A note from our General Manager…
I hope this newsletter finds you well. Elections, elections, elections…if your Neighborhood Council isn’t talking about election outreach at every meeting, you should be. I ended last week with a Rally in the Valley for Region 1. Board of Public Works President Kevin James stopped by to speak along with Commissioner Lydia Grant of our own Board of Neighborhood Commissioners and Monica Ratliff of the LAUSD School Board. They all talked about how important it is to recruit more people into our Neighborhood Council system to grow our voices. More candidates in your elections means more potential partners and supporters.
A big thank you and congratulations to our Region 2 Independent Election Administrator, Kevin Taylor, for a strong start to the Neighborhood Council election candidate filing, which closed on Wednesday. I know he, the rest of our IEAs and our election staffers, Stephen Box and Glenn Bailey, worked hard with Neighborhood Councils to get those candidates, including phone banking all the existing Board members. Thanks to the City Clerk, we’re posting the new candidates up within a day or two of receiving their filings. Kudos to Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council for having over 4 candidates for each of their 5 open seats!
As you’ve no doubt heard, Los Angeles is one of President Obama’s Promise Zone cities. Specifically, the neighborhoods of Pico Union, Westlake, Koreatown, Hollywood and East Hollywood will benefit from a local and federal government partnership to invest in underserved communities. Deputy Chief of Staff, Rick Jacobs, called a meeting today of the City departments that will be supporting in this worthy endeavor, and we were one of them! I’m hoping that our Neighborhood Councils in those areas will be strong partners in assisting with this project over the next 3 years. More information to come as we get it.
I’m off to another Rally in the Valley in (I heart) Reseda. Remember our offices are closed on Monday, January 20, 2014, in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr’s Birthday.
Enjoy the warm weather this weekend!
Best,
Grayce Liu,
General Manager
Department of Neighborhood Empowerment