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TP11240 CITY OF LOS ANGELES

In the Matter of: ) ) Transcription of taped ) Tape No. "BONC 4-16-02" meetings ) ________________________)

TRANSCRIPTION OF TAPE-RECORDED MEETINGS

OF THE DEPARTMENT OF NEIGHBORHOOD EMPOWERMENT

Transcribed by:

Dora Carroll

Job Number:

TP11240

� CITY OF LOS ANGELE

TAPE NO. "BONC 4-16-02"

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Welcome to the

meeting of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners for

Tuesday, April 16th, 2002. We are at the Rosemont

Elementary School, and joining me this evening are

Commissioners Tammy Membreno, Commissioner Ron Stone,

TP11240

Commissioner Pat Herrera Duran, and myself, Commissioner

Christopher. And with that we will move into our

regularly scheduled agenda this evening which is to

consider the application for certification submitted by

two different groups for Echo Park, from the Greater Echo

Park Neighborhood -- Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood

Council and the Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council.

Okay. Are we okay now? All right. For

translation purposes we have conducted a roll call of the

Commission, and we will now move to the Item No. 2 on our

agenda to consider the certification application for two

groups in Echo Park: The Greater Echo Park Elysian

Neighborhood Council and the Echo Elysian Neighborhood

Council.

The way we're going to operate this evening is

that we will hear the staff report for the, I believe,

it's the Greater Echo Park -- oh, I'm sorry -- the Echo

2 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Elysian Neighborhood Park -- Neighborhood Council first.

Then, we will hear from the applicant in that situation.

We will, then, hear from the staff for the second

neighborhood council, the Greater Echo Elysian

Neighborhood Council; and then we will hear from the

applicant in that situation.

Once we've concluded the questions from the

Commission for the applicant, we will then open the

public hearing. We will again take testimony from those

who are concerned about the Echo Elysian Neighborhood

Council, then we will take testimony from those who are

concerned with the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood

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Council. And after that we will give each of the

applicants a five-minute rebuttal to discuss items that

have been brought forward in the public testimony. Then,

the Commission will close the public hearing and attempt

to reach some kind of conclusion this evening. So if you

are all willing to bear with us through all that we can

get started with Romerol and the first of the staff

reports.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Romerol Malveaux, Department

of Neighborhood Empowerment. The Department has received

an application for certified neighborhood council status

from representatives of the proposed Echo Elysian

Neighborhood Council. The Department has also received

3 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � an application for certification from Greater Echo Park

Elysian Neighborhood Council. The Department has

reviewed both applications for conformance with

requirements of the plan for citywide system of

neighborhood councils, and we have the following

recommendations.

We recommend that the Commission adopt the

findings of the Department contained in the evaluation of

the certification application prepared by the field

division. The evaluation contains a specific and

substantial information and references data as reviewed

by the Department and move to adopt one of the options

presented in the field-staff report since the Department

is not able to make a recommendation to the board

regarding this applicant because there is to outstanding

evidence submitted in the application that would indicate

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supporting this application over that submitted by

another applicant, Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood

Council. The options are: Request the applicant to

voluntarily continue or withdraw the application until

such time as they are able to work towards a unified

application with the Greater Echo Park Neighborhood

Council; request that the -- or request the applicant

voluntarily continue or withdraw the application until

such time as they are able to divide the bounded area

4 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � into two separate neighborhood councils in collaboration;

or select either applicant based on the public testimony

at the meeting.

In looking at the applicant, we looked at the

boundaries. The plan -- the ordinance require a detailed

description of the proposed boundaries and a rationale

for selecting those boundaries. The staff has a -- a

PowerPoint of the larger map, but essentially what's been

proposed is a boundary that on the south would be the

four-level interchange of the freeway going northwest on

the Hollywood Freeway, one block to Bowdry Avenue,

turning south on Bowdry Avenue to First Street, go west

on First Street that becomes Beverly Boulevard, and

continuing west on Beverly Boulevard to Roselake Avenue.

On the east the boundary is the 5 Freeway and joining of

the 110 Freeway around the shaded -- the shared public

Elysian Park and Dodger Stadium, excluding the residents

and streets of the Solano neighborhood, east of the 110

Freeway, and following the 110 South around Dodger

Stadium just southeast of Stadium Way to Elysian Park

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Avenue, west to Sunset Boulevard, and southeast to Sunset

to Bowdry. The western boundary would be to go

approximate north to West Lake Avenue to Temple, turn

west on Temple Street, go to Benton Way -- okay. Turn

north on Benton Way, and go to the Reservoir Street. At

5 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Reservoir Street the western boundary jogs from the

middle of the street, go behind the houses on the west

side of Benton Way. This continues north of Berkeley

Avenue, go east to Berkeley Avenue to the west property

line of the houses on the west side of Coronado, go north

behind the houses on Coronado, turn east along the slope

of the hill behind the houses downhill from the Garabuti

Hathaway Estate to the end of Aaron, turn north at the

end of Aaron, and continue behind the ends of Brandon and

Clifford Street to the end of Route 2 Freeway, continue

north to Route 2 to No. 2 to Fletcher Drive, turn

northeast on Fletcher Drive to the LA River. On the

north, the apex of the Glendale Freeway and the Golden

State Freeway.

The applicant has provided a map that concurs

with the written boundary description. The map is

compact and contiguous. The boundaries as proposed

comply with the 2 -- 20,000 minimum residential

requirement in that there are 46,180 persons within the

bounded area. The boundaries abut Silverlake, the

proposed neighborhood council for Elysian Valley, the

proposed neighborhood council for Historic Cultural in

the downtown, and also the Downtown Neighborhood Council;

and on this boundary there is no orphaned areas.

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The rationale given for the choice as stated by

6 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � the applicant is that Echo Park and Elysian Park are the

oldest parks in the city of Los Angeles. The residential

neighborhoods that grew up around them were the cities or

suburbs. The subtle and established identity of our

community goes back a hundred and thirty years. We know

where we are. We take these two parks as the beginning

focus. The Echo Park Silverlake community plan is

another important community boundary. The city -- city

planning has altered the plan boundaries over the years

so that they no longer correspond to the well-established

neighborhood identities. So we can remedy this mistake

by defining our real boundaries. The boundaries

presented involved four overlapped areas. The Greater

Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council, the Elysian

Valley Riverside Proposed Neighborhood Council,

Silverlake Proposed Neighborhood Council, and the

Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council.

In looking in at and comparing the -- the

boundaries with the Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood

Council, the overlap -- it's not so much as an overlap as

the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council is

including a larger area and I'll ask -- Michelle, can you

just point out the -- the area? So it's this -- it's

essentially an area on the south beginning on Roselake

and Beverly Boulevard heading west to Carondelet, south

7

TP11240 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � on Carondelet to Third -- east on Third to Benton Way and

north to Temple. The rationale for including this area

from Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council is

that it's part of the historic Filipino town and reaches

the Filipino stakeholders that wish to be included in the

neighborhood council.

The second area is a disputed area with the

proposed Silverlake Neighborhood Council, the Silverlake

neighborhood. This would be a boundary overlap that is

the 110 Freeway on the south, Benton Way on the west,

then curving east on Easterly Terrace to Waterloo Street

and then east on Clifford to the two freeway with

Alvarado on the east.

The Silverlake Neighborhood Council filed a

letter of intent. In their letter of intent -- it was

within the required time period. Their letter of intent

identified an interim board subcommittees for boundaries,

outreach and governance, communication, and planning.

The steering committee and the subcommittees were meeting

once a month, and they had general meetings every three

to four months. They were preparing their application

and expected to submit this summer of 2002. Their

application included 400 stakeholder signatures. The

Silverlake Proposed Neighborhood Council was willing to

dialogue with Echo Elysian regarding the boundary

8 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � overlap. The Department staff informed the

representatives of the overlap, but they declined to have

a dialogue. The reason -- the reason is because they

TP11240 felt very strongly that they had drawn their boundaries

in the correct place to separate their neighborhood

council from that of Silverlake.

In looking a little closer, we -- we looked at

the area that was in dispute; and we found that there

were only really two signatures submitted with the

application from that disputed area. In looking at the

community plan, the Echo Park Silverlake community plan

does define Benton Way, Berkeley Avenue and the two

freeway as the general boundary between the two areas.

Looking at zip code was largely inconclusive because the

disputed area is entirely within the same zip code. And

looking at -- since this track was also inconclusive --

looking at population, Silverlake as a neighborhood

council would be a smaller neighborhood council. In

terms of police districts the area served by the

Northeast Division (Inaudible) of 11A171, and this is

identified as the Silverlake Police Station.

In looking at school district, the School

District E in Silverlake and includes the disputed area.

In looking at fire stations, Echo Park serves -- the Echo

Park Fire Station serves the disputed area. So in this

9 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � particular instance, the recommendation -- the

recommendation was to -- to follow the boundaries as

given. The disputed -- a -- a -- a third disputed area

is the Elysian Valley Riverside Neighborhood Council; and

on March 29, the Elysian Valley Riverside Neighborhood

Council submitted an application to the Department. This

application did show an overlap in the very tip of the --

TP11240 the northern part of the -- of the district. The

Department had some dialogue with Elysian Valley, and

they determined that this area would rightly belong in

the Elysian Valley Neighborhood Council. And they have

in the interim agreed to let it stay there. We have not

received anything formal to make that adjustment.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Would you -- Romerol,

would you repeat that.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: There are approximately eight

blocks in that corner, and it's bounded by the 5 Freeway,

the LA River. And this -- this overlap of eight blocks

still technically exist because we have an application

that includes that -- those eight blocks. In informal

dialogue with the neighborhood council, the proposed

neighborhood council, they were willing to see that area

to the Echo Elysian --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: -- Neighborhood Council. We

10 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � haven't gotten anything in writing on that, but our

understanding is that they would see that area to Echo

Elysian. So our recommendation is that the eight-block

area be included as part of the certified boundaries of

Echo Park Neighborhood Council, whichever is -- is

identified. The fourth conflict had to do with the

Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council, and in -- in this

particular instance the Department has received letters

from Solano Valley and Forgotten Edge (Phonetic) that

they wanted to be part of the Historic Cultural

Neighborhood Council. And the Elysian -- Echo Elysian

TP11240 Neighborhood Council has ceded that so this is a resolved

conflict.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: The maps that we're

looking at reflect that.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Yes.


ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Yes, they do. In looking --

in looking at the -- the maps, in going through the

adjustments for the various negotiations that have

happened to date, leaving out the overlap with the

Greater Echo Elysian, if the BONC were to make a decision

to certify, the Department has made a recommendation on

boundaries. And the recommendation is essentially the

Echo Elysian, with the exception of -- excluding the

11 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � disputed area with Silverlake and including the area

north of Beverly, south of Temple, east of Roselake, and

west of Benton.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Including the wing

that goes south of Beverly.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Yes. That would be the

proposed boundaries that whichever is certified the

Department would recommend.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: So Alvarado on the

west is -- is the staff-recommended boundary.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Waterloo?

FEMALE SPEAKER: I don't know.


ROMEROL MALVEAUX: In looking at the area

profiled the requirements are that there -- that there be

TP11240 a description of the neighborhood such that it appears

that the proposed neighborhood council does, in fact,

understand the -- the population. This was provided, and

the --it met the requirements of the plan. In looking at

their outreach, the demographic information showed a

high-renter population, approximately 77 percent; high

Latino population, approximately 68 percent; 17 percent

Asian; 37 percent of the population with incomes between

15,000 and 34,000; and about 29,000 of the population is

18 or under. The applicant used a variety of techniques

12 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to identify their stakeholders.

The -- the basic was that -- the -- the comment

from their application, the stakeholders are

overwhelmingly local residents. There is also a business

community, faith-based organization, and nonprofit

groups. These categories are self-explanatory and

obvious. We already know who and where they are to a

considerable extent because we have been community

activists for 25 years, and that was the method used to

identify. In terms of informing their stakeholders, they

use mass mailings, telephone calls, public-meetings,

announcements in newspapers, door-to-door visits, posting

on Web sites; and they had an Echo Elysian Neighborhood

Council forum made presentation to some of the community

groups.

The applicant states that they've been

organizing over 11 months and had spent over 2,045 hours

in their organizing effort. Five public meetings were

held at the Methodist Church and the recreation center

TP11240 with an average of 30 to 50 persons in attendance. One

of the requirements of outreach is to -- to -- to get

signatures. The applicant collected 242 signatures. Of

the 242 -- just from looking at surnames, and we do this

only to look for diversity, there were -- 91 had

Latino surnames; and 15 had Asian surnames. The

13 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � signatures were gathered mainly from the Elysian Valley

Homeowners Association, the Sunset Alvarado Hills

Association; nonprofits such as the Citizens to Save

Elysian Valley; and churches like the United Methodist

Church of Echo Park and San Coronado Mission.

In looking at the outreach effort we found that

the organizing group did target renters, Latinos, Asian

Pacific Islanders, households with lower income, and

businesses through their mailing door-to-door outreach,

and of -- used bilingual materials in English, Spanish,

Chinese, Tagalog -- Tagalog, I'm sorry. Renters and

Latinos and whites households with less than 15 to 34,000

were active participants in their steering committee.

We find that based on the information provided, the

applicant has complied with the outreach requirements of

the plan and the ordinance. The plan and the ordinance

require that there be an organizational structure

described and submitted in the form of bylaws. The

applicant group did submit their bylaws. It -- the

governing structure consists of 50 elected

representatives. Six seats are reserved for members of

-- of the local business community, nonprofits,

faith-based organization, and nonresidents of local

TP11240 business owners, property owners, and workers. 44 of the

seats are for -- four would be elected from four

14 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � districts within the bounded area. One of the seats

would be for a youth representative.

Candidates who wish to file for these -- these

seats have seven days prior to the scheduled election to

make their candidacy known. Late candidates may be

listed as write-in candidates by filing one day before

the elections. No nominations would be taken on the day

of the election. The bylaws also state that there would

be ten standing committees. These standing committees

are issue-oriented committees, and the intent is to use

these issues as further outreaching and engagement of the

community at large.

Based on the information provided we find that the

applicant has substantially complied. However, there was

one segment in their bylaws which spoke to the ability of

the -- the board to acquire real property; and the -- the

Department recommends that if this -- this neighborhood

council is certified that it be done so with an advisory

and a disclaimer because neighborhood councils as

creatures of the city cannot acquire property on behalf

of the city. In terms of financial accountability the

plan and the ordinance require a system of financial

accountability that governs the use of funds. This was

identified in their bylaws and required that they comply

with the plan. The plan requires that certified

15

TP11240 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � neighborhood councils be subject to the applical federal,

state, and local government laws of the city.

On ethics, based on the information in the

bylaws, we find that they've complied with this. There

is a requirement that there be a contact liaison persons

identified the applicant as done this. They have

complied with the plan. The -- what we have here is an

applicant that has complied with many of the elements of

the plan; however, one of their overlaps is almost

entirely a hundred percent with the Greater Echo Park

Elysian Neighborhood Council. And the plan does not

provide for overlaps of this nature. There were attempts

by the Department, by the groups to mediate this

disagreement over three sessions; and it was -- it was

not fruitful. Although the Greater Echo Park -- The

Greater Park Elysian Neighborhood Council wish to

continue with the mediation process, the Echo Elysian

group did not feel that it was fruitful to continue.

So we come to you today with really two

applicants claiming the same area. In terms of what were

some of the stumbling blocks, Greater Echo Park -- the

Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council had concerns with the

Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council's

leadership as not being representative of the

demographics of Echo Park, the feeling that the majority

16 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � of the leadership were -- are white although 70 percent

of Echo Park residents are Latino and 14 percent is an

undocumented population. The members from -- there was

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concern about just the basic relationship with the --

with the leadership. There were a -- the feeling of

being insulted. There was a feeling that the Greater

Echo Park group had copied the ideas of the Echo Elysian

group and the feeling that they could not be worked with

because they're untrustworthy.

The Echo Park Elysian in -- in the -- these

groups -- these facilitated dialogues did express a

desire to continue to work with the group to try to get

these issues on the table and solved. The members of the

Greater Echo Park Elysian group apologized for any

feelings that were implied insults and really denied that

they had copied any of the ideas and expressed the

willingness still to continue to work with the Echo

Elysian Neighborhood for a united application.

In looking at and comparing the two groups,

once again the the Department could not find substantial

differences that would put one group over the other; and

therefore, our recommendation stands.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Are there any

questions for staff? Romerol, there is one question I

wanted to raise. The Cypress Park area or Cypress Point

17 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � area to the north, northeast of the 5 Freeway which was

originally included, it looks like on one map, it is, I'm

assuming, part of the Elysian Valley Neighborhood

Council. Michelle, you're shaking your head so I will

accept that as a -- as fact for the moment. Any other

questions? Seeing no one rushing to the -- to the fore,

we'll invite Mr. Brigghouse to the microphone to explain

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and to present the Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: (Inaudible) Juanita Delomas.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Ms. Delomas.

