Neighborhood Councils Fight Possible Cancellation of Elections

Angered over possible cancellations of the 2012 neighborhood council elections because of city budget cuts, the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils (VANC) is seeking to have the councils run their own elections.

In a meeting Thursday night, VANC members voted to ask the City Council—which is soon to decide whether to cancel the 2012 elections—to drop the city clerk from running those elections. The City Clerk’s Office spends more than $1 million in even-numbered years to run elections for the neighborhood councils, which total 95 citywide.

“No one ever asked us, 'Can you do it for less?' ” said Glenn Bailey, of the Encino Neighborhood Council.

“A key point for the neighborhood councils is, are we going to sit around and let them do that to us?” said Judith Daniels of the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council. “We need to stand up and say, ‘This is something important to us.’ "

Authorized under the City Charter reform of 1999, Los Angeles’ neighborhood councils were created to provide more of a voice for residents within Los Angeles' sprawling, 502 square miles. The councils created their own charters and, in the early days, ran their own elections. They vote on a variety of community issues and provide input to city staff and elected officials.

Their operations are overseen by the City’s Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) to ensure they follow the provisions of the 1953 Brown Act which governs how legislative bodies operate. DONE previously also oversaw the elections, which the city clerk took over in 2010.

The cost to the city to operate neighborhood councils includes elections of $1 million (whether run by DONE or the city clerk), a $40,500 budget for each council and 14 staff members in DONE, which currently has about $120,000 designated for elections.

Total cost to the city is about $4 million annually, which is why the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee recently proposed cancelling the 2012 elections and directed the city attorney to create the legal authorization to do so.

The issue strikes at the heart of the power wielded by the neighborhood councils, said VANC President Jill Banks Barad, who said the last few weeks have been filled with “tremendous frustration” over the issue. Neighborhood council elections are crucial because they prompt community outreach and awareness, recruit new candidates to serve and refresh the boards’ membership, Banks Barad said.

“The decision [to cancel elections] was made from the top down and it’s backward,” she added. “Once again the city is telling us what to do.”

Further, if the economic downturn persists, lack of funds could still be a problem in 2014 for those elections, Banks Barad said.

VANC’s vote aligns with that of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition (LANCC), which created an Election Task Force and voted Nov. 5 to oppose cancellation of the 2012 elections. The task force also wants the councils to run their own elections. It meets again Saturday in downtown Los Angeles.