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THE EASTSIDER - Back in 2001 (yes, that long ago) the City of Los Angeles officially adopted the Plan For Neighborhood Councils. The whole process was covered by an ex-Chicago broadcaster named Ken Draper and memorialized in articles which were mimeographed and handled out at meetings. I know, I helped pass them out.
We’ve come a long way from those days, with most areas of the City having long established individual Neighborhood Councils. All of this is governed by a document called ‘Plan for a Citywide System for Neighborhood Councils, approved on May 30, 2001. You can find a link here.
Within a year or two, most areas in Los Angeles had a Neighborhood Council, and most of them did exactly what was contemplated in creating Neighbor Councils- holding elected officials feet to the fire and asking hard questions on City Council Members.
I don’t know how many of the Neighborhood Councils are still robust and active in City Politics as of 2025 because the information was not readily available. Anyhow, recently I wanted to talk to one of the EmpowerLA staff, who as far as I knew has been working with DONE or EmpowerLA as they now call themselves) for a very long time, So I left a message after going through a lot of hoops and ultimately filling out an online inquiry form.
Remember, this was after using the internet after live people seemed to be in very short supply.
Turns out that he is no longer there, although I know for a fact he was on the payroll as of last year, when I talked him at a Glassell Park meeting. Gee, it turns out that trying to get a response from DONE is not trivial, and when I asked to be connected to whomever replaced him, you will be shocked that I’m still waiting for a response from anyone.
In one sense they did get back to me with a “Thank you for reaching out! Your form response has been submitted on 6/114/25”.
Just for the heck of it, I tried a new search from the EmpowerLA website. After entering ‘Glassell Park” I got a lot of stuff from 2015 and the like. This was pretty weird. So, I clicked onward. Ultimately, I got to a list of Neighborhood Councils, with their monthly meeting days, and their Executive Officers. According to the website, Erick Vasquez is the president, so I emailed him to see if the NC is indeed functioning. Looking at the list, I don’t know if they have enough members to have a quorum, since it looks like a lot of the seats are vacant. Finally, I sent an email to Eric Vasquez, who is listed as President. Unfortunately, the email did not go anywhere.
I did find a list for the 6 NC Commissioners, and it turns out that our very own Maggie Quiroz is President, representing East Los Angeles. There’s a little mail icon under each name, but when I clicked it for Maggie Quiroz, it the site simply redirected me to Google!
While I think all this demonstrates that EmpowerLA is not functioning well, and it makes me wonder how they are going to fare in the 2025-26 Budget, especially as the City now has a debt of almost a billion dollars, even as their projected budget is an ask of one billion dollars.
Sheesh! At least in Northeast LA, we will be ok because we have alternatives like a very active Historic Highland Park Neighbor Council which still functions, and a long standing nonprofit Glassell Park Improvement Association. The GPIA has been around for decades and meets monthly at the CD1 satellite office in the P&S Storage building. The GPIA also has a monthly newsletter, which gives us coverage of local issues.
Between the two entities, they continue to ensure that our local issues get discussed and have actions taken. They also do outreach, and Saturday events like cleaning up the Pavillion San Fernando.
For further reading, I just ran across another CitywatchLA article by Nick Antonicello with the timely heading of “Is Los Angeles “DONE” With Empower LA”
It’s a good read and further proof that something is seriously wrong with DONE and the Neighborhood Council system.
(Tony Butka is a veteran Eastside community activist with decades of experience in Los Angeles civic life. He has served on a neighborhood council and worked extensively within local government, bringing deep knowledge of policy, budgeting, and urban planning to his advocacy. As a regular contributor to CityWatchLA, Butka offers sharp commentary on city politics, development, and grassroots issues. His writing reflects a commitment to transparency, accountability, and amplifying the voices of historically underserved communities.)