JUANITA DELOMAS: Juanita Delomas, 73-year

resident of Echo Park, County Library Commissioner. I

welcome you to Echo Park. As of September the 22nd we

had one piece of literature in Spanish, which was

incorrect. As of the end of December 2001, we finally

got a bilingual document from DONE for distribution for

our outreach program; and this is unacceptable. Working

in the Latino community, I must have bilingual

literature. And at this point I'm sorry, but the

Department of Neighborhood Empowerment has not been

efficient for my community. I would like to bring it to

your attention as Commissioners.

I know I've talked to Bill Christopher at the

Lincoln High School workshops, and even then that was

November. We didn't get anything until the end of

18 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � December. It is unacceptable for my community. How can

we do an efficient outreach for your figures of 68

percent Latino? My figures from the 1991 census was 72

percent Latino and 17 percent undocumented. I'm working

with the Echo Elysian Neighborhood Councils because I

feel tha is representational of my community, and as a

Latina activist I must bring this before you as a

Commission. And as a Commissioner I feel that you must

work diligently to outreach our communities in languages.

We've done the best we can with the literature available.

And I know, Bill Christopher, you look a little, how

TP11240

should I say, bored; but I'm sorry. Be patient with us.

You know I've worked with you how many years?

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: It's been a long

time.

JUANITA DELOMAS: Right. On plan L. A., and you

know I will get my say.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Oh, yeah.

JUANITA DELOMAS: And I thank you for your time

and I now yield to Jeb Brigghouse.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: President Christopher and

Commissioners, my name is Jeb Brigghouse. I've been a

community activist in Echo Park for about 25 years, and I

remember meeting President Christopher at "Not Yet New

York" meetings that we had in the federal building in --

19 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � in West L. A. years and years ago so here we are again.

What I want to say to you now in support of our

application for Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council are our

goals. The first goal, which I think is by far the most

important and overriding goal, is to achieve democracy;

and as a retired professor of political science who was

very interested in all of -- of the ramifications and

aspects of democracy in my teaching career, I am

intensely interested in this. And here in the Echo Park

area as Juanita has suggested, democracy starts out

meeting majority rule. The majorities -- the Latinos and

other people identified as not Anglos in this population

-- are the people who are in need of being in charge of

the beneficiaries of their own neighborhood council, and

that is specifically why we have put this together and

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why our council deserves to be favored over the other

one.

Another aspect of democracy would be to be -- to

increase the rate of political participation in this

population that we have in mind and in the city of Los

Angeles in general. We recently had a primary election

where we set new record lows of participation and turn

out. This is tragic, and it undermines the very

legitimacy of the government that you are representing

here. Who do you speak for? Well, darn few people. We

20 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � can't have that. We must encourage more participation on

the part of everybody regardless of how long their

ancestors have been here in the United States.

Another goal to be achieved by our neighborhood

council is to connect people to the system.

Increasingly, people feel alienated, disenfranchised,

ignored; and I would say specifically in dealing with the

city of Los Angeles, they feel dismissed. If there is

any chronic character defect shared by the people in city

hall, it's being dismissive of what the people have to

say and when they want to be taken seriously and be

heard. The neighborhood council will bring in more

people into an active functioning useful role into the

system, and I have tried to facilitate this in all the

myriad subcommittees that are in our bylaws and which

were listed for you by the -- the staff speaker.

Another goal, of course, is to improve the

responsiveness of the system -- the governmental system,

the political system that we are part of here. Many

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people have given up. They don't think the city of Los

Angeles can possibly operate. And we're -- we will have

an election in November whereby large chunks of the city

decide they'd rather not be part of the city of Los

Angeles. That very well may happen. And it will be a

dreadful blot on the reputation of the officials of the

21 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � city of Los Angeles if on their watch the whole system

crumbled just like a decayed Soviet union. Is Los

Angeles like the Soviet Union? We may find out. The

neighborhood councils are a way to connect people to this

and to make this -- the responsiveness of the system

present in their political lives; and we have to have a

political life. Los Angeles is famous for not having

politics, just having an administered system of

government. Well, that obviously is death, and the death

and decay of the city of Los Angeles, you know, doesn't

need listing here.

Finally, the goal that I am seeking to achieve

in this particular system of neighborhood council is to

underline and reinforce the idea of human dignity. Human

dignity is one of the central payoffs of a democratic,

political, and social system. And for those people who

have not been able to participate in or to have a say or

to be listened to or to have any kind of a forum where

their particular interests or concerns or anxieties are

addressed, the -- the -- the fault of the system in not

making this possible for them is one of the things that

contributes to the alienation of this interest.

I sincerely expect that all of these various

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subcommittees will attract people of every possible shade

of social and human interest; and by participating in

22 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � something, their human dignity will be reinforced. They

will become connected to the system. They will make the

system responsive, and they will find that there are

rewards of being a -- a political participant and

activist. And all in all, adding all of these things up,

the legitimacy of the system will be salvaged. It's

eroding dreadfully now; and I suggest if the other group

is chosen by you, it will continue to erode for reasons

that have not yet been stated. Thank you very much.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Anyone else

that want to present (Inaudible)? Jeb, is that the --

that's your total presentation? Okay.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I can give you with another

three hours.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: No. I'm happy with

that. Questions for the applicant? Okay. I have a

number of questions. A number of issues have been raised

in the discussion of your application by the staff, and

I'd like to explore a couple of them with you. One of

them is the question of nominations from the floor at the

annual election meeting. Your bylaws state that anyone

who wants to be a write-in candidate for membership on

the board of directors is required to file a statement

the day before the election as a late candidate. Can you

tell us what the -- what the reasoning for that is.

TP11240 23 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � JEB BRIGGHOUSE: First of all, we're not

intending to have elections centralized in one place.

We're intending that the elections in each of the

electoral districts divided around the area have a

polling place in each one of those areas. So inasmuch as

it's a decentralized thing, and people would come to

their polling place to vote, the idea of having a

nomination from the floor just doesn't apply there. And

that is why declaring a candidacy at least a day in

advance so that their name could be listed as a write-in

vote would be appropriate.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: But wouldn't they be

allowed to come to that decentralized polling place and

write in a name of their own choosing?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Sure.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. In your bylaws

at least the -- the version that I read, it -- when it's

describing residents and stakeholders, it talks about all

persons residing within the boundaries of EENC and who

work or own property here are designated stakeholders.

The -- the syntax that I read there says that in order to

be a resident you have to be both a resident and to work

-- and work or own property. I don't think that was what

was intended, but --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: No. That's not what's

24 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � intended. If you are a resident and don't own anything,

you are a stakeholder. If you are a nonresident property

TP11240 owner, you are also a stakeholder.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. I would look

for some clarification to that language potentially then.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Okay. We'll deal with staff on

that.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: The other question in

terms of deciding -- your charter require charter

mandated categories for inclusion in the -- in membership

in the governing body. It seats three classes of people:

Local business community; nonprofit and faith-based

organizations; and nonresidents, local business owners,

property owners, and workers. What -- how do you deal

with school faculty members in a situation like that or

environmental organizations or cultural organizations

that might be located in the community or work in the

community?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, pick which set of

definitions applies to themselves. A person who is a

nonresident teacher works in the community.


JEB BRIGGHOUSE: A person who is a member of a

faith-based organization would be faith-based

organization grouping.

25 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. You set aside

six seats on your board of directors for those

charter-membered --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Yes.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: -- group. Is it

envisioned that those are the only six seats that are

TP11240 available to them, or how -- how do you deal with the

question of diversity in the -- in the board if you have

a membership of 50 members and six of them are set aside

as charter-mandated and the others are then presumed to

be resident stakeholders?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, of course most everybody

in the community who is a resident by virtue of where

they live can also be found under the heading of

employees, church members, workers, and nonprofit

organizations so there is a tremendous overlap. The idea

that you can segregate these people out you need clean

the street compartmentalized categories, I think, is not

possible and to try to do so doesn't take reality into

account too well.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Not necessarily but

I'm not -- my concern is more oriented toward business

communities or chamber-of-commerce type of representation

and their ability to -- to have some effect or some

presence on the neighborhood council relative to the 40

26 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � odd members who may or may not be -- be residents so I'm

concerned about the balance.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, let me cite my personal

observation of the business community in Echo Park over

many, many, many years. The business community is

divided into a number of mutually exclusive groups that

really don't communicate much with each other. They are

the native born on one hand and the foreign born on the

other. The Latino community -- there are those who

identify with Mexico, with Cuba, with other places in

TP11240 Latin America. And the people -- in the Latino community

-- they tend to be more nationalistic than -- and

identify with a shared Latino identity, which is mainly

what the nonLatinos identify.

And there are also the Asians who are either

native born or foreign born and have various degrees of

facility in English and are most likely to identify with

their homeland rather than with the business community,

and the business -- the Chamber of Commerce has had a

difficult time to try to rally them together into the

group. Nevertheless, if there are two elected

representatives, those two make and second a motion and

get that motion considered officially by the

organization. And that's what counts.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Well, it also counts

27 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to be able to pass the motion ultimately

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, anybody can come to a

meeting and state their case.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I understand.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: And stating their case means

that they are going to rely on the -- the things that we

hope come to the fore here, which is, truth, justice, and

the American way. Cramming your will through an

organization by stacking the number of voters is not what

we hoped to endorse.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Next question.

On your bylaws in Section 4G, it talks about "The

officers shall be elected at the annual meeting scheduled

to be determined by the executive committee," but I don't

TP11240 -- didn't find anything in here to identify who votes for

the officers.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: The board of governors.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Is that stated

someplace in the bylaws, do you know, or --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I think it is, but if it

isn't --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Romerol, do you know?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: -- staff will make a note of

it and includes that with me -- send that to me along

with all the other notes they've sent me.

28 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Romerol, I was

referring to Section 4G, which indicated the officers

were elected at an annual meeting, but didn't state who

voted or who voted for them unless you've seen something

in the bylaws that I haven't.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: (Inaudible).

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: So Jeff from your

side --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I am confident that in the

beginning of the section that deals with officers, it

would say that the officers are elected by the Board of

Governors.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Maybe there's a

different version floating around, which is always

possible.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, we're up to about seven

different versions.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I'm sure we are.

TP11240 Okay. The last -- a couple of questions. On the bylaw

provisions that you wanted to -- to buy Echo Park or

Dodger Stadium on behalf of the neighborhood council, are

you comfortable with staff's recommendation that the

neighborhood council strike the provision that refers to

the purchase of property -- real property?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I've already forwarded that

29 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � amendment to them.


JEB BRIGGHOUSE: And I felt not -- courteous

enough -- to interrupt in the middle of their

presentation.


JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Also, the boundaries of the new

area that deletes the Forgotten Edge and Solano Valley

are not reflected in the narrative that was read so the

narrative and the map are at odds there, but the map

is --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: The map is correct.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: -- is current.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. And the -- are

you satisfied with the -- the Waterloo boundary between

your group and --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Not at all. Nothing whatever

that we would even remotely agree to, and we have a

speaker who will speak to that issue.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. And last

question. There was a -- an attempted mediation between

your group and the other group, and the perception that

TP11240 staff is -- reports is that your group effectively

terminated that mediation and expressed a desire not to

continue?

30 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Exactly

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Can you explain to us

what your reasoning for that was?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, the -- a mediator -- the

mediator engaged in what I would consider to be bogus and

manipulative tactics rather than to approach something

from the point of view of diplomacy, and a number of

points were raised and facts stated which had meaning and

which had implication and he illustrated a -- inability

to learn from what he was told. And people who do that

to us two or three times in a row I discover to be

control freaks. And I consider being a control freak a

gruesome character defect, and he is not -- he was just

not operating in a manner that earned my respect or our

respect at all. And he took the side of the other group

initially, which is that they wanted us to -- to do

things their way which is what the other group has been

after all the time. We should do things their way. No.

They have never learned to take no for an answer and

still haven't as they -- as the mediator didn't. We want

quality people to deal with, and he and that mediator

wasn't characterizable under that heading.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Is that then -- do I

-- do I take that as being in a different mediation

session, you would be willing to -- or setting, you will

TP11240

31 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � be willing to continue that dialogue

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: No. No, the -- the goal to be

achieved, as he defined it, was the same goal --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: No, no, no. I'm not

asking -- I'm not referring to what this particular

mediator has anything to say or do. I'm -- my concern is

strictly the representation for Echo Park and its -- and

its citizens and dealing between two groups both claiming

to represent their interest and trying to define a

mediation setting which may allow both of them to talk to

one another exclusive of whatever has happened in the

past.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: The -- the person sent to us

just plain didn't have the capacity.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Let's assume that

he's gone, and we send somebody else?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I doubt it from this -- from

this point of view.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: And can you -- can

you tell me why?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Eliminating our independent

effort would be a sellout and a betrayal of the people in

Echo Park. We won't do that. We have held firm for a

year and a half now against intense hostility and intense

harassment on the part of the other group; and to try us

32 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to sell out, try to get us to sell out -- we won't sell

out the people of Echo Park to that group, regardless of

TP11240

whether Secretary of State Powell or someone else of like

stature tries to get us to sell out.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Any other

questions?

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Just getting back

to the bylaws as long as you're speaking of them.

Section 6, meetings of the standing committees, isn't it

-- I think my understanding is that standing committees

have to abide by the Brown Act and have their posted

meetings and so forth; isn't that true?

GREG NELSON: That's correct.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: This one doesn't

seem to give that indication. It just says they will --

they will take place at a convenient -- at a place

convenient for the committee which is fine. They shall

be at least monthly, but it doesn't give any indication

that they have the intention that the standing committees

will have to do the posting, the time and so forth. It's

on -- on my pages -- on my pages --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I thought that that was covered

in there.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Just -- just a

moment. Let me talk to -- to the city attorney, and then

33 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � we'll come back. Thank you. Do you find it on

your -- Section 6 -- Article 4, Section 6. That's the

copy of the bylaws that I have. If they've been -- if

that's been rectified, that would be good.

DARRYLL MARTINEZ: Darryll Martinez, Deputy

City Attorney. What I am looking at is a -- is the

TP11240

article in -- under Section 4, Article 6 which does

refer to the meetings of the standing committee. What I

would point out is that in Article 4, Section 1, it does

contain a general statement or caption that does say,

"Meeting shall comply with the requirements of the Ralph

and Brown Act." So whether or not the board would,

maybe, like the applicant to state it again under Item 6,

that would be up to the board.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: But this Section 1

is speaking only about the regular meetings. I mean it

should be Section 1, whereas Section 6 is talking about

the standing committee.

DARRYLL MARTINEZ: Yes. It could -- it could be

read both that way. You're -- you're correct. That's

why it would give you that suggestion.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: I would -- yeah, I

would -- appreciate the clarification. Okay. Thank you.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: So if -- if that can be added

to the list of clarifications which you're collecting

34 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � here, we will deal with that --


JEB BRIGGHOUSE: -- forthwith.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Commissioner

Membreno?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Sir, can you speak of

the composition of your steering committee at this time?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, we have Christopher

Arellano here in the far too formal dark suit; Sandy

Brigghouse, my wife; I can't remember her name -- Eddie

TP11240

-- Letty Benavides -- that's right; Juanita Delomas;

Dorothy Lopez; Ron Estrada; Lupe Fernandez; Jenny Olivas;

Millie Martinez -- oh, Maria, yes.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: How many members is

that, sir? How many members are there in your steering

committee?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Ten or twelve.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Ten or twelve? Ten or

twelve? Twelve?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I wasn't keeping count.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Okay.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Twelve.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: You spoke of the Latino

community and the Asian community as being pretty -- what

is the word that you used? Nationalistic, yes, thank

35 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � you. I was trying to find the word and rephrase it. Can

you explain a little bit as to what that means because I

-- I don't understand what it means.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, okay. I guess the idea

that I'm trying to express would be that if you ask a

person, Who are you, their response would be I am a

Cuban-American, I am a Nicaraguan-American, I am an

Irish-American. You are a -- I don't know. So people

tend to identify themselves according to their

nationality. If you're from Ireland, you identify what

country you're from. I'm from county (Inaudible) or

county (Inaudible). In Mexico you are from Guanauato

(Phonetic) or Oaxuaca (Phonetic) or --

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Okay. And so how did

TP11240

that affect your outreach efforts in this area, and how

did that become an issue instead of --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Well, my comments in that

regard were about the business community. The business

community, I am aware, is fragmented by -- into these

pieces; and it is difficult to achieve communication

among this group much less a sense of cooperation even

though the Chamber of Commerce has mixers and get

togethers and installations and things like that

inviting, you know, You all come down here and -- and --

and, you know, become part of the business, the larger

36 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � business community, but it's just plain hard

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: So the barrier was in

terms of the outreach the barrier was because they felt

that they were not part of the Echo Park community, or

was it because they just were not interested of being

part of this neighborhood council, which one?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: No, it's not neighborhood

council. It's the -- the Chamber of Commerce, and our

mailings to the business community reflected their lack

of participation in the Chamber of Commerce which you

would think would be a -- a more primary affiliation for

them.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Is there someone in your

steering from the Chamber of Commerce that can speak on

that?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: No.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Okay. Thank you.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: We were going to get a -- an

TP11240

endorsement which the Chamber was going to put through,

and my good friend Bonnie Scanlan was going to do that --

who is the president of the Chamber. And she told me

that the last time I saw her before she died about three

days later. So this was a tragedy that -- that's

afflicted the Chamber and, you know, put a dent in our

effort in this direction.

