September 25, 2007

Final Report: What Now?
912 Commission
By Raphael Sonenshein

On Tuesday, the Neighborhood Council Review Commission will be presenting our report to the City Council. After more than a year of research, deliberation, and decision, the NCRC has developed 73 recommendations based on dozens of findings.

So is this the end or the beginning? Maybe it’s the end of the beginning.

Here’s how the process will go. After we make our presentation to the Council, there will be a Q&A with the Councilmembers. Most likely, the report will then be transmitted for detailed consideration to the Education and Neighborhoods Committee, chaired by Councilmember Richard Alarcon. From there, it will keep moving through the legislative process, and possibly other committees, before returning to the full Council for a vote. The whole thing may take a couple of months. You will still be able to weigh in.

Our findings and recommendations are based on 15 months of staff research, twice-a-month deliberation, as well as two sets of public hearings in neighborhoods across the city. Among the Commission’s recommendations are the following:

• The City shall facilitate the filing of Council files by neighborhood councils when submitted by three neighborhood councils.

• A series of structural changes shall be made to ensure that City departments and offices work more closely with neighborhood councils; that neighborhood councils become more educated about key City processes; that neighborhood council input be recorded and presented to City decision makers; and that neighborhood councils be informed about what happens to the input they provide.

• A new peer grievance process shall be established, with neighborhood councils as the place of first hearing, followed by a regional commission chosen by the neighborhood councils. Peers shall not be from the affected neighborhood councils.

• There shall be a new Sunshine Law that incorporates provisions of the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act but is tailored specifically to the needs of the neighborhood council system.

• Stakeholder status in neighborhood councils shall be open to those who live, work, or own property in the neighborhood and also to those who declare a stake in the neighborhood and affirm the factual basis for it.

• The City Clerk shall organize and run neighborhood council elections. Elections shall be held on a regional or citywide basis every two years.

• Each neighborhood council shall continue to receive equal, annual funding. Unspent funds shall be transferred to a citywide fund for outreach to be directed by DONE, rather than to the City’s general fund.

• The City shall provide translation services to neighborhood councils at no cost to individual neighborhood councils.

• The City shall within seven years appoint a commission to examine the progress of the neighborhood council system in light of the recommendations of the NCRC

The final report of the NCRC will be available for free download on our website, www.ncrcLA.org starting on Tuesday. We will be making more copies soon. You will be able to find on the website the full reports of the NCRC surveys: current and former neighborhood council board members, and the citywide survey of residents. There is also the report on our interactive public workshops. If you want to really dig into the process, the staff reports and Commission deliberations can be found in transcript form on the website (with a few of last meetings still to be added).

While you are reading the NCRC report, I hope you will examine the last chapter, which sets out “eight culture changes that could make a difference.” These are big picture items that we hope will get people thinking about the future shape of the neighborhood council system.

The next several weeks represent a very exciting moment in a deliberative process that will have a great impact on the development of the neighborhood council system. We’ll see you there! (Raphael Sonenshein is a Professor of Political Science at Cal State Fullerton and the Executive Director for the NC Review Commission.)