Stakeholders NOT Welcome!?

NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS--Last week at the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners meeting, a startling new policy was allowed in the new Hermon Neighborhood Council Bylaws. 

NO non board members (Stakeholders) shall be permitted to sit on an ad hoc committee. 

While the General Manager of the department sat and watched, the commission went ahead and approved this in the bylaws. 

Needless to say, it is contrary to everything that "Empowerment" means. 

If it was a mistake, it is a big one that nobody caught. 

If it is not, it means that almost every committee in our system is out of compliance. 

Needless to say, this is an item that all NC's need to have resolved at once, and hope that the department and BONC erred and will be more careful in the future in making these decisions. 

(Jay Handal served at the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment for ten months as Election Manager for the 2016 Neighborhood Council elections. He is Treasurer of the West Los Angeles Sawtelle Neighborhood Council, Co-Chair of the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates Committee for the upcoming 2016-2017 fiscal year, and a hearing examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission.)

-cw