37 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Thank you

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Are there any other

questions? Commissioner Stone?

COMMISSIONER STONE: Thank you. Thank you for

your presentation, and you're obviously very committed to

the Echo Park neighborhood. A question for you, if we

were to approve the other neighborhood council that is

before us tonight, will you and your -- you'd mentioned

the concept of selling out. Notwithstanding that, if

there is another neighborhood council certified for this

area, will you and your steering committee be active and

involved in that neighborhood council?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: What do you say?

COMMISSIONER STONE: Can you elaborate for -- I

see some heads shaking. Can you elaborate for me, then,

why you would not participate in a neighborhood council

that is certified for the boundaries of this

neighborhood?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Okay. Now that I am asked

specifically I'll I'll say that the tactic used by that

group to stimulate enthusiasm, participation, and

involvement within their own membership took the form of

TP11240

engaging in character assassination against me personally

and our group in general. And over a period of months we

became increasingly aware of that, and members of the

38 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � DONE staff attended their meetings and told us about

that. And other people on our side attended their

meetings and told us about that. The upshot of it is

that this reputation for hostility, animosity, personal

vindictiveness, has become their reputation; and we don't

want to have anything to do with people like that.

And in particular -- in my understanding,

Latinos are people of courtesy, good manners, gentelness,

respectfulness, and are intensely put off by that kind of

behavior. And that reputation of the other group has

become pervasive in that community; and we would not sell

them out, sell the majority of our population out to a --

to being under the control of a -- people who have earned

this very sour reputation. That's a well deserved our

reputation. Okay.

(End of first tape, Side A)

(Beginning of side B)

JUANITA DELOMAS: -- whether it's our group or

the other group, but it is still a process that

continues. And you know that last word is the city

council so I just like to make sure that everybody

understands that this is not the last step in the

process.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Okay.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Also, also, I guess now is as

TP11240

39 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � good a time as any for it to come out; but the goals that

DONE has articulated includes tranparency of operation

and autonomy or independence for local groups.

Transparency being somebody who looks at you knows what

you're up to and how got there. Autonomy is genuinely

being an expression of local control. Well, in fact, the

other group is politically dominated by an outside

organization. You should know that. If you don't know

that, you must learn it. You must have an intelligence

operation in place to do this research for you and

present you with this fact; and intelligence, in the

other sense of the word, would lead you to the proper

conclusions about this.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Since you've --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: And all of this effort on the

part of the other group for all of these 16 months or

however to destroy our independent existence has had the

goal in mind of causing us to provide them with political

camouflage or legitimacy or cover so that they could

sneak into a position of power under our wing. We won't

do that. We won't have that. We won't betray our -- our

-- and our dedication to the people of Echo Park. Now,

this is an allegation.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Uh-huh.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: You must check it out, and you

40 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � must have findings on this. And the findings that you

TP11240 find will -- will guide your decision.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Since you've raised

the specter of this, quote, unquote, allegation, would

you care to name the organization that you're alluding

to?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I think the other group should

operate under the heading of tranparency and define it

themselves.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Well, I think that --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: In some of the meetings we've

had, they have identified it. But they have not had a

chance to speak yet, and I won't speak for them. I will

wait for them to identify it for them -- for themselves.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I'm sorry, Jeb, but I

think that since you've raised the specter that it's

incumbent upon you to define what you're talking about.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: The other group is politically

dominated by the Church of Scientology.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. All right.

Thank you. Are there any other questions? Commissioner

Stone?

COMMISSIONER STONE: Just a -- kind of a flip

side of my -- of my previous question, and I plan to ask

this of the other applicant as well. If we were to

41 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � certify your application, given that those boundaries

would then represent the Echo Park area, how would you

welcome the other group if given what you've -- given

what you've laid out for us, how would you and your group

be able to welcome the other folks into the process?

TP11240 COMMISSIONER STONE: Well, the process of

electing members of the board is defined and open to all

stakeholders including them.


COMMISSIONER STONE: Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: All right. One last

question before we let you go. The -- the 800-pound

gorilla in Echo Park for many years since at least 1962

is --

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: 62.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: And has there been

any contact with the Dodgers as part of the proposed

neighborhood council?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: That is what we've intended to

do through the Chamber of Commerce. And Irene Camarata,

who is now the president, is also a Dodgers' staff

person, and we expect to deal with her on that.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. I think that's

probably the exhaust of our questions for the time being.

Thank you for your patience and understanding, and I'd

42 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � like to -- I'd like to bring staff back to the microphone

now to talk about the second group in this discussion.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Just the Commissioner had

asked the question about the bylaws, the last bylaws we

have were those received April 11; and Article -- Section

3G says that "officers of the Echo Elysian Neighborhood

Council shall be elected at an annual election meeting on

rules determined by the executive committee" so I

believe that's --

TP11240 COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Which section is

that?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: I'm on page 4G.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Which executive

committee would determine that?

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. That's

different than the language that's in -- in the version

that was in our packet so --

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Do you have the -- the

amendment that is dated April 11th?

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Probably, but I

haven't found it yet.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Okay. Let's go

back to that.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: On page 4G.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: That talks about

43 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � the annual meeting, I guess. Do we need to -

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: It says the officers that was

the question, wasn't it?

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Yes.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Okay. It says, "The officers

of the Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council shall be elected

at an annual elections meeting."

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. By whom? The

question was: By whom?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Okay. And again my

assumption is that the annual election meeting would be

the general membership.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. That's at --at

TP11240 variance with what Mr. Brigghouse is representing.

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: (Inaudible)

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: It's -- it will be

defined as Romerol is defining is all stakeholders which

is different than -- than, I think, your perception of

being the 50 members of the board as previously elected.

Romerol, shall we move on?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Okay. The Department

received an application for certification from the

Greater Echo Park Elysian Neiborhood Council. The

Department also received an application from Echo Elysian

Neighborhood Council. In reviewing the -- the two

44 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � applicants once again, there did not appear to be

anything overwhelming that will allow for choice between

one versus the other so that the Department recommends

that the board adopt the findings in the staff report and

move to adopt one of the options that being to request

that the applicants voluntarily continue their dialogue

towards a unified application or continue the dialogue

towards splitting the area or based on public testimony

the board select one of the applicants before us.

In -- we've gone over the -- the boundaries of

the -- of the two neighborhood councils. The -- once

again, we had the -- the various overlaps. I think the

one that has the most significant difference in what was

presented before was in the case of the -- the -- the --

the proposed overlap with Silverlake Neighborhood

Council. In -- in that particular instance we did

receive the letter of intent pursuant to the board's

TP11240 motion on November 27. The letter of intent described an

overlap. Echo Park agreed to -- I'm sorry -- Greater

Echo Park Neighborhood Council agreed to dialogue with

the -- the -- the Silverlake group, and on April 10th the

Department received E-mail confirmation that both groups

had come to agreement on the boundary. And as a result,

the boundary proposed in that dialogue is the one that is

recommended by the Department.

45 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � In -- in looking at the area profile, the

applicant did submit a profile of the area that showed an

understanding and knowledge. There -- the approximately

76 percent renters, 67 percent Latinos, 19 percent Asian

Pacific Islanders, 29 percent youth under 19. 31 percent

of the population were young adults, aged 30 to 34; and

about 37 percent were -- had incomes between 15,000 and

34,000. And 26 percent of the population had incomes

less than 15,000.

In -- in looking at how the applicant identified

their stakeholders, there was an exploratory effort

initiated in November of 2000 at a general meeting in --

of the Echo Park Improvement Association. Subsequently,

there were monthly neighborhood council formation

meetings that were held at a variety of times and

locations. Participants signed petitions which

identified stakeholder status as merchant, resident,

homeowner, et cetera. They contacted other organizations

in the Echo Park area. Presentations were made regarding

plans to form a neighborhood council, and the

organization contacted the League of Women voters to

TP11240 facilitate a neighborhood council education forum.

In order to inform the -- the residents there

were announcements in the local newspapers, there were

monthly public meetings, there was mass mailings to

46 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � petitioners, there was E-mail and phone trees, there was

storefront signs up, door to door, and there were forums.

Beginning in the summer of 2001 there were presentations

to a number of groups that were identified in the report.

The applicant states that have spent over 200 hours each

month since the start of 2001 in organizing to form a

neighborhood council. Monthly meetings have been held

since November of 2000. And the attendance range from 25

to 350. They did collect 343 signatures. Again, looking

at the surnames, 90 were Spanish surnames; 26 percent of

the total gathered could have been either Latino or

Filipino.

In terms of their future outreach, they indicate

that they plan to target locations within their

boundaries that were not previously included and focus

the outreach would be nonprofit organizations, nonEnglish

speaking persons and organizations, recovery facility

shelters, and special housing facilities. The applicant

proposes to continue their outreach to Latinos, Asian

Pacific Islanders, renters, lower income residents,

business, youth within their neighborhood council.

In terms of their organizational structure, the

proposed Greater Echo Park Elysian has provided the

Department with their bylaws. The governance structure

is -- establishes a body of no less than 19 and no more

TP11240

47 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � than 33 community stakeholders. The members of the board

would be elected from geographic areas. And it would

depend upon how many people put themselves up for

nomination as to what the ultimate number would be. All

except the secretary would be elected by a voice vote of

all of the stakeholders. In terms of their first

election there would be nominations that could be taken

from the floor. They propose to hold the first election

120 days after the nominations are open. The bylaws have

been reviewed by the Department, and we find that they

meet the requirements of the plan.

In looking at the signatures that were

collected, we did find that the signatures were

distributed throughout the entire area fairly evenly. In

looking at the the proposal for financial accountability,

they did meet the requirements of the plan. And their

bylaws do mention conformance with the laws for ethics

which meets the requirements. They provided the contact

liaison information, and so the Department finds that

they are in compliance with those elements. As mentioned

before, however, the -- their boundaries do overlap those

proposed by the Echo Park Elysian group; and since they

were unable to come to any resolution, we find that they

do not meet the requirements of the -- of the boundary

requirements of the plan.

48 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Any questions for

TP11240

staff? Okay. Seeing no one jumping to the -- to the

mike, Mr. Kaiser, would you like to come forward and

present the Greater Echo Park Neighborhood -- Greater

Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood.

BENNETT KAYSER: Thank you very much,

Commissioner Christopher. We have a PowerPoint

presentation. We request just a few minutes to set up

our equipment for it if we could, please.


BENNETT KAYSER: Thank you. Do the

Commissioners have a a good view of the screen there?

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: We have a reasonable

view given --

BENNETT KAYSER: Okay.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: -- dealt with it in

the past.

BENNETT KAYSER: Thank you.

(Pause in the tape)

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Can you turn it

just a little this way; or if it's going to fall, don't.

BENNETT KAYSER: Commissioner Christopher, also

just prior the meetings we gave some supplemental

information tonight. I've given it to Mr. Nelson and I

just want --

49 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: It was distributed

BENNETT KAYSER: Okay. Thank you.

(Pause in the tape)

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: You're on.

BENNETT KAYSER: Okay. Thank you very much,

TP11240

Commissioner Christopher, and other members of the

Commission. My name is Bennett Kayser. I'm going to be

the first speaker of a cadre of speakers from our group,

from our organizing committee; and you find in the packet

I put some biographical information about each of them as

you can make one to look at while we're giving our

presentations.

As you know, Commissioner Christopher, and

there's -- there's a piece in your packet with a reprint

from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that highlights the

time that we were working on getting community planning

boards or neighborhood councils as part of the structure

of the city of Los Angeles. And tonight is very exciting

to me because it looks like we're finally going to have

neighborhood councils, I hope, in Echo Park; and I hope

that you'll take the option of appointing -- appointing

and certifying a neighborhood council for our community.

Our presentation tonight is going to -- I'm sorry. The

lights are a little bit too low for me to read.

Well, our -- our presentation tonight is going

50 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to include our outreach, our structure, our financial

accountability, and basically, our organizational efforts

to provide a --a great neighborhood council. I don't

think that's the (Inaudible) to provide a neighborhood

council for Echo Park. This has been the effort of many,

many people through the -- over the last year and a half;

and I -- I was shocked to hear that we were influenced by

the outside. And I was glad to hear that the group from

the out -- who the group from the outside was because I

TP11240

was worried it was the League of Women voters that they

were talking about. And I want you to know that

everything that we've done, we've done internally among

our community. Our first speaker tonight is going to be

Marjorie Romer, who wants to talk a little bit about our

organization.

MARJORIE ROMER: My name is Marjorie Romer.

Actually, I'm a resident stakeholder. My -- my thoughts

are about the history of this area that I'm most

concerned about. Los Angeles -- well, the Greater Echo

Park Elysian area is one of the first suburbs of Los

Angeles; but it's also very popular, very historically

well known as the beginnings of Hollywood and this kind

-- the history of Los Angeles. Architecturally, we have

some wonderful Victorian and arts and crafts residences

and buildings here which we want to preserve, and we want

51 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � our stakeholders to know and appreciate what we have in

this community. I, myself, have a home, the hill house

that I live in in this area which is historically well

known; and I feel that we must appreciate this area. And

we were going to try for preserve it. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you.

JESUS SANCHEZ: Hello. My name is Jesus

Sanchez. I want to talk a little bit more about the

history of the area. The Echo Park area is one of the

oldest sections of Los Angeles, as Marjorie said, a place

rich in history. Over the course of more than a century,

the neighborhoods have attracted a numerous of immigrant

groups ranging from Italians, Ukrainians, Filipinos,

TP11240

Cambodians, Mexicans, Central Americans, and the list

goes on. Many of whom, either scattered across the

neighborhood in the city, can still be found in large

numbers in Echo Park.

There are other forms of diversity as well.

Communists and socialists have found a safe haven in Echo

Park which was named Red Hill or Red Gulch during the

World War II era. Evangelists came to the neighborhood

because of Amy Simple MacPherson who founded Angelist

Temple next to Echo Park Lake. Actors and other film

types performed on Glendale Boulevard's five Sabbath

(Phonetic) Movie Studios at the turn of the century when

52 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � that part of the neighborhood was known as Edendale

(Phonetic). Echo Park provided a comfortable place to

live at affordable rents for a wide range of individuals.

Thank you.


SUSAN BORDEN: My name is Susan Borden at the

Echo Park Improvement Association. In April of 2000 we

had Francisco Heredia spoke to us from the Department of

Neighborhood Empowerment, and in November of 2000 we --

we had a -- a program. I'll read this what -- I mean

it's the main program consisted of four speakers on the

subject of neighborhood councils. First speaker was

Erika Setty (Phonetic) who described their purpose and

the city's role in certifying them. Next, Felice Landin

(Phonetic), displayed a map showing the commonly accepted

boundaries of Echo Park, and they were discussed and

revised. Jeb Brigg has now spoken on the value of

TP11240

keeping Echo Park as its own separate council. Finally,

Bennett Kayser spoke making the case for coming together

with nearby neighborhoods. And that was the beginning of

this -- this group.

FELICE LANDIN: Good evening. My name is Felice

Landin (Phonetic). I, too, am a lifelong resident and

very proud of it. Our outreach effort covered a one and

a half years span, and we made a very sincere effort to

53 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � be as inclusive and nondiscriminatory as possible as

evidenced by the scheduling of our presentations and the

variety of locations and a variety of times to

accommodate working residents, particularly parents.

Where we anticipated a need for translators, Spanish

Tagalog, and Chinese brochures were -- were made

available.

For example, here at the Rosemont School, I

think back in August, we spoke to approximately 350

parents and pupils; and we were able to have electric

translation devices on hand. And at the Lotus Festival,

we successfully reached hundreds of ethnically diverse

people using printed material in Spanish, Chinese, and

Tagalog. At the Pioneer Market, another favorite

hangout, we gathered signatures from nearly a hundred

shoppers. Our translator, a young man by the name of

Marino, who happen to be a physician from Cuba, was on

hand to interact with Spanish speaking customers. And at

this Echo Park Child Development Center, which is located

Douglas and Ridge Way, Jose Sagala, who works for one of

the state assemblymen, was gracious in assisting me in a

TP11240

bilingual presentation to about 60 parents who indicated

bilingually their concerns for their neighborhood.

