Feedback from the WRAC Town Hall on September 27, 2011

These comments were received from the Westside Regional Alliance of Councils (WRAC) members at a town hall on September 27, 2011 for the Westside Neighborhood Councils.  For detailed minutes of the town hall, please click here.

Training Motion

• Ran out of time to discuss this motion

Grievance Motion

• Don't want additional layers of bureaucracy with Grievances - keep it simple and uncomplicated by having a citywide volunteer grievance system with no appeal to the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners and therefore City Council
• Grievances must be looked at citywide since just because your Neighborhood Council doesn't have grievances, doesn't mean they aren't prevalent elsewhere in the City
• Send grievances to regional alliances for review
• Who has the teeth to make the recommendations stick?
• An accurate and frequent election system is the best way to handle grievances
• Send the complaint or grievance to another Neighborhood Council selected at random for them to agendize and handle
• The system should deal with repeat grievance filers swiftly
• There should only be one appellant process and another City group should train the volunteers
• Keep grievances within its own region
• The Board of Neighborhood Commissioners has the teeth through decertification
• Use the police commissioner model where one person is selected to review the grievance and then writes a recommendation that must be approved by a higher entity that should not be the Department, who should not be the parent and the police in one
• The Board of Neighborhood Commissioners has no teeth, which may need to be changed through the City Charter
• Random Neighborhood Councils should not review grievances because they do not know the history of the area
• Grievances should start with the Neighborhood Council with an appellant body if there is no resolution
• There should be a clear grievance/complaint process for Board members to complain about the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners
• Hierarchical grievance system provides glamour to the person complaining, which you wouldn't have if another Neighborhood Council were reviewing the matter

Regional Governance Motion

• Self sufficient Neighborhood Councils don't need this system and should be able to opt out
• Collaboration should not be mandated
• Formalized cooperation is unnecessary when there is already voluntary cooperation which should not be interfered with
• Don't tread on the existing coalitions
• Not needed
• Not interested in regional governance - this should be called regional administrative services
• Divide the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment into regions and have them staff as a regional facilitator
• Get surveys from Neighborhood Councils of temp staff who are good
• This motion is trying to shift the work away from the paid Department staff and put it on the volunteers
• Department should work with staff to support those areas that need this system
• Don't want the funding for this system to come out of the Neighborhood Councils' allocation
• This motion is poorly worded and misguided
• Peer mentor program needs to be trumpeted to get help to those areas that need it
• Since this is not a systemic problem, it does not need a systemic solution
• Neighborhood Councils that are struggling just need training on goal setting and consensus building
• Don't need these motions to solve a problem that doesn't exist

Funding Motion

• Grant writing is too hard and ridiculous - just fix the funding issues, which are not the Department's fault because the City Council and Mayor's Office are unfair by looking at the low hanging fruit issues and cutting Neighborhood Council funding
• The City has to stop raiding the Neighborhood Council funds in April
• Fix the Department's demand warrant system - it's too cumbersome
• Absurd that money cannot be encumbered - get an automatic system so grants aren't needed
• Regional grants of money so that the money is saved for areas that need it and the regional governance agency has control of it
• Doesn't make sense to do grants so don't give that option at all - don't fix things not broken
• Encumber funds through budgets automatically
• Want to be able to raise outside money through advertisements in newsletters, NPO's, booster clubs
• Encumber funds through contracts approved by the Department, the Neighborhood Council and the contractor, which states that the project must be completed in order to be paid
• If there are grants, who is going to administer it.  
• When there is a problem with funding, the Neighborhood Councils should create a task for with the Controller, Department staff and Treasurers to develop possible solutions
• There is no difference between an encumbrance and a rollover - use the City's current encumbrance system
• Want to know the funding rules at the beginning of the fiscal year - don't tell the rules so late that everyone is scrambling to meet them
• Anything that happens with the Neighborhood Council system, the Neighborhood Councils are getting dinged for so how much are these motions going to cost the Neighborhood Councils?  CM Parks stated no money to pay for new systems so where is it coming from?
• When it's harder to get money, then it's harder to get Neighborhood Council volunteers and then easier for these volunteers to go elsewhere
• How to create 501(3)(c) Friends of Neighborhood Councils nonprofits with the same mission as the Neighborhood Councils?  Get it going and send the Neighborhood Councils the directions
• Funds should be easily encumbered with a check mark on the demand warrant that states the paperwork is coming in later
• Too few resources to work with in community to focus on grants
• Provide a clear way to encumber funds and proper definitions for "encumber"