the Bing Theater, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Wilshire Blvd near Fairfax). NC activists are invited to attend.

Yours in service,

Bill Murray

Arroyo Seco NC
www.ASNC.us