In all, over 30 facilities were contacted in

person that served a representative population of this

54 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � area. They were health care, faith-based, nonprofit,

youth, senior services, small businesses, schools, social

service, and child care services. A little -- a little

later in our program we'll talk to you about future plans

for continued outreach because it is so important, and

Andrew -- Andrew Gartsten will tell you about that. Now,

a little bit earlier there was a young man in a boy scout

uniform -- I'm covering for -- I see. Okay. I beg your

pardon, and Jocelyn will talk to you about --

JOCELYN ROSENTHAL: Okay. I'm -- I'm actually

fine. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Jocelyn

Giaco (Phonetic) Rosenthal, and I have been an activist

in this community, in the Echo Park community, for the

last 37 years. I was part of this organizing committee

to ensure that the Filipino community -- the southern

boundary encompasses the Filipino -- this historic

Filipino community. Unfortunately, the impasse with the

other group never allow any issues of substance like this

to be discussed, and I am truly surprised at the label

I'm getting tonight that I'm a Scientologist or

influenced by such a group because that's certainly is

not true.

I would also like to say that the other

boundary, the other group's boundary, eliminates

significant portions of our community, namely, the

TP11240

55 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Filipino-American Service Group, the search to involve

Filipino-Americans, and segment that we've tried to

incoporate in our boundaries. I thank the staff -- oh,

I'm sorry. I'm done. Thank you.

ANDREW GARTSTEN: No, it's okay. Andrew

Gartsten, 19-year resident, community activist for the

last five years. Jocelyn talked about how we explored

our southern boundary and embraced the Filipino

community. When we were looking at what boundaries we

should take, we used the geographic and historic

definitions of what Echo Park was. We went and listened

to the different communities around our periphery, heard

what they had to say, and respected what they had to say

and -- and moved forward based on that. We -- when we

got to the Silverlake community, we obviously had some

differences. We sat down together, heard what they had

to say, and took out a map and figured out what we could

both live with. Thank you.

STEWART RAPPAPORT: Hi. My name is Stewart

Rappaport. I'm filling in for Steven Arthur who's out of

town. (Inaudible) our group believes that the essential

value of the neighborhood council would be measured by

their ability -- my eyes are going too -- to track and

work productively with agencies, departments, committees,

and delegates of the city responsible in all levels.

56 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376

TP11240� Increasing this will depend on electronic communications

of all types. G. -- Greater Echo Park Elysian

Neighborhood Council has to create a full-on vice

president to run the systems for this groups. Functions

with mainly increase computer literacy in the

neighborhood and respond quickly to items of concern.

This includes E-mail trees, trader discussions which are

readily available to all of Elysian -- Echo Elysian

Neighborhood Council forum, yahoo groups, and other

electronic media that we've had available to us. I have

nothing to do with Scientology either for what it's

worth.


YNES WHITE: Hello, everyone. My name is Ynes

Vililia (Phonetic) White, and I was glad to be of service

shedding some light. And I hope that by just saying a

few words to everyone here and to the board, I may shed

some light regarding our group, the Greater Echo Park

Elysian Neighborhood Group. I moved into the

neighborhood not too long ago, but I plan to stay. And I

plan to be an activist, and I have a lot of enthusiasm.

I learned this enthusiasm from the rest of the group.

I'm sorry -- I'm very new at this democracy. I'm very

excited because the rest of the group was very excited,

and so it's sort of contagious; and so I wanted to be

57 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � involved.

And I do the interpreting and translating. I'm

a certified interpreter and translating for the Spanish

language, and I work with a lot of people that speak no

TP11240 English. And throughout the years I've learned to love

them. As I've noticed the rest of the group, their love

for the community, their dedication. It's almost

contagious so I decided to do the same, and the one way I

thought that I would be able to help is through the

outreach. And we have outreach and -- with interpreting

and translating of every -- every written and every

meeting, and that's what we plan to do. Thank you.

THOMAS DEBOE: My name is Thomas, Thomas Deboe

(Phonetic). I'm a renter, and I live in Echo Park. And

I've lived in Echo Park for a total of more than 12

years. I want to talk about the mission and the policy

for the -- including the bylaws of the Greater Echo Park

Neighborhood Council. We tried to have a really good

discussion because there was really important to us. We

thought that the mission and the policy sets the tone for

the organization, and we want to be very clear that we

wanted to have an organization that listens and is very

respectful for everyone who walks into the organization

regardless of whether or not we know that person or how

long that person has lived in our neighborhood.

58 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Next please. We also want to make sure that

everyone feels that this neighborhood council is for the

whole community so we wanted to have an environment

that's inclusive, and to form this inclusive environment

we've had openly -- open monthly meetings and we've had

these meetings located throughout the neighborhood. It's

very important when people walk into our organization and

when people walk into our meetings that they're treated

TP11240 with respect and dignity.

We were not very light with these words. Each

one of these phrases were discussed heatedly and

passionately because again we're trying to create an

organization that is inclusive and that will grow and

that will make people feel welcome regardless of their

background and regardless of their station in life.

Again, in the spirit of being inclusive, our organization

has -- has produced and sent letters to the named contact

people of the other organization asking them to contact

anyone listed on that -- on that letter to discuss any of

the issues. We made it very clear that we want to make

Echo Park better for everybody; and therefore, we want

them to know that it is open to everybody. Thank you.

JIM CHURCHILL: Good evening, Commissioners.

This is ironic. This is the room -- one of -- the room

where twelve year -- was it 19 -- nine years ago, Tom

59 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Hayden, myself, Jim Churchill, we made a presentation to

plan L. A. help found the neighborhood council movement

working with Greg Nelson to bring neighborhood councils

in. Never in a million years would I, almost to the

date, I have -- as a matther of fact, I have -- if anyone

wants to see it later -- the first issue of the

neighborhood council movement newsletter. I've been

involved in -- in that for a long time and never, in

working in my own community, would I ever expected for

there to be a conflict in two groups. We have -- I'm

going to spend the next three minutes just talking to you

about the differences -- that we were never able to

TP11240 negotiate because there was nobody to negotiate with

because of this specter of accusation with no proof and

being told that we're accusing of the same bad things

when it never happened, to my knowledge. So -- and I

never did -- so let's -- let's go to the substance which

is most important.

The way we constructed our bylaws is in an open

forum where a -- a group that varied from month to month

because people had other life obligations, between 15 and

20 people. The bylaws were developed really over a

period of 15 months, and they were presented at three

public meetings including two consensus votes to approve

them. To our understanding this process did not occur

60 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � for the other group. As far as inclusivity goes -- and

I'm -- I'm highlighting differences because they're

differences we would have wanted to negotiate -- as far

as inclusivity goes our basic, one of our basic premises

is that all stakeholders are created equal and should

have equal opportunity. We didn't segregate residents as

the chief stakeholder. It applied both through

ethnicities and to type of stakeholder so the way we

structured our board or our governance board, we felt it

was unworkable democratically to have a huge board come

together for a number of reasons.

There was quite -- when you heard the staff

report, it wasn't completely accurate in our bylaws the

way we do the -- the number that -- the reasons it's a

variable number is because every year we have rules for

election, and every year the number of people elected

TP11240 would vary as to whether it's based on the principles of

rebirth of urban democracy whether it's going to be one

person for 2500 or one person for 5,000. That would give

us the difference in the numbers. They're geographic and

we remedy any diversity in stakeholders. We remedy any

diversity in stakeholder groups by electing 40 percent of

the board at large. If we don't have enough business

interest, we'll remedy that in our bylaws. We're only

custodians of a process. I'll have to give you the rest

61 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � when I conclude in summary because there's no way to

condense this into three minutes. There's a lot more to

say. I'd rather answer questions later.


SUSAN ESPIRITU MAQUINDANG: Good evening,

Commissioners. My name is Susan Espiritu Maquindang

(Phonetic). I'm the community -- executive director of

Filipino-American Service Group Incoporated, a social

service agency, representing the historic Filipino town

which has right now has 6,000 Filipino residing within

the boundaries of our neighborhood council. We are

trying to preserve the cultural heritage of the Filipinos

who had lived in this neighborhood for over 80 years and

look forward to working with you in developing the

historic Filipino town as the economic and cultural

resources for the community.

I recommended the Peachtree accounting system

for the neighborhood council because it's low cost, easy

to read, easy to use, and simple to understand. The

Peachtree accounting system is where the original

TP11240 invoices are carefully reviewed for proper authorization

and correct pricing. Payments are made according to the

terms specified in the invoice. Financial report will be

prepared monthly the accounting system will prepare

reports that details every transaction by month, and

62 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � account numbers also is assigned to each project. It

will prepare summary reports which total all transaction

by accounting numbers and compare actual expenses to

budget expectations. I think I gave you a copy of the

samples of the Peachtree accounting system for your

perusal. Thank you.

ANDREW GARTSTEN: Andrew Gartsten again. And

I'm going to talk about continuous outreach. During the

process of doing -- getting the bylaws and getting the

structure together for this formation body, we realized

that is not what attracts people into the community

activism. What gets people involved is issues. So out

of this came the idea of doing an issues fare. We -- the

issues fare has really two sets of objectives. The first

objective -- the first set of objectives is to listen and

to learn from the community, and we accomplish this by

having macro-subject focus groups where at our first

meeting in May (Inaudible)

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Excuse me. Excuse

me. Romerol, could you take the conversation outside

please. Go ahead.

ANDREW GARTSTEN: Our first issues fare which is

May 11th at Logan Elementary, we're going to have youth,

seniors, housing, and public safety.

TP11240 And then, the second set of objectives for the

63 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � issues fare is to educate, serve, and then activate. And

that component of the issues fare will be a trade show of

community-based organizations, government service

providers; and people from the community can come in and

say, How can my problems be solved, get educated by these

groups. And then also if they're passionate about some

of the issues, to get involved and figure out how they

can be part of the solution. Thank you.

We'll be moving this -- we'll be doing this on a

quarterly basis and moving them around the communities so

we'll be taking the input from the issues fair and

putting it back into the neighborhood council process to

hone our objectives and make sure we're serving the needs

of the community as, as specifically as possible. Thank

you.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Very good.

HONOROSA CROTCHER: I need light. Hi, good

evening. My name is Honorosa Crotcher (Phonetic). I've

lived in the neighborhood for 25 years. And I'm very

aware how important it is to have bilingual

communication. I work for the P.S.S, and I work with

Spanish speaking people so I'm very committed to

outreach, you know, to translate and help the

neighborhood so -- for better communication. Thank you.

BENNETT KAYSER: No, I'm fine. Thank you. That

64

TP11240 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � concludes the presentation by the various members of our

organizing committee at this time. I just wanted to say

again that, you know, as you've looked at our -- as we've

looked at our process, as we've looked at where we

started years ago where we moved to as we developed our

city charter and where we are today is really right on

the mark, and I hope that we'll see a certification

tonight for our group. Paul Gamborg (Phonetic) has a

closing remark.

PAUL GAMBORG: The power cord left the -- the

closing remark would have been on the slide, but the

power cord left the wall. Basically, by the way some of

those slides were contributed by one of our members who's

had photographs on the cover of L. A. Times Magazine.

That's -- Donna Whitehead has taken some of those

photographs. And so we ought to acknowledge her. Now,

basically, the way we look at this process -- and I'm

only going to make four points. There's -- there's

plenty of more differentiation, but again that can only

be covered if you have questions.

Four points: We just look at ourselves as a

custodian for the process. We're not asking you to vote

for us or choose us or do anything of that nature other

than find a set of bylaws and a set of boundaries that

the community can have the first election based on that

65 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � would make more sense to you as Commissioners. We're

asking you to do the hard thing to make a choice tonight.

We don't see any point in going on with mediation in that

it's become personal, and it's not about substance. As

TP11240

long as it remains in that vein, the best place to take

it is wherever you take slander to. But not -- not in a

public body.

You have another choice you can make. You can

deny certification to both groups. I think that would be

a smack in the face of the community and a bad thing to

do. Just as a student of democracy -- it's like those of

us that aren't burnt out will get burnt out by that

process. You have a a final choice you can split the

dog. You can say, Well, you got 50,000 people here; put

25,000 in one experiment and 25,000 in another

experiment. We have no idea how we would react to that

the way you would split it, but I think those are your

honest choices. I don't think mediation is one of them.

We would happily support any choice you make as long as

the community gets a council. We're merely custodians,

and this community deserves a council. Thank you very

much.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Thank you.

Questions for the applicant? Commissioner Stone?

COMMISSIONER STONE: I guess I'll lead off with

66 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � the -- the same question I asked the other applicant

then, which is two different questions. The first one,

if we were to approve the other applicant's application

the bylaws and the boundaries, would you and your group

continue to participate in the process?

BENNETT KAYSER: We have been looking forward to

a neighborhood council in Echo Park for 15 years, and we

would not give up having a neighborhood council. We

TP11240

would certainly participate in the process.

COMMISSIONER STONE: And then, the flip side if

we were to approve your bylaws and your boundaries

tonight, would you welcome the other folks to

participate; and how would you ensure that they are able

to participate?

BENNETT KAYSER: Well, as you have actually in

your staff report and in your packet, we have sent

letters to the other group indicating our willingness to

come together. We've invited them into the process of

our meetings. We've gone through mediation. As a matter

of fact, our -- in our standing rules we specifically,

for our first elections, have asked to have -- intend to

have a -- an elections committee that includes people

from the Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council to make sure

that they could nominate people from their slate of

officers as well so that we would have a united Echo

67 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Park

COMMISSIONER STONE: Thank you.


Membreno?

BENNETT KAYSER: Excuse me. Before you ask that

question, Commissioner, I just want to say I will not

necessarily be answering all the questions. I'm here to

perhaps bring some of our other speakers back as well who

know more about certain issues than I do.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Okay. Thank you. One

of the questions that I asked earlier to the other

applicant was regarding the -- the composition of the

TP11240

steering committee. One of the claims from the other

group talks about the leadership in your group in -- in

or your application as not representive of the Echo Park

area. Can you speak a little bit about the composition

of your steering committee, who, how, and what, and how

-- how true that claim is?

BENNETT KAYSER: Well, I don't think it's true

that we're not representative of Echo Park. Our

committee is actually been very large and diverse. There

have probably been, you know, 40 or 50 people over the

year and a half who have come on and off of the

committee. I don't -- I think if I did the same exercise

that the other group did earlier, certainly you would not

68 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � see one -- only one member who did not have a -- a

Spanish last name. But we have had a diverse group of

people with a lot of different interests. We have broad

-- we have in all of our writing -- in all of our notices

of meetings -- as a matter of fact you have a Spanish

copy of our bylaws. Everything has been bilingual or

trilingual. We've used Tagalog as well as Spanish and

English. And we've had meetings with interpreter --

interpreters, with people wearing headphones, with people

standing next to somebody with a clipboard who can do

translation. We've made every effort we can to represent

the community. You had a question earlier about the

business community?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Right.

BENNETT KAYSER: And I had -- I had a slightly

different conversation with Bonnie Scanlan in this

TP11240

process. And -- and Bonnie had said that, you know,

they're both two groups that are very good groups for

Echo Park, and the Chamber of Commerce really wanted to

wait to see what the outcome of tonight's meeting would

be. And then, they would come onboard; that was also

true with the L. A. Dodgers. Paul Gamborg has a -- an

additional comment to make in that respect.

PAUL GAMBORG: Very small comment that applies

to this area unlike any other area in the city. It's

69 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � very easy in both census counting and in DONE's work to

confuse Filipino and Spanish surnames. There's a much

higher density of Filipinos in this part of community

around Filipino town than the census data would -- would

indicate. We have -- and to answer your question --

truly, we have a large composition; we don't have a

steering committee. We have outreach. We've never had a

board as such. We kind of amorphous set of committee in

which there may be 15 or 20 at the core. And then there

could be as many as 50; and a large part of that has been

Filipino participation, some of which have Hispanic

surnames.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Thank you. One more

question on the bylaws. Can you talk a little bit about

the -- the represent -- the representatives that will be

appointed? You talked about finding a balance. For

those who have not been elected, you would put -- you

would actually select someone? Is that how I read that?

BENNETT KAYSER: We -- yes, we have a provision

in our bylaws that after an election is over that if it

TP11240

turns out there are groups in -- of Echo Park who are not

represented on our board, for example, if -- if for some

reason there wasn't a member of the business community

elected to the board, the board has the authority to

elect the certain number -- and you have to forgive me on

70 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � the percentage -- 40 per -- up to 40 percent of its

number the board can elect or appoint additional at-large

board members to -- who would meet these requirements to

make sure that we have those interest on the board. It

seems like a very great experiment that we're doing with

that to allow to make -- to assure diversity and not --

and not worry so much about necessarily what the

diversity would be on election day.

I did also want just -- want to make one

correction. It was in the -- in the annotated staff

report that I had sent you, but the -- our -- our

officers are not elected by voice vote if that's

impression somewhere it's a mistake. It -- it said

explicitly in our bylaws that we submitted with our

application, paper ballots; and as we went to the model

-- the model bylaws that were presented to us by DONE, it

may be that that fell out as a typographical error but

certainly our intent is not to have voice votes but

actually have written ballots.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: In a general election?

