Feedback from the NELA Town Hall on September 22, 2011

These comments were received from the Northeast Los Angeles Coalition (NELA) members at their September 22, 2011 meeting.

Training Motion

• All Board members should have to take Treasurer Training to understand the necessary rules and documentation
• The rules are overwhelming so training should be boiled down to principles instead and not mandated because there is no value
• Board members will voluntarily take training if available and meaningful
• Have videos instead of forcing people to take tests
• Each Neighborhood Council should decide the consequences, but Treasurer Training should be mandated - the rest of the training is too much for functioning Neighborhood Councils since they are busy doing community work
• Would lose potential people if too much training, but maybe they should be lost if they don't want to take the training and be informed - what is suggested is the minimum of what Board members should know
• Losing voting rights as a consequence is good because Board members need training - all organizations have training
• Make training easy and online
• Mandated training won't fix bad people
• Training should be taken by candidates before they even get on the Board
• Training should be pleasurable with different learning methods
• Training should be mandated because the more people know, the more people will hold one another accountable since the ones who need it don't go
• Training should not be mandated because Board members are volunteers and not paid City employees

Grievance Motion

• Grievances need to have statues of limitation
• Current consequences for grievances don't pass muster
• The General Manager should be involved to handle grievances as to whether they are legitimate or not - the Department is shirking its responsibilities
• An independent group needs to handle grievances rather than the Board since one Neighborhood Council experienced sixteen grievances that the Board members and stakeholders filed against one another - there should be one grievance panel in each planning region of the city and a random sample of people who review them
• Ask stakeholders to look at grievances 
• Not good to ask stakeholders to look at grievances beyond their community because they won't know the issues
• People who review the grievances must be trained

Regional Governance Motion

• Help and assistance from other Neighborhood Councils would be great
• Put everything online as much as possible
• Regional administration help is good since it would help with training people since the temp agency quality is spotty
• This would be an administrative blessing to NC's that could be a building block to functional regional system and should not be limited to just administrative services, but should not include political influence
• Should not confuse this with alliances which has a different purpose
• Don't see how this system would help the City save money
• This system would help create a synergy around common issues and groups, such as website, elections and money going out the door because Neighborhood Councils are reinventing the wheel
• Great foundation for the system
• Very useful to have administrative hub and common language and standards from help and would not overburden the Neighborhood Council operations

Funding Motion

• Should be no roll over at all since the money should go to the neighborhood to promote different groups in the community
• Neighborhood Councils are too focused on the money and acting like Santa Claus - forgetting the purpose of the Neighborhood Council is grass roots democracy
• Don't do an all or nothing roll over since it cause Neighborhood Councils to frantically spend down and waste money
• Money is a divisive issue in Neighborhood Councils - should give basic administrative money and put the remaining money into grants to have them apply directly
• Any swept funds for grants should stay within the regions or well educated areas will get all the money
• Project specific rollover funds are good because often get matching funds from other   City departments
• Money has caused Neighborhood Councils to become old political machines where favors can be bought for lunches
• Board members need to be trained how to say no to money requests
• Funding should have application forms that teach people what the Neighborhood Councils can fund
• Money is a problem because friends of the Board members are getting coached how to properly submit requests so their funds go through - distracts the members
• City Council is not listening to the Neighborhood Councils and are setting them up to bleed Neighborhood Councils of their funds