So, When Are Neighborhood Councils Going to Go Back to Live in Person?

They had DONE shut the Councils down for a few months, while they waited for guidance from the mothership. So now that the virus threat is basically over, how long are we going to have to wait to do what Neighborhood Councils desperately need – have meetings that are public and in the flesh? 

Face it, unless you are the ones in charge, Zoom meetings suck. All the life is vacuumed out of the dynamics of people meeting people, interacting, having a back and forth with the Boards, and getting a lot of the communities involved. 

If you’re DONE or BONC, on the other hand, Zoom is cool. No getting pinned down on policies or issues, total control, never get back to anyone, sanitize the minutes, and create the mother of all top-down bureaucracies right in front of the governed (aka the stakeholders). 

Not to mention avoiding the impact of 50-100 stakeholders showing up and jamming a NC meeting over some incomprehensible BS the Council and/or BONC is shoving down the throats of the governed. 

Zoom also amplifies the power of the petty bureaucrat (or elected official, for that matter). Don’t like some pesky stakeholder? Don’t recognize them. Love your supporters? Let them drone on and on. Ah, the sweet elixir of control! 

If all of the staff at DONE started the transition to restarting in person meetings for the 99 Neighborhood Councils right now, it would probably take them months, not weeks, to get back to “allowing” each Council to meet in person -- you know, what the Charter envisioned. It’s the only way that LA City stakeholders can even try to hold the elected officials’ (including DONE, by the way) feet to the fire. Want to guess on the odds? 

Around the NCs 

I keep talking about the Charter creating Neighborhood Councils, because some Neighborhood Councils, DONE, and BONC keep Implementing it Ass Backwards. 

Check out these recent anti-democratic attempts to stifle the openness called for in the Charter.  

• First, we have the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council Agenda for May 12, calling for: 

“10. Discussion and possible action to revise limits for public comment and review any response from the City Attorney regarding pending item.

1. Current language - Public comment is limited to a maximum of 2 minutes per speaker per item with a maximum of 10 minutes total per meeting, unless adjusted by the presiding officer of the Board.
2. Proposed language – Public comment is limited to speaking at the beginning of the meeting for one (1) minute on one (1) agenda item, or two (2) minutes on two (2) or more agenda items, and allow one (1) additional minute for general public comment if desired, for a total of three (3) minutes maximum per speaker. Public Comment shall be limited to thirty (30) minutes total for all speakers combined.” 

Who the heck do these people think they are? DONE? 

• Over in Lincoln Heights, I’m still waiting to see if the City Clerk honored some 11 illegally retroactive MERS payments, which were voted in during a LHNC meeting which had no quorum. I’d file a Public Records Act request, but my best buddy Raquel Beltran evidently has me on a special “blow him off” list. I either get blown off or a “there are no records” response. 

• Christina Walsh reports that over in West Hills, City Attorney Elise Ruden evidently wrote to a bunch of NC’s looking for dirt on a list of three NC stakeholders, including Christina. She found this out after filing a Public Records Act request. As of this writing, it appears that, in fact, her allegations are true! 

• Over at Historic Highland Park, a reader reported that the Highland Park Garvanza HPOZ doesn’t comply with notifying the Neighborhood Council at all when vacancies occur, even as the Planning Department tries to eliminate the NC Notice requirements and DONE deliberately fails to enforce the HPOZ Ordinance Itself. The current Ordinance specifically requires advance notice to the affected Neighborhood Councils when there is a vacancy. 

• Not to be outdone, CD 7’s Monica Rodriguez, following in the footsteps of the toxic Felipe Fuentes (resigned to be a lobbyist as his day job), wants to have the LA City Attorney investigate the recent Neighborhood Council Elections, with the City itself running the “investigation.” (Hat tip to our intrepid Bob Gelfand for this one.) 

• BONC and DONE are evidently obsessed with curtailing 1^st Amendment free speech with their Kafka-like “Digital Communications Media Policy” designed to censor free speech by unpaid and elected advisory Board members in the 99 Neighborhood Councils. 

Not to be outdone, DONE itself only talks to itself and a few “favorite” NC Board members. They do, of course, talk to their attorneys a lot, because the attorneys are terrified that there will be a lawsuit against a Neighborhood Council (don’t know for what) even as DONE staff occasionally pontificate to the meeting audiences about “the law.” Like they’re lawyers. Their assigned City Attorneys, of course,  won’t talk to anyone, much less give anybody in the news media their names. Particularly CityWatch writers like me. 

The Takeaway 

Here’s what the actual Charter Section 900 says about Neighborhood Councils: 

“Sec. 900.  Purpose. 

To promote more citizen participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs, a citywide system of neighborhood councils, and a Department of Neighborhood Empowerment is created. Neighborhood councils shall include representatives of the many diverse interests in communities and shall have an advisory role on issues of concern to the neighborhood.” 

So somewhere along the way, some Neighborhood Council Boards, giddy with what they believe to be power, have evidently decided to run their meetings in an autocratic manner, contrary to the Charter.  The last one I am personally familiar with who did this was the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, giving folks 30 seconds with a cap of a couple of minutes. If they were recognized. 

The President of that Council, Stephanie Maynetto-Jackson, ultimately resigned her position, and hasn’t been too successful in either Neighborhood Council matters or, for that matter, running to be a Delegate to the State Party in AD51.  

DONE and BONC, of course, continue their quest to reverse the Charter and dictate to the Neighborhood Councils, rather than support them. Does the phrase “petty bureaucrats” ring a bell? 

Moving up the food chain, it is very clear that we can expect no help from the City Council members, the Mayor, or the City Attorney. After all, they have consciously gamed the Neighborhood Council System to muzzle, not empower, us. Not surprisingly, they love Zoom meetings too, when the Council President even bothers to have a City Council meeting at all. 

So now I’m bummed out again. To help me feel better, if you have a good bad story about your Neighborhood Council, or DONE or BONC, fire off an email to [email protected].

(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.