BENNETT KAYSER: Yes, and for officers, for

officers.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: For officers. Thank

you.

TP11240

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Commissioner?

71 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: No, thank you

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Well, one of

my questions, what about the voice issue because that

does appear in the bylaws as a -- as a line item which, I

think, needs to be corrected going forward. The other

question --

BENNETT KAYSER: We looked, we looked --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Pardon?

BENNETT KAYSER: I don't mean to interrupt you,

Commissioner, but we -- we tried to find it and may be

--may be our eyes are just blurry from so many copies.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Well, the -- the

version that I have is dated 4/11 or printed 4/11, says

that "for officers all except the secretary are elected

by voice vote of all stakeholders at the annual meeting."

That's B1 on page 5 of 15 (Inaudible)

BENNETT KAYSER: If that's there, that's a --

that's a typographical error, or at least it's something

we didn't mean to put in. We never -- we never voted to

amend our bylaws from the -- from the paper ballot.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. The second

item on -- on the same clarification is that when you

talk about the -- appointing the -- the board members to

-- to remedy the question of diversity, it reads in -- in

the bylaw as point -- up to nine or six to nine

72

TP11240 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � additional board members to remedy any diversity of

stakeholder skills or type. That would be, I believe,

any lack of diversity?

BENNETT KAYSER: Any lack of diversity,

certainly.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: That would make it --

make it a little more appropriate. Another question on

the -- the boundary with the Silverlake Neighborhood

Council, the staff is recommending, what I'll refer to as

the Waterloo boundary, is that amenable to -- to your

group?

BENNETT KAYSER: It's functionally the same

group, same border, it has the a different definition but

actually includes the same properties that we agreed to

in our facilitated discussion a couple weeks ago.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. The only other

question I had had to do with the extension of the

boundaries below Beverly Boulevard for the -- what --

what appears to be a six-square block area -- and you

could explain why that particular portion is -- is

included.

BENNETT KAYSER: I'd like to have Jocelyn Giaco

Rosenthal come back to -- to answer that.

JOCELYN ROSENTHAL: There is a large Filipino

community in the Benton Way-Third Street area, just --

73 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � just east of Benton Way. There are about 30 families

there who've been very active in the community and want

to belong to this neighborhood council. Also, the

TP11240 Filipino-American Service Group is located on Park View

Avenue and Beverly. I don't know if that's -- if that's

the area you were talking about -- or just beyond. And,

of course, Marjorie Romer who's one of our members has

been our dedicated member of this neighborhood council

lives -- also lives in that area, and she is very

familiar with the Filipino -- the composition of that

area -- the Filipino composition of that area. And she

spoke to the historic nature of that area that we would

like to preserve and -- and improve and maintain.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Lastly, I'll

(Inaudible) --

BENNETT KAYSER: Marjorie's house is on the list

of historic place from the Echo Park Historical Society

also.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. I'll come back

to the -- to the Dodger question again and ask what --

what efforts were made to contact the Dodgers directly to

-- for involvement in the neighborhood council?

BENNETT KAYSER: We've -- we've been in touch

with the Dodgers, yeah, at -- at least three or four

times. And basically, they have said, as I'd mentioned

74 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � about the Chamber of Commerce, they were reluctant to

take sides on this issue and would rather as with the

Chamber of Commerce basically; and I say that in a good

way, not in a negative way for either group. They were

reluctant to take sides, and they said that after

certification that they would work with the group that

was certified.

TP11240 COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Outside of the

the banner of the Chamber of Commerce is -- is there any

other business involvement or -- or worker involvement in

the neigh -- in the formation of the neighborhood council

that you can point to?

BENNETT KAYSER: Paul do you want to --

PAUL GAMBORG: Back in '89 we had a homicide in

Rampart, and the first guy I turned to who was alive at

the time was Tommy Kulax (Phonetic) (Inaudible) so --

Tommy is solidly for us behind the Roselake boundary that

they -- the other group -- has picked up happens to be

where Brooklyn Bagel is, and Richard Friedman who owns

that bakery is solidly behind us and has furnished food

for our meetings and worked hand in hand when we

organized the upper Rampart Heights Neighborhood

Association in '89 and got 501(c)4 exemption from the

IRS. We were very much a group dedicated to this bible

of businesses, residents, everybody from -- we had 17

75 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � cultures on our block. We had potlucks from day one, and

it will continue that way. And yes, we believe very

strongly that you have to work with the businesses. We

must increase the visibility of both Beverly and Temple

in terms of removing light and attracting businesses to

that area and creating more jobs for people. And we

believe neighborhood councils have to function very

strongly in that regard. We want to align with

businesses, very much so.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Commissioner

Stone?

TP11240 COMMISSIONER STONE: I have a follow up question

to President Christopher's boundary question about the

southwest corner. My question is it sounds from what I'm

hearing there is a strong Filipino contingency in that

area. Is there also a significant number of Filipinos or

Filipino -- strong Filipino community outside of that

area but elsewhere within the boundaries?

BENNETT KAYSER: Well, I'll give -- I'll say

yes, but I'll let Jocelyn --

COMMISSIONER STONE: Yes.

BENNETT KAYSER: -- speak.

JOCELYN ROSENTHAL: Yes, indeed. In fact, our

population which is probably a million in the Southern

California region is quite dispersed; however, this

76 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � targeted area is what we're calling the historic Filipino

town which was populated for the last 80 years as Susan

Maquindang (Phonetic) mentioned. And we would like to

probably expand it farther, but there are negotiations

with other councils that have to bear on -- on this whole

deliberation as to where we set the boundaries. But I

don't know exactly -- if you could clarify the question

further, I would appreciate it.

COMMISSIONER STONE: So when you say historic

Filipino town, is that limited to just the -- I don't

want to say disputed area, but I guess it is a disputed

-- the additional area, or is it -- would that historic

Filipino town include other parts of the Greater Echo

Park Neighborhood Council?

JOCELYN ROSENTHAL: It -- it does include other

TP11240 parts of the Greater Echo Park Neighborhood Council,

certainly. It incorporates also a significant portion of

the cultural and current population of what we call the

historic Filipino town.

COMMISSIONER STONE: Okay.

(End of first tape)

Let me just clarify a little bit. There's more

than 6,000 Filipinos residing in the historic Filipino

town. There is the boundary of Robinson, Third Street,

Douglas, and the boundary of Sunset. There's a high

77 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � concentration of Filipino towns going up in Atwater area

and all this, you know, park going to North Hollywood,

but that historic Filipino town has 6,000. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Commissioner Duran?

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: We covered the

Filipino culture, and that's -- that's great. I've

noticed, though, that we do have some African-American

people. We do have some native American people. How

successful have you been in bringing them bringing them

into your -- into your group?

BENNETT KAYSER: We have done outreach to

everyone. As a matter of fact, I was surprised as we

looked at the census track data to find that several of

my neighbors -- I don't know who they are, but several of

my neighbors in my census tract are Native American. And

I -- I don't know exactly how to find them, but as -- as

we worked, you know, our -- our outreach has been as much

as we can do as a volunteer group with a budget of what

we can provide out of our own wallets and checkbooks.

TP11240 And we know that we can do a better budget once we become

-- or a better outreach once we become certified and we

don't have the -- the distraction of the -- of the

two-group issue, and we also we'll -- we'll actually have

the budget and the ability to do mailings and so on to do

more outreach and whatever else it takes. We have -- our

78 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � outreach has included articles, notices in the newspaper

in the Hollywood Independent. Our outreach has included

going door to door in our neighborhoods where, you know,

when we go down the street we don't know when we knock on

the door who's going to answer. If we -- if we targeted

specific ethnics groups, I don't -- I don't think that we

have -- we have we wanted to be inclusive, but we don't

want to leave anybody behind because of being exclusive.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Thank you.


questions?

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Just a matter of

interest -- I'm sorry -- on the outreach that, you know,

I noticed there was quite a bit, apparently quite a bit

of outreach done outside the boundaries. Was that when

you first started both --

BENNETT KAYSER: Well, our boundaries started

out larger.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Okay.

BENNETT KAYSER: They included Forgotten Edge.

They included Solano Canyon. They included Elysian

Valley. They included portions of what are now part of

the Silverlake Neighborhood Council and also points south

TP11240 so people who -- who signed that we were initially in

when we put them in our database they were within the

79 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � boundaries that we were proposing

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Thank you.


questions?

BENNETT KAYSER: I -- I want to highlight one

other thing, if I could, Commissioner Christopher, that

in terms of the -- if -- if you actually look at the

signatures that were submitted by the staff report where

they mentioned the percentage of renters and Latinos and

Asian Pacific Islanders and so on the other group had 77

renters, we were 76; the other group had 68 percent

Latino, we had 67; the other group had 17 percent Asian

Pacific Islanders, we had 19 percent. And in the rest of

the categories we were identical. So in terms of our

outreach I would -- I think it would be fair, and as a

matter of fact, with those numbers we also had a hundred

and 11 more signatures than they did. So in terms of

that comparison I think it would be -- it would have been

more fair to say in the staff report that it was

inconclusive in terms of the -- of the outreach that was

being done.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I'll take that as a

response to a question not asked.

BENNETT KAYSER: Thank you. Thank you again,

Commissioner.

80

TP11240 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. All right.

We've now heard from both applicants. We've heard from

the staff. It's now time to hear from the audience at

large. So I will give my usual admonition at this point

and that anyone this evening who comes to the microphone

and who is throwing either insults or furniture will be

sent to the principal's office for detention. But we do

want to maintain decorum tonight, and we do want to

maintain order so that I want to ask you to hold your

applause until later on in the evening when the speakers

come to the microphone. We're going to do this a little

bit differently tonight because about 90 percent --

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: I'm going to ask

for a one-minute break.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. We have a

request for a short break before we go to the microphone.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: One minute. That's

it.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: One minute and if

you'll indulge us please, and then we'll come back. I

ask everybody to take your seats again. We'll try to get

started again. All right. Again, please take your seat

so we can get started. We're going to open the public

hearing and take comments first from a group of people

who have not indicated a preference on their card since

81 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � that's the majority of the people we had signed up

tonight. So our first caller this evening is going to be

Chi Esiri (Phonetic) followed by Leon Older followed by

TP11240

Barbara Rousch (Phonetic) so one- or two-minute clock for

everybody.

CHI ESIRI: Oh, I just have one comment. The --

I believe in neighborhood council we need to have the

neighborhood council for Echo Park, but I myself feel

very uncomfortable having two groups. I was very hopeful

that we will unite as one and rather than having two

groups but become -- two group become one, and my

neighbors feel the same. And during the outreach I went

to the Baro (Phonetic) Hospital in Dodger Stadium, and

boss institution stated that because there are two groups

they could not choose one at this time but they would

like to participate. That's all. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you Leon Older,

Barbara Rousch, and Alicia Brown.

LEON OLDER: Hi. My name is Leon Older. I live

on Coronado Terrace. I'm not -- I'm not really

comfortable choosing between the two groups because I was

working with the Silverlake group. Up until now I

thought we were going to be part of the Silverlake

Association. I did attend one meeting of the Greater

Elysian group, and I was impressed with their openness

82 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � and the way they are going about things, but I did not

attend any meetings of the other group so I'm not -- not

qualified. What I would like to comment on are two

things. I kind of think that these groups are all too

big trying to represent too big a section of the

community. I was disappointed when I heard some of the

compromises that had to be made on boundaries that split

TP11240

communities. I think you might be able to avoid those if

you had smaller councils. The other thing is I met with

-- with some of your staff, and I think you need to

direct your staff to get out in the community more and

spend more time walking around neighborhoods. As a

resident, I didn't receive anything from the city staff,

and when I talked to some of the city staff I had a

feeling that they were so tied up in their reports and in

their office duties they don't get enough time to get out

to the community and get to know what these communities

are -- are like and what even what the physical

boundaries of the communities are. That's all.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Barbara

Rousch, Alicia Brown, and Sue Nelson.

BARBARA ROUSCH: Thank you very much for this

opportunity. I am Barbara Rousch, and I was born here

on Silverlake Boulevard. And I've lived here almost all

my life, and I've been struggling for 50 years as a

83 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � business woman. And I love Echo Park. I love the people

in it. We are all interested in seeing that all

ethnicities receive fair play. And that must be

including those who have invested their life savings and

financial futures in this beloved area. The -- the

inclusion of those who have made these investments is

only fair and right. And these are not -- and I'm not

talking -- these are not transients who tend to leave or

just comes or goes but people who really put roots down

here, and that includes all -- all ethnicities. And

they're not leaving someday. We need prosperous,

TP11240

bouyant, and beautiful Echo Park for everyone. This is

in response to the other side's stressing just one

ethnicity. We need conditions that will encourage

everyone of all ethnicities to live and work in Echo

Park, to build this up to where it used to be and what it

can be. This is a terrific area. We need everybody to

get behind it and -- and to make it possible for people

to have prosperous businesses here and safe businesses.

Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Alicia

Brown, Sue Nelson, and Peter Wolf.

ALICIA BROWN: Yes. I'm Alicia Brown. Right

now I'm -- I wear two hats. I'm with the Historic

Cultural Neighborhood Council, and we'll be meeting again

84 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � on the 27th so we'll see you then. But I did -- I was

here tonight so I could get some pointers on how these

certification hearings go, and I'm glad I came. The

people in Solano Canyon are very sensitive as to our

boundaries, and we -- the first thing I noticed when I

came in --- and I spoke to -- spoke to Michelle about it

-- and that is that you're showing on this map that

corner that's yellow, that is Parkland. And the other

side there's a wedge there that like a rectangle from

Casanova that's public -- excuse me -- that's private

property. There's a big complex there called Cassanova

Gardens, and we are still trying to get signatures on

there. So I feel that that should be corrected as part

of Solano Canyon.

Also, Park Road, Park Road Drive starts on

TP11240

Cassanova, and it goes across the freeway. And there's

only about six houses, but they're ours so we got to see

that's on there. So I see different maps, and it's just

so important to us that I thought it should -- to call it

to your attention; and then Michelle tells me that you

may have another map that doesn't really explain that so

I don't know. Would you like to ask me where the

boundaries are or do we talk about it now or do I wait

until --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: We'll come back --

85 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � we'll come back to the question later on

ALICIA BROWN: On the 27th?

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: No, later.

ALICIA BROWN: Just later on, okay. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Sue Nelson, Peter

Wolf, and Sylvia Bonham.

SUE NELSON: Hello. I'm Sue Nelson, and a long

time activist on preservation issues particularly open

space and parks and community; and I've been in Echo Park

-- I was -- been in L.A. since 1930, but in Echo Park for

the last 15 years. And it's a great area. It's a

wonderful place. I am most interested -- and I do think

the boundaries that are here are pretty good. I think

they're coming close to what is actually needed. As far

as the two groups, I don't get the other side because

it's very clear that the bylaws for open elections are

the way to solve it. You just have elections, and that

will solve -- that will integrate the community.

I'm -- would like to also see some maps that

TP11240

will include some of Elysian Valley in the -- in the

overall boundary, and I'd also like to have more

information on how you would monitor elections and how

you would see elections and whether they're going to be

citywide or will each area have their own way or putting

a council together. That perplexes me as a political

86 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � scientist. It seems to me that is sort of going back to

the pre-Napoleon era in -- in Germany. So I'd like to

see some evenness in how the councils are formed, but in

general it's a -- it's a huge task. And I think you've

come a long way, and I think these boundaries look pretty

good. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Peter Wolf,

Sylvia Bonham, and Michael O'Brien.

PETER WOLF: I'm a resident of this area. I've

lived here and owned my house years for the last couple

years. I grew up in Los Angeles. I feel there is a real

clear difference between these two groups and that the

Greater Echo Park Elysian Group seems to be very

inclusive and the other group doesn't seem to be wanting

to listen to anybody else's ideas. My feelings are I

want an inclusive that might listen to me, and I don't

feel I would be respected by the other group. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Sylvia

Bonham. Michael -- again, please let's keep the applause

til later.

SYLVIA VIABEHINE: Hi. My name is Sylvia

Viabehine (Phonetic), and I was born and raised in Echo

Park. And presently I'm a member of the McArthur

TP11240

Neighborhood Council, and many years ago I worked for

Councilman Ferraro. And I just want to thank the DONE

87 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � staff that I've been working with. They've been

excellent. Any time I've needed some documentation, I've

been able to download it from my computer. Anything I've

needed they've been there. They've helped us with our

translation, and the translations have been in Spanish

and Korean. And so I'm very happy with DONE's staff. I

want to say thank you to Simon, Michelle, Melvin, and

Marco. They've been very good to our office.

I'm here to speak as a former resident of Echo

Park that I hope that these differences can be worked out

because we do need representation in the Echo Park area.

I'm not here to take sides with either group this

evening. I was here to see and observe how the

certification process works because we haven't done that

yet. We're in that developing that for our council so I

was here as an observer and as former resident of Echo

Park, and I hope that something can be resolved because

if it isn't then no one will be certified. And this area

will be not represented in the, you know, for DONE; and

those people that live and work in Echo Park will not be

represented. And I also want to thank the Los Angeles

Police Department for doing an outstanding job. Thank

you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Michael

O'Brien, Yssa Kay Mecson (Phonetic), and Laurie Garner.

TP11240 88 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � MICHAEL O'BRIEN: Just to echo the previous

speaker, I think that Echo Park needs to be represented

regardless of who represents us. And I don't

particularly care which group represents me, but I've

been listening very carefully. And I've been attending

meetings for both groups for the past year on and off as

possible. I have a life so I couldn't get to all of

them, and I've noticed that the -- let me get the names

right -- the Greater Echo Park proposal resolves the

boundary disputes but the Echo Elysian proposal didn't.

The Greater Echo Park had greater compliance to the staff

report than the Echo Elysian Council. The Greater Echo

Park announced their meetings on the Echo Elysian Yahoo

group where as the Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council

never did.

These things began to worry me. And I went to

the first a conciliation meeting that DONE hosted between

the two neighborhood groups, and the Greater Echo Park

group was all in favor of meeting for conciliation when

the Echo Elysian Neighborhood group was asked if they

wanted to go down that route they said no. Frankly, I

was shocked. And sitting here tonight it seemed to me

that I heard greater statements -- more statements that

were positive and inclusive from the Greater Echo Park

Council than from the Echo Elysian Council, and I

89 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � unfortunately got a lot of negative vibes from the Echo

Elysian Council presentation. So again I don't care

TP11240 which represents me, but if I had to choose it would be

the Greater Echo Park Council. And I think that Echo

Park needs to be represented and to fail -- to fail to

choose one or the other would be a crime, and what

(Inaudible) would advocate the responsibility.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Yssa Kay

Mecson, Laurie Garner, and Mike Webster.

YSSA KAY MECSON: Okay. My name is Yssa K.

Mecson, and I've lived in Echo Park since 1962. But I

don't only live in Echo Park, I live in the world. And

as I look -- well, when I look at the world, I am

appalled, devastated, and shocked at the situation not

only between Palestine And Israel but the massacres that

have dominated this past century. We are almost at the

abyss, and if we cannot here -- I mean neighborhood

councils -- what is this? This is not something that can

be resolved? People are killing each other. The

distraction is so overwhelming. If we cannot come up

with solutions to talk with each other here at the

neighborhood level at the most human connection, there is

truly impossible to see that there's a future for

humanity. I mean -- that's what I mean when I say I live

in the world. I cannot believe there's no one in this

90 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � room who's evil. I let Bush define evil. We are not.

And so people here in this room on both sides

have worked together for years, many, many issues; and

the issue still confronts us. We need our combined

strength and talents to deal with the 101 (Inaudible)

study, with the determinus projects, with the citizens'

TP11240 committees problems here. We -- everyone here knows the

kinds of things I'm referring to so I don't have to, you

know, elaborate on the point. I think I made the point

to -- to clarify exactly. We must get together form a

single unit. It is possible we must find a way to do it.

The second point -- just getting back to the

business community just in aside since it's come up so

many times, Irene Camarena spoke, she is the one with --

who's now the president of -- of the Chamber. She's very

aware that there has been very little recognition of the

needs of many, many of the small business especially

those south of the Hollywood Freeway. There is a

concerted effort this year on the part of the Chamber to

reach out and do a survey of the needs of the business

community clear down the Glendale Corridor, Temple, and

so on. So be aware that they are aware of the inadequacy

of the Chamber as it is now is, and there is tremendous

outreach being made.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you Laurie

91 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Garner, Michael Webster, and Dave Keitel

LAURIE GARNER: Hi. I'm sorry. I'm Laurie

Garner. I live in the Echo Park area, and I'm here -- I

will try to be brief. Something has been said and

lacking tonight. In the last few years in that area we

have had several major events like this that affected the

Echo Park area particularly -- not particularly Elysian,

and we're rather used to them. We've had these hearings,

and we've had these highly organized groups come in and

tell us they are our representatives, they should

TP11240 represent us, they know what's good for us, they've got

it all planned out down to the last inch. And you know

what, we've learned to look for the hidden agenda. It's

always there, and it comes up. And it bites you in the

tail.

We've had it again and again so we (Inaudible)

are a little bit skeptical about all good news that have

been presented in the dog-and-pony show tonight. We've

had them before, never quite as organized as this one

which has been rather staggering its effect, but take

another look. There are a lot of people here who have

worked actively in that area who are willing to work

actively in that area, but they expect to have it -- an

organization from the area coming up, if you like, not

brought in and dumped in our lapS. Thank you.

92 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Michael

Webster, Dave Keitel, and Michelle McGrath.

MICHAEL WEBSTER: Hello. I just wanted to --

I'm Mike Webster. I live on Alvarado Street. I'm not --

I'm not a member of either group. I just wanted to share

my experiences. I went to -- when I'm interested in --

neighborhood councils, I went to one meeting of the

GETPAC which at that time was called River West. When I

perceived that they were two different groups, it struck

me as futile to -- to get involved in organizing for a

group that may or may not exist. And I thought I would

better -- do better to spend my efforts trying to

reconcile the two groups so I organized a meeting to be

held at the church -- at the -- at the -- the church on

TP11240 Alvarado. I distributed hundreds of fliers, contacted

the leadership of both groups. I called personally

everybody involved and -- and the meeting was well

attended but -- but only by one side.

The -- the -- the leadership of the Echo Elysian

posted messages on the E-group asking we will not to come

to the meeting and I was -- I was disappointed. I then,

decided I should come to one of the Echo Elysian meetings

and see if the membership -- what the feeling was among

people in the membership towards the other group because

I wanted to understand why it wasn't possible for these

93 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � two groups to form one. I looked at the bylaws and the

boundaries. I didn't see the differences that are earth

shattering, 50 people or 20 people census tract and so

our historic district, you know, a whoop dee doo. And

it's not something that, you know, grown people can't

raise their hands and -- and -- and (Inaudible) reach

some compromises about.

I went to the Echo Elysian meeting, and I waited

patiently to ask my question after very long and very

informative presentations on a variety of topics as you

can imagine. And then, I asked how many people here are,

you know, you know, you're aware of the other group, how

many people here would like to, I was cutoff and told

that I wasn't meant to address the people or ask a

question of the people who are at the meeting. In the

end I think there are things of value in the EENC's

bylaws, and I certainly have great respect for the

leadership. And I think it -- it's -- it's a shame,

TP11240 however, that the meetings weren't deliberative -- in the

form of a deliberative body where you can discuss and

make decisions on things.

And my only anxiety about choosing them since

fundamentally I don't -- I actually don't care in terms

of the bylaws and boundaries -- my only anxiety has to do

with the process in meetings because whichever one is

94 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � certified, I will go to the meetings and try my best to

be involved. I would say, though, that based on my

experiences trying to reconcile the groups that I think

that is impossible and that there's -- there's an

atmosphere of paranoia which you may have noticed, which

-- which is really not going to be overcome. I think

through -- unfortunately, it's -- it's very sad; but it's

the fact. So I would just -- I would hope you don't take

it back and -- or send it back for the groups to work out

because I think that's impossible. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Dave Keitel,

Michelle McGrath, and Jim McCliston.

DAVE KEITEL: Good evening. I'm Dave Keitel.

I've spent the last couple of years working on the

Silverlake formation effort. I'm here in case it was not

clear from the DONE report or from any of the other

people that you've heard to confirm both the process and

the result of the mediation efforts with both groups.

The most important thing being I think that both before

the certification application was filed and after we made

attempts and welcomed the opportunity to speak with both

groups, EENC refused to discuss the disputes with us

TP11240 before and after the application was filed. GEPENC took

the opportunity to go ahead and engage in that dialogue

with us before and after the application was filed and

95 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � that the result was as stated in the DONE report, and I

think maybe that says something about efficacy and

inclusiveness going forward. So I'm here to say that

we're here; and if you had any questions about that

process, we're here to respond to that. And hopefully,

we'll see you later in the summer with our own

application.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Michelle

McGrath and Jim McCliston. Michelle McGrath, going once?

Oh, I'm sorry it was a written submittal. Okay. We'll

take that under advisement. Jim?

JIM MCCLISTON: Jim McCliston, East Hollywood

Community Association. I've listened to both sides on

this, and one thing that bothers me about the

applications on both sides, which the general manager is

going to talk about on Item 3, they're both very large

organizations and there is a problem about outreach

naturally because we don't have a lot of time in getting

an answer back to whoever in the city we have to get the

answer back to. And the Brown Act kind of fouls us up so

we have to really move fast. So the subcommittee ideas

don't seem to jell too well with me.

The other problem I noticed is if you have a

board of 50, and you're only getting 25 or 30 people to a

meeting, you're going to have a hard time getting a

TP11240

96 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � quorum and you probably won't be able to transact any

business at all so that really bothers me. And some of

the answers that the EE group gave also bothered

me because I don't think they really thought everything

out, and I know the other group seems to be very well

organized. And I know they've done a lot of really heavy

lobbying in the past so I think probably I'd have to say

if it -- push came to shove, I think the one group is

going to have to be pushed back for a little bit more

work. And if they don't want to do that, why, I guess

you're going to have to tell them sorry. The other group

seems to be vey malleable, and maybe there are some

things wrong with their application. And maybe they'll

have to be held over too especially if there's some

boundary problems and things like that. That had just

been brought up but at least it sounds like they have

cooperated and have democracy. That's my opinion.


That concludes the speakers who have not marked their

preferences on the card. Now, we have speakers who are

in support of the EENC. Lupe Mendoza Fernandez?

LUPE MENDOZA FERNANDEZ: Good evening and thank

you. I'm here as a parent. I'm also here as a

representative of parents for the Belmont Learning

Complex, and while I applaud the efforts on both sides to

97 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � bring in the parents, I was very dismayed to see only

that I could only recognize maybe five parents. And the

TP11240

reason that is is because most of the parents in our

community are lower income. And if we don't get us

involved as we'd like to is because most of us have

children in elementary school. I'm fortunate I have

teenagers so they're at home with my mom, but even at

this late hour, late hour I know I'm going to catch hell

when I get home for not being at home with the kids. If

you look at the majority of the audience, most of them

either have grown-up children, or maybe I don't know if

they have the means to provide babysitting. But I would

really appreciate in the future if we have speakers speak

first because we -- we cannot stay into these late hours.

Second of all, I heard someone say that we the

people from EENC received E-mail messages. Guess what.

Most of us do not have have computers so we -- that did

not keep us from attending any meeting. And part of the

reason I -- I favor this group and part of the reason I'm

that I'm not that eager to work with the other group is

because I don't have the trust there. First of all, we

were the Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council while they

have started out River West. Now, they changed their

name, and that has caused some confusion in the

neighborhood because the names are so similar. So please

98 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � keep in mind that the majority of the people in this

community aren't even present here tonight because it's

very difficult for us to attend. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. The only

other two cards I have in support are from Jeb Brigghouse

and Juanita Delomas. Jeb, I'll give you two additional

TP11240

minutes if you want at this point, or you want to wait

for the rebuttal?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: I'll wait.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Juanita, the

same issue. I have two minutes available or you can wait

til the rebuttal.

JUANITA DELOMAS: (Inaudible) I'm sorry.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: We're going through

cards in support of the EENC, and the only card remaining

is yours. And since you've already spoken, I'll give you

the opportunity of taking two minutes now or waiting til

the rebuttal period.

JUANITA DELOMAS: I think I've had enough time.


JUANITA DELOMAS: Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Is there

anyone else who'd like to speak in support of the EENC?

Okay. Then let's move to the supporters of the Greater

Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council, starting with

99 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Vincent Brook, Edwardo Sousa, and Lenny White.

VINCENT BROOK: Good evening. I'm Vincent

Brook. I'm the president of the Silverlake Improvement

Association and one of the main organizers of the

Silverlake Neighborhood Council formation group. And I'm

somewhat reluctant to come forward and speak on the side

of one group or the other because as a neighbor of Echo

Park we're joined at the hip geographically,

demographically, in any number of ways with our

neighboring community, and we'd like to remain in good

TP11240

terms with whomever is selected here today. However,

because of the fact that we are so close and neighbors, I

feel compelled to really speak on behalf of the Greater

Echo Park group because they are the only group that has

been willing to work with us and to speak with us. We've

heard a lot of talk about democracy and openness,

receptivity, and inclusivity. The only group that has

demonstrated the ability to exercise those abilities has

been the Greater Echo Park community so in terms of the

future of our neighborhood council and our ability to

work with our neighbors, which I think is one of the

important aspects of the neighborhood council process

that hasn't been discussed here, it's not only forming a

viable body within the community but the ability to work

effectively with your neighboring communities to form

100 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � regional bodies. And due to the experience that we have

had over the last few months, we have no choice really

but to come down very solidly on behalf of the Greater

Echo Park community. Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Edwardo Sousa,

Lenny White, and Julie Fritus (Phonetic).

EDWARDO SOUSA: Hi. Edwardo Sousa, I live here

in Temple and Bowdry area. I just wanted to voice my

support for the GEPENC because they included me in their

boundaries.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Lenny White,

Julie Fritus, and Robert Moss.

LEHI WHITE: My name is Lehi White. That's

L-e-h-i.

TP11240

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Sorry.

LEHI WHITE: And I have always gotten

(Inaudible) pen man ship so that's -- it's -- it's no

problem. I just like to voice my support for the -- I

can't remember the acronym -- the Greater Elysian Echo

Park has always been a confusing acronym for me, and

outside of the fact that I've -- I've been going to their

meetings I feel that they're more positive. And they're

more -- and I feel that that would be the reason that

they seem to be more inclusive is they're more positive

and they try to reach out to more people. And that's

101 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � where I'd like to leave it

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Julie Fritus,

Robert Moss, and Jan Gamborg.

JULIE FRITUS: I'm Julie Fritus, and I -- I

wanted to just say that Greater Echo Park does not have a

group ruling of Scientologist. I know that for a fact,

and I also want to give my support to a man who is a

student of mine, Andrew Gartsten, who I know is reliable

and honest; and he has been responsible for trying to

preserve a lot of the buildings in Echo Park and has

worked dilligently to create neighborhood participation.

I've known him for three and a half years, and he was

very supportive of me when my son was killed in -- in

South America. He and his wife called me regularly and

invited me to dinner and carried me through a very

difficult period. And I think that some of the remarks

were unfortunately untrue toward -- toward these people,

and I just want to make that statement. Thank you very

TP11240

much.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Robert

Moss and Jan Gamborg.

ROBERT MOSS: Unfortunately, I missed most of

the proceedings this evening just the very very beginning

and perhaps the last 15 minutes so I can't comment on

what I was not present for. I will say, though, that

102 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � whoever gets the charter -- whichever group does succeed,

they're certainly going to need the ability to have

dialogue, to negotiate. Probably they'll be called upon

to perhaps mediate smaller groups within the neighborhood

that had very similar sorts of contentious issues, and

they need to have that ability. That's going to be part

of it as well as negotiating with the city government at

large, and I think we've seen without me saying much more

in this precertification who has the ability and the

willingness to do such negotiating and engage in dialogue

and who does not.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. And Jan

Gamborg?

JAN GAMBORG: Thanks. Is this okay? I guess.

I just wanted to say in this neighbor -- I've been in

this neighborhood for, gosh, over 25 years; and I -- I --

I've lived in this neighborhood. I've worked in this

neighborhood. I've lots of friends in this neighborhood.

I shop here, I eat there, you know, it's -- it's been a

thriving community to me. I would love -- one of the

things I've seen happen is often one group will begin

something, and then other people with pick up. Sort of

TP11240

if you build it they will come in principle. We saw with

in the Field of Dreams soccer field. The people who got

together and built that field were not the field were not

103 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � the people who had children who played in that field

later. A group of us did Burlington Avenue Garden. We

were not the gardeners. The neighborhood -- the

neighborhood people became the gardeners and kept that

going for another six years, and it's still going. The

same thing will happen with whatever -- whatever you guys

choose. However you do it, the community will pick up.

Sometimes people can't sit through a process that's so

complex and take so long. I was in this room the night

that Tom Hayden was here also. That was many years ago.

I haven't been back since. I knew it was going to be

long and complex. I had other things and other agendas.

I didn't come back until tonight so I want to wish you

all the luck. And I don't know how you're going to

decide what's going on, but this is a fine community and

strong people; and they will back whatever decision. And

they'll come through, and they'll come out in droves.

Then the outreach will clear -- then, it will work.

People will come out because it will be worth their time.

They'll want to come out for a Friday night or a Sunday

afternoon whereas they didn't want to while there was

divisiveness, uncertainty, questions that were

unanswered, confusions, policies to be dealt with, bylaws

that they had no need to understand until these things

were resolved. So anyway, as a part of this community I

TP11240

104 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � thank you for your patience, your understanding, and your

time; and I -- I know that we'll do you proud.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: All right. Thank

you. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak in support

of the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council?

Okay. There are five cards which were submitted by

people who have left the auditorium already, from Roberto

Negrete, from senator Poulaki's office, Barbara Fitz

Hernandez, Kathlyn Woodson, and David Bucard and Michelle

McGrath, all expressing general level of support for the

Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council. So with

that it's now time to close the public hearing, and it's

time for the board to actually do --

MALE SPEAKER: I'm sorry. I would like to

(Inaudible)

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Have you spoken

already? Okay

MALE SPEAKER: I submitted a card. I'm not sure

why I didn't get called in. A lot of the members of the

community -- a lot of the community activists did not

participate in this process. They were conflicted. I

started my involvement trying to figure out why there

were two groups; and when I saw that there were some

intransigence in one group, I said I'm not going to be

held hostage by one group's intransigence and not be

105 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � involved in the council-formation process. And so my

TP11240 plea to you -- to the board -- is to not hold the

community hostage to one group's intransigence. Thank

you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. And then with

that I will give each of the applicants a -- up to five

minute rebuttal period. Mr. Brigghouse?

JEB BRIGGHOUSE: Thank you very much,

Mr. Christopher. I -- we have sought to create something

that would serve generally the unrepresented, the

unorganized, the people without voice, the people without

computers, the people who can't even attempt to put

together a flash-it-on-the-screen-PowerPoint

presentation. That's who we are trying to benefit, not

-- not people who are already very skilled in

organization, public relations, computers, spinning

interpretations and misrepresenting things.

Two other points, one is about what we have

heard from the -- the other group. Consistently and

relentlessly and repetitively over this entire period

their single message is join together and stop your

independent existence and become part of us. The subtext

there, unspoken, but I've mentioned it earlier, the

subtext is sell out the people of Echo Park to that group

and provide that group with legitimacy and cover and

106 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � pretend that whatever they are and whatever they have

said and whatever they had done is excuseable. And we

now finally shake hands and smile and are happy, and we

are not to going to hold it against them. And they have

tried to get this forever and ever and ever, and we

TP11240 resent it.

And that's why they are -- they are consistently

rejected and whatever spin they try to put on it is just

that -- spin. Another thing about the boundaries, the

boundaries are treated by Silverlake as what's yours is

negotiable and what's ours is ours. To try to get part

of Echo Park over to Alvarado is just plain fraud. There

is no justification in that. There is no legitimacy in

that. The Sunset-Alvarado Neighborhood Association has

organized that area for years and years and years. And

for them to try to split the difference is invalid, just

a fraudulent kind of thing. If we came to Silverlake and

said, We will exchange that part that you want for that

area between, oh, Silverlake and Glendale Boulevard and

Duane there -- how about? We take that and you take what

you want. Well, I would be just aghast and astonished.

What do you mean treating our territory as if it's up for

grabs or negotiable? Well, we don't treat any of our

territory as if it is up for grabs or negotiable for

their benefit.

107 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � This is a fully reasonable and justified

position on our part, and to be told we are

non-negotiable or not willing to -- to split the

difference or not willing to negotiate, damn straight

we're not willing to negotiate. It doesn't belong to

them in the first place, and they have no claim on it.

And they should jolly well stay on their side of the

boundary as defined by the Echo Park Silverlake community

plan. We know where it is. We've been here for a long

TP11240 time, engaged in this these -- these kinds of things.

Thank you very much.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Bennett?

BENNETT KAYSER: Thank you again, Members of the

Commission. Since this is a rebuttal period, really the

only thing that I -- I would care rebut myself was a --

the comments made by the -- by Alicia Brown from the

Solano Canyon Area. If there's a -- we don't have any

area that would include their -- their neighborhood. Our

goal was to have the public areas of Elysian Park and not

-- not take any -- any of the property that they have

defined as Solano Canyon. And so if -- if it sounded

like there's a dispute, there's no dispute. There's just

an error on the map.


BENNETT KAYSER: I think just -- Paul also want

108 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to make a couple of comments during our five-minute

rebuttal.

PAUL GAMBORG: Nothing very major. A couple of

things to really think about a little bit in terms of

again custodian for process, which is how we regard the

formation of a council. If you have a quorum that has to

be 30 people -- and I know I heard that point from Jim

McCliston -- and I want to kind of emphasize it. You

create a situation where in the absence of a quorum for

the bylaws you're going to be looking at, you have

leadership devolving to the person who speaks for the

council; and in this case it would be the president of

the EENC. I have a serious democratic problem with that

TP11240 construction, which we would have loved to negotiate.

There are a couple of very fine points. Having a

workable steady council where people who don't get paid

to do this have to come to a meeting and just as you all

do and have that number of people be 50 may not to me --

it's not a point of legality, it's a point of

workability. In the rebirth of urban democracy, it's a

very strong point to have proximate events, things that

are close to you. The reason the city council often

doesn't work as well as we'd like it to is because very

hard to focus on the needs of a quarter of a million

people. It's a lot easier to focus on five to ten

109 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � thousand of your neighbors. That's reasonable. To them

boost that up so you're focusing on the micro-level of

maybe 500 of your neighbors is a lot of process. Staff

report -- last point, staff report gave you -- in the

staff report the understanding that there were ten

standing committees which is ponderous enough; in fact,

if a close reading of their bylaws, the EENC bylaws will

show you there are 46 standing committees, if you look

closely, unless at this misread it and let me know.

However many there are, that's 46 processes, 50 members,

30 quorum members, those are our substance issues.

They're very critical to us. Those of us who are

involved in the architecture of a council feel that if

you build on a shaky foundation it's not going to work.

We'd like it to work. The community deserves a council.

We'd like you to make whatever decision make, and we'll

support it. Thank you very much.

TP11240 COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Thank you

Romerol, is there anything you'd like to come back and

respond to from the staff's perspective?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Just in the -- in the last

statement, our understanding is that there are ten

standing committees; and but that's our understanding of

the bylaws. There was a commentary about the area that

is part of Solano Canyon. One of the things to keep in

110 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � mind is Solano Canyon is an area that is part of the

Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council which the board

will be seeing on the 27th, Saturday. The area that's

been discussed was not submitted as part of that

application. And -- but there is outreach going on so it

would be up to the board whether or not the board wanted

to temporarily take that area out of the boundaries that

we're talking about tonight. So that -- and consider

that at the time that the Historic Cultural application

is being considered.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Can you -- can you or

someone from the staff mark that on one of the maps so

that we have some understanding of what it is we're

actually talking about? Is Alicia Brown still here?

Okay. We need -- we need to have you if you're going to

say anything to speak to the microphone.

ALICIA BROWN: I'm sure glad I came. Okay. The

problem is that there are so many little short streets

that even these maps -- I'm just finding out right now

while I was talking to Ms. Romerol -- don't pick up the

streets. On here on Cassanova this part that I was

TP11240 referring to right here on the corner is private

property, and directly next to that is the Cassanova

Gardens that was just recently built. And we know that

area real well because we fought against it because it

111 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � blocked the view of the park. We know it's there. Right

next to that is the entrance to Elysian Park, and on here

it's showing as yellow. Okay? Then, over here, which

doesn't show on this map, in the middle of Casanova

there's a little street called Park Road Drive. Are you

with me?


ALICIA BROWN: And that goes up this way, and it

appears that this green area here is Park Road Drive.

And then, this is the area where the residences are right

up here. And there's only, like I said, you know,

there's only six, maybe eight. They just multiplied it

since I spoke, but yes it is contiguous with this because

this is a whole canyon right here. This is our

community, and it's all related so that this Park Road

Drive sits above Academy Road. And Academy Road sits

above Solano. And Solano is parallel with Amador.

Somebody said yes.


ALICIA BROWN: Okay. So -- so this should be

included, and I thought it was included in my explanation

of the boundaries. If there wasn't, then I apologize to

everybody because I know what you must be going through.

Even I get lost sometimes. So those are the only two

things right there. This -- yeah, and I don't -- I don't

TP11240

112 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � think it, you know, it's actually too much of a thing. I

think we can work together with either one of the

councils. I know them all very well.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: We just want to make

sure that when we take an action that we -- we understand

what the boundaries are that we are certifying.

ALIACIA BROWN: Well, we can go on a tour. I

can take you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Okay.

ALICIA BROWN: The what? No, that's incorrect

also. Yeah, so this, yeah. So identify this right here.

That's private land, and then change this yellow to Park.

And then, identify Park Road Drive which goes from here;

and then it goes over the freeway. And then there's

houses right there.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I think for

simplification purposes the only thing that would be

included in this particular action this evening would be

the publicly owned Elysian Park area in that -- in that

zone and that anything that is not part of the public --

of the actual public park would be excluded which would

be -- which would satisfy your concern.

ALICIA BROWN: Okay. All right. As long as we

don't get forgotten.


113 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Just -- essentially, the --

TP11240

the staff had made a recommendation to adopt the findings

in the staff report and had recommended to the board that

after the public testimony that you consider three

options. One option would be to request the two groups

to negotiate -- continue to negotiate towards a uniform

application or request the applicant to negotiate towards

a splitting of the area in some small -- two smaller

groups or based on the testimony that you've heard

tonight that you could -- you could conceivably find one

of the groups in its outreach effort because of its

ability to identify and form, engage stakeholders that it

has -- it has shown a great ability to be geographically

dispersed and therefore meets the intent the plan, better

meets the intent the plan. And you could also find that

in looking at the organizational structure that one of

the groups offer a more open and engaging participatory

structure that once again better fulfill the intent of

the plan.


Any follow-up questions for staff? Seeing none, we will

formally close the public hearing and move to Commission

discussion. Any of my fellow Commissioners wish to start

off? Commissioner Membreno?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Well, first of all, I

114 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � want to thank both groups for the work that both of the

groups have done. This is a real tough decision for us.

Like two weeks ago we -- we need to come to consensus

tonight, all four for us, in order for something to

happen. And I -- I think one of the issues that comes

TP11240

out of my mind has been the issue of the non -- or the

unwillingness to come together as -- as one group to

discuss and mediate an see how things can be done for the

greater good. That has -- that is always one of the

issues that stick like a red flag for me if -- if groups

are not willing to talk about what is in the best

interest of their community, who are they speaking for?

And having said that, I think it's also very

important for me to see that the groups have a balance of

people who are represented in their steering committees

in the groups that have managed to organize and develop

committees and have done the outreach have gone out to

speak to other folks, and I think I see that the both

groups have attempted to do that. And I still don't see

a whole lot of people here that can be part of this

larger group in this community. I grew up in this

community, and it's disheartening to see groups fighting

over an area that really needs the representation, that

deserves the representation, that needs to be an

inclusive part of this community. And I think having

115 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � heard from everyone tonight, it is -- it comforts me to

know that at least some of you guys who are here tonight

have the interest at heart of this community; but at the

same time I think there's a lot more work to be done. I

-- I agree with some of the speakers, 50 members on the

board of governors, it's a lot of members to -- to get

out to vote on anything. Let alone on a night, you know,

ten o'clock right now and who would sit through four

hours of a meeting, you know. We're the only ones who

TP11240

sit through six hours of meeting, but ,you know, it's --

it's time-consuming. The speaker who spoke about child

care, I mean it's -- it's an issue for our community, for

this community. The number of folks who are in the

working-poor category cannot be here because they're

probably you know still riding the bus to -- to come home

and be with their kids.

So I mean those are the kind of things that

stick in my mind about this community because I know -- I

know this community. So with those remarks I want to

hear the rest of the Commissioners' comments, and we'll

-- we'll pass it along.

End of side A.

Beginning of side B.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: (Inaudible)

Irrespective of what happens here tonight, there is a

116 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � beginning of organization; and hopefully there is the

beginning of cooperation between the various groups,

between the various people. As I've heard tonight it

seems to me that it's not the community and the people

and the issues that are the problem. It seems to me that

there's personalities perhaps and attitudes that need to

be reconciled and that need to be brought together, but

there are some issues also. I think that it is important

that whichever group is selected that they recognize that

-- that group recognize that it is much harder to reach

out to those people who are, as Commissioner Membreno

talked about, the working poor, the people who have the

children who must be at home staying at home to take care

TP11240

of them. And whichever group is selected tonight, if we

select one, perhaps has to take a look at the times of

their meetings. They don't always have to be in the

evening. They could be on a Saturday. There are things

that can be provided such as child care and so forth.

That is extremely important.

It is all so important to remember as someone

said, and I don't remember who it is -- I do remember who

it is -- but there are many people who do not have

computers, and that is not the way to reach everybody.

It takes -- it needs to be a door-to-door, almost

person-to-person outreach. I would like to suggest --

117 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � I've done outreach for 30 years. I don't want to date

myself, but I've worked in an agency. Our organizing

agency was nonprofit, and I recently retired from one in

which we had to do a lot of organized outreach. And in

order to do outreach many times the best thing to do is

find a gatekeeper in the community. Whether it's a

Native-American community, whether it's -- whatever ones,

the African-Americans. Many times are gatekeepers can

introduce you to other people, but we cannot ignore those

groups simply because it's much more difficult to reach

them. And I think that you know that. One of the areas

also as -- as we move along we have to start considering

those who are homebound. They are -- they have to at

some point have a right and they do have a right to

participate in the resources and especially because of

that many times resources are not there for them.

I do feel that a board of 50 is a little bit

TP11240

overwhelming. I cannot imagine having to have a quorum

related to 50. It would be extremely difficult. I

cannot imagine working with a board of 50. That would

be -- to get a decision -- I think that would be

extremely difficult. I think that both groups, if one is

selected tonight, do have to make a concerted effort to

get out to the small businesses. It's not just the

Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce has its

118 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � place but there are many who do not belong specially in

community like that they do not belong to the Chamber of

Commerce, and they have to. They have to be talked to.

They have to be welcomed. There has to be, again, a

different kinds of meetings, creative ways in which that

kind of outreach is done and that kind of -- so that they

can feel that this is a part of them.

If any group feels that there is within that

organization, within that council one group that is

trying to control you always have a recourse. You can

come back to the Department, or you can come back to the

Commission, but not which is hearsay but with actual

proof that one group is trying to control or there is

something that is happening which is -- which does not

equal the playing field for everybody. So we need to be

careful about what we say. We need to be careful that we

don't go along on a lot of things that are not true and

rumors because rumors can break up a good organization.

I have one more thing that I would like to say.

We've talked about boundaries, if we need to in a moment,

I do feel very strongly about this. I see is that one

TP11240

group -- it seems to me that one group is more willing to

to negotiate, to become part of, or let other people

become part of it. Believe me, I feel very strongly

about this that if one group is selected tonight and

119 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � other people within the other group decide not to

participate, that is a loss to the total community for

every single person who does not participate. The whole

city loses. That is the purpose of the cause of outreach

and the plans for outreach and the plans for bringing

everybody. Irrespective of how you feel about it,

irrespective of what feelings we have about it, if any

person decides not to participate from the Harbor to the

Valley, the east to the west and north and south, the

city loses. So I would invite all of you, irrespective

of what happens tonight, to please participate for the

sake of your kids, for the sake of your generation now,

and the coming generations because the city and the

neighborhood council are going to be here for a long

time. Thank you.


Commissioner Stone?

COMMISSIONER STONE: I'll keep my comments short

because, or at least for now, because of the -- the very

impressive remarks both by Commissioner Herrera Duran and

Commissioner Membreno that preceded me. I'd like to

agree with virtually everything that you've said, Pat,

with the need for -- which if we do certify tonight for

whichever group that we certify that to -- that they know

that it's our feeling it's just the beginning of the

TP11240

120 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � outreach process to the groups that you mentioned: the

homebound, small businesses, but just to -- to everyone

in the community. And I think that that's important to

us and hopefully it will be important to a group if we do

decide to certify.

Pat also mentioned the ability of a group if

they feel like the group that we do certify is not being

responsive or inclusive, there is a procedure, Section 5

of the ordinance which is desertification of a

neighborhood council, a way for complaints to be brought

to this board. Again, concurring with something that

Commissioner Herrera Duran and Commissioner Membreno

mentioned, I, too, believe that a board of 50 is probably

too large, given the turnout to meetings to actually

manage the process. And also agreeing with what you've

already heard tonight, I think we've heard from -- from

one group that is a little bit more willing or seems that

they're more willing to be a good neighbor to others. We

have to remember we're not just dealing with the areas in

yellow that we're looking at here. We're dealing with

the citywide system of neighborhood councils, and in my

mind Echo Park needs to be connected to the Harbor area.

Echo Park is connected to the west side, but most

directly Echo Park is connected Silverlake. And it was

very telling to me that one of the groups, the Greater


TP11240� Echo Park Group, was willing to sit down and negotiate

with Silverlake. There are going to be issues that come

up, right in the middle of this yellow area but there's

going to be border issues where Echo Park will need to

work with Silverlake, and I think it's important that

those foundations are laid. That's it for right now. I

yield to the Chairman


COMMISSIONER STONE: For some more sage comment.

And actually I'm also happy to hear that Commissioner

Herrera Duran has been doing outreach since she was five

years old.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: No. Thank you very

much.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: We won't go there.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Thank you,

Commissioner Stone. I wish I had sage comments tonight.

I'm not sure that I do. Once upon time, maybe about 15

years ago, Bennett brought in a copy of an article

written in the Herald Examiner about neighborhood

councils. And it was a time in those days when Bennett

and I and the late Brian Moore were probably the only

three musketeers in the city trying to bring neighborhood

councils in some form into existence. And I was here, as

Paul mentioned, nine years ago in this room when the

122 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � neighborhood council movement began in its -- its early

organizing stages; and Jeb and I have worked on countless

things over the years in trying to make Echo Park a

better place and other areas of the town. And

TP11240 unfortunately, Juanita looked like she was bored and has

left the premises; but Juanita and I have also worked

closely over the years on a number of things. So it's a

little hard tonight to see friends of mine that I worked

with for a long time stand in this room and not be able

to talk to one another, and I'm not sure why that is; and

that's probably the hardest part in having to sit up here

in judgment of the two groups and not really know or

understand what the personal dynamics are in keeping the

people in this room apart.

And I know that in working with neighborhood

councils over the years it's never been in our -- our

vision that the neighborhood council process itself

should be the process that divides community or divides

leaders or divides interest groups within a neighborhood.

It should be the other way around. It should be the

process that brings all of you together in some fashion.

And I'm not sure tonight how we get from where we are to

that vision. The telling point I think, Jeb, and it's --

it's one of the hardest ones to look at tonight is the

fact that you talk about a board of 50 people who would

123 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � run the Echo Park or Echo Elysian Neighborhood Council,

and my colleagues have expressed their reservations about

a board that size and just how unwieldy or unworkable it

might be. And that aside, it's a question of who would

fill those slots. And you look tonight at the audience

and the people who came out tonight in support, and there

were very few. There were only three cards that -- that

came up here checked in favor of the Echo Elysian

TP11240 Neighborhood Council, and it's a stretch from -- from

those three and -- and the other maybe half-dozen board

members or committee members that are here to the 50 that

have to fill out the neighborhood council. And that's

really probably the threshold question for me tonight is

to see where the -- the people are who are out there to

be involved in that process, and I wouldn't question your

commitment to this community, not for a minute. You've

been here forever. You've been here on behalf of your

people for most of your life. And you put your

hard-earned dollars and your hours where your mouth is.

And that's been an invaluable resource to this community.

And I just wish there was a way that we could all -- we

could all get along, and that it could be in fact one

group.

Yet, that's not one of the options that either

side is offering tonight that you would go away and talk

124 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to one another and come back in a unified fashion.

Somehow, we seem to have crossed that divide already.

And we're in a position where you basically put it to us

to make the choice, and the choice is to a large extent

been made by the group tonight in the way that that has

been express through the public testimony that there seem

to be a good deal more people here who have seen the

workings of both neighborhood councils and are here

tonight to tell us that the Greater Echo Elysian Park

appears to be more open to participation by some of the

people in the neighborhood. There are descending voices;

there is no question. It's not a hundred percent one way

TP11240 or the other. But the weight of what's here tonight and

the weight of what's been presented is to some extent

telling to me; and I came in tonight, having looked very

carefully at both sets of bylaws, both sets of

boundaries, and very much interested in what I was going

to see. And frankly that's what I've seen tonight. So

while I share my colleague's concern about the size of

the board, I also had the concern that I don't

necessarily see the depth of participation particularly

here tonight to be able to support that board and support

that operation so I'm willing to hear additional comments

from my fellow Commissioners. Commissioner Membreno?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: It's -- it's interesting

125 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to see that with your point about the representation here

tonight because it's -- it's always telling of how much

support there is for one group or another based on the

people show up to these meetings. Now, there's a group

in the back that is, you know, just going against what

that premises that if you have support that means that --

that you have to be middle class or -- or you have to

have money to be here. I don't think that that's the way

that we should look at the participation in any of these

groups because whether you're the working poor or the

middle class if your interest is in the entire area I

think that's where your commitment should lie not on

where or how you see other people coming together.

And it's very telling that when we see the

comments made by the individuals who came before in

support of the EE Neighborhood Council that it wasn't

TP11240 quite clear and it wasn't -- I did not get the message

that it was the strongest opinions -- it was a very --

almost -- what is the word that I'm looking for? It was

yes in support of the neighborhood council but with some

reservations because of what they have heard tonight.

And I think that's also one of the issues that we need to

resolve because we have groups here that are looking at

the betterment of their community, yet they're not

willing to talk to each other. And that's that's the

126 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � hard part for me, to have -- to have the people here in

the group -- in the same room. And if we ever intend to

have them together to work on a plan for the betterment

of 50,000 people in this Echo Park area that has been --

that has been outlined as being the area that wants to be

represented, I -- I really have a concern that that's

going to be the right path that we're going to take.

So with that in mind, I think we need to decide

for -- looking at the -- at the community and its needs

and how it should be shaped in terms of the

representation. And that's where I want to leave my

comments at this time.

COMMISSIONER STONE: A couple of speakers stated

that that it would be -- that there are some in the

community that are holding back that are interested in

being involved in the process but want us to -- to make a

decision and want the conflict to be resolved. Now, I

have to tell you I'm not thrilled that the Dodgers can't

choose between two, and they leave it to us. That's why

I'm a Cub's fan, anyway, so -- see all the joy that's

TP11240 getting me. So I -- I concur with those statements; and

I think the best thing for the community, at least in my

mind based on what I've heard tonight, would be for us to

make a decision to go forward with one of the

neighborhood councils. I'm not -- I don't get the

127 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � feeling that if we reject both that there would be a

meeting of the minds and that would in any different

place a week from now, two weeks from now, a month from

now. Now, I wouldn't have thought that that was possible

in Hollywood too, and it sounds like that's moving

forward. But also in Hollywood I thought that there was

quite a bit of community support on both sides of

competing applications, and I didn't see that as much

tonight so if we can -- since -- as Commissioner Membreno

said we do have to be unanimous in anything we do

tonight. It would be my feeling that based on the

testimony we've heard tonight that I think we should try

to come out of here certifying someone and with some

strong -- strong admonition if we haven't already done so

to make sure that becomes the most inclusive neighborhood

council for the area possible and instructing staff to

have do all possible to help with outreach, with

elections as -- as our staff is already working on with

other neighborhood councils to make sure they're fair.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: I would agree. I

think that we do need to make a decision tonight, and I'm

not real totally absolutely fair on the little minutia of

the boundaries so if we could clarify those in terms of

the Greater Echo Park Neighborhood Council, I would be

TP11240 willing to certify them -- move to certify them.

128 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Romerol, if you want

to come back to the microphone and attempt to clarify

that with Pat.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Michelle, can we see the map?

(Inaudible) Thank you. Do you want to see the map on

the Parkway because that was the most accurate one?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: It's a little hard to

see because of the lights.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Okay.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: So what we're going

to do now then is outline the boundaries as the

Department is suggesting if we certify; is that right?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: That's correct. I think

there needs to be some discussion as to the newest point

that was brought up about the area around Elysian Park

whether the board is considering that as part of -- of

the boundaries to exclude that area because then we'd

make a modification to -- to basically only include the

park area.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I -- I would make

that effort to exclude the areas that are part of Solano

Canyon that are not necessarily part of Elysian Park.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: If there could be

-- I don't know the rest -- is there a reason to do that

besides just the -- the other --

129

TP11240 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: They're isolated

areas from the majority of Echo Park, and they're part of

the natural area that would be part of Solano Canyon that

that wants to be part of the Historic Cultural

Neighborhood Council. I don't see a real community of

interest between those people and the -- and the major

portion of Echo Park. I think it was probably more a

mapping error and not realizing they were there than

anything else.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: It doesn't seem like a

large enough area to -- to make it to where it becomes

orphaned in any way so I think excluding that area the

boundaries would work for me.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: It was originally included in

the application that we received but the -- what we've

got is the adjacent neighborhood council perhaps did not

fully include Solano Canyon as they should so it's coming

before the board in that -- in that fashion. The -- the

other area is the compromised boundary that resulted from

the negotiations with Silverlake, and I think Michelle

can outline that for you.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: And those discussions

have been finalized? The -- the --

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Those discussions have been

finalized.

130 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: So Silverlake and --

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: -- and the Greater Echo Park

Neighborhood Council, yes.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Michelle, can you us

TP11240

show that on -- on --

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: And Romerol, do we have

written documentation on that?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Yes, we do.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Okay. Thank you.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: The -- the -- the other one

-- I'll let Michelle finish. The other one was the

negotiations with the Elysian Valley. And there was

agreement with the Elysian Valley, but there was that

northern tip that Elysian Valley was claiming. And what

we're looking at here is an applicant who had that in

their application originally, a letter of intent that's

asking for it and subsequent negotiation where the two

agreed that -- to leave it -- to leave it with Greater

Echo Park, and so we simply don't have the written

documentation on that point.


COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Although it does fall

-- it follows the boundaries submitted originally by is

Greater Echo Park?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Correct. Correct.

131 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Now, just so we're

clear. Michelle, the area you've outlined in black on

the -- on the map is to be excluded from -- from Greater

Echo Park, that's correct? Okay. So it's still the

yellow line that that is the boundary? Okay.

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: I believe that's all of them,

correct, because the -- the Solano Canyon -- yeah, that

was already omitted.

TP11240

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Right.

COMMISSIONER STONE: The southwest corner as

well, the south of Beverly Boulevard?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: The Carondelet and

Third, please?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Now, that was an area in my

understanding was originally submitted with the

application.



ROMEROL MALVEAUX: It was different than the

other one, but that was submitted with the Greater Park

application.


COMMISSIONER STONE: And I noticed on on the map

that Michelle drawing that Carondelet is -- okay.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: The -- that

132 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � particular wing that extends south of Beverly Boulevard,

is that a potential overlap with any other neighborhood

councils to the south?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: No.


COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: So if that's included in

any of the maps, it would be orphaned area? Okay. But

it's included in your --

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Yes, it was included. Yes,

it was included in the application; and it's included in

the map that was part of your package.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Thank you.

TP11240


COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Okay, Pat.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: No. You go ahead

and make the motion. I -- I got up there and --

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Thanks. Okay. Well,

just -- based on the -- I think on the Commissioners'

comments and what we've heard tonight, I think I would

feel comfortable to move to have the Greater Echo Park

Elysian Neighborhood Council with the boundaries as

outlined, with the changes in the bylaws, and with the

understanding that outreach is of the outmost importance

to this Commission and to this system that that be part

of what this neighborhood council needs to do to continue

133 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � the work in this community. So with that in mind, I

would move that we certify with those recommendations.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Do we have a

motion?

COMMISSIONER STONE: Second.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: And a second.

Commissioner discussion to the motion?

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: I would just like

to point out in terms of the decision that this is not a

win-lose situation. This is to be a win-win situation;

and I would sincerely invite those who feel as though

perhaps they -- they lost tonight, they haven't because

this -- as the earlier Commissioners have said -- this is

a total city project. And so I would invite you to

participate, to come to the table as leaders in the

community that you have; and if you say no, then it's a

TP11240

loss to your community. But I need to encourage also the

certified neighborhood council to reach out and bring in

those who have not been, you know, contacted and bring

them in and perhaps at sometime then you have a really

great participation from as many people as possible in

the total community.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I'd like to echo

those comments. I know, Jeb, it may seem like it's a

loss, and not necessarily anything else at this point.

134 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � But it is, in fact, a process; and it is open to

everybody. And I would hope that in the long run that

you and your -- your groups do participate in the

neighborhood council. You also have the opportunity to

-- to carry forward and go to council as Juanita said.

This is a process that I hope will produce a neighborhood

council for Echo Park, and I hope based on the elections

that are going to be held under the bylaws that it's

going to be an open election and produce not necessarily

maybe the result that everybody expects that may there be

people who run for and elected to offices in this

neighborhood council who are not in this room tonight and

who represent constituencies that are not represented

here and have not been represented in the process to

date; that if in fact we all do the job, we need to do in

terms of outreach and notification and get everybody to

participate in this process that we can get to the

participate that the neighborhood council will ultimately

reflect a constituency well beyond the people in this

room; and that it will reflect ultimately Echo Park.

TP11240

And that's a hope we have, not just here but

everywhere in the city, that there are a lot of groups or

individuals who are organizing neighborhood councils; and

some of them are going to be surprised when the actual

neighborhood council start to take a life of its own and

135 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � that can happen here just as well it can happen in any

other part of the city. Over the long term not maybe

this year or next year or the following year but the

years to come, neighborhood councils will become more

than just about the people who are out there organizing

today or who are championing -- being the champions today

for those neighborhood councils but will actually --

hopefully be about those communities that underlie them.

And to the extent that we can make them as open and as

accessible as possible. Mr. Nelson and the staff, I'm

sure, will commit themselves to working with the

neighborhood councils to make sure that everybody is

notified and that everybody has a chance to participate

and that everybody gets a shot at -- at being involved so

that it's not Bennett's neighborhood council, it's not

Jeb's neighborhood council, it's the neighborhood council

for Echo Park. And that's what we want it to be at the

end of the day. And if there are any Scientologist in

the room, you're free to participate; but please don't

dry the process. Romerol?

ROMEROL MALVEAUX: Since the boundaries changed,

the bylaws would also need to be amended to agree with

the changed bylaws.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Yes, and they will

TP11240

also need to reflect the -- a couple of issues we'd noted

136 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � earlier, in fact, to reference lack of diversity and to

change the question of voice votes to -- to paper

ballots.

DARREN MARTINEZ: Darren Martinez, Deputy City

Attorney. You'll also be adopting the staff report as

also modified by the Department with respect to the

comments made for the findings of fact and adding the

findings of fact that were discussed by deliberation

during the committee during your discussions.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I would assume that

the motion would be amended to that effect.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Yes, thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: And the secondary

agrees.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: (Inaudible) repeat all

that.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Is there any?

further discussion?

COMMISSIONER STONE: And let's have a motion on

the second item as well with respect to --

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: -- to the bylaws?

COMMISSIONER STONE: -- with respect to --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: -- the Echo Elysian

Neighborhood Council that the motion be amended to deny

the certification for the Echo Elysian Neighborhood

137

TP11240 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � Council

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Thank you both.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: And the second --

COMMISSIONER STONE: Agrees.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Agrees. Okay. Then,

we'll pull the Commission. Commissioner Membreno?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Yes.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Commission Stone?

COMMISSIONER STONE: Yes.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Commissioner Herrera

Duran?

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Yes.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: And I, yes. And this

is a tough one. It's a tough one for all of us, and a

tough one for many the people in this room. And please

all of you leave with the intention of working together

and working for the betterment of Echo Park as you will

all have for many years. Thank you. Yes, go ahead.

PAUL GAMBORG: Before you leave, there is a

meeting of the forming council a week from Thursday, the

23rd at the library. We extend an olive branch out to

both sides. We would like you to work with us please.

Come to the Echo Park library on the 23rd at 7:00 o'clock

for the next meeting to plan the issues fare. Thanks

very much.

138 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: And we do actually

have some other items on the agenda so we're going to

take a two-minute break while we clear the room, and

TP11240 we'll come back on the microphone shortly.

PAUL GAMBORG: That's the 24th.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Can you come to the

microphone? And you have two items of yours, Items 3 and

4?

GREG NELSON: Commissioners, I'm Greg Nelson,

general manager.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Excuse me. Can I

have -- can I ask everybody, please, to take the

conversations outside. We do have to finish tonight so

-- thank you. Greg?

GREG NELSON: Item No. 37 is a report that the

Commission had asked me to prepare, and I probably at

this point would just ask if the Commission wants me to

preview it or if they want to discuss it or if they want

to continue it. Which way do you want me to go?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: I think if I may,

Mr. President, you know I really would like the entire

Commission to be present. I think it would be very

important for all of us to discuss that. The issue of --

we've had other board members who -- who would like to

have a -- so if you want to preview it and then maybe we

139 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � can bring it back on the agenda for the next meeting and

hoping that everyone will be at that meeting? Bill?

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: We do have some

public comments that we will take. Greg, if you want to

give us 30 seconds on --

GREG NELSON: Yes, just about 30 seconds. What

I had presented for Commission in this report were

TP11240 several different ideas, several different

recommendations that might be made to neighborhood

councils. There's no proposal in here to mandate or to

put it into ordinance but rather to present some

thoughts, to begin a discussion, to present some pros and

cons, the best that we've been able to collect them from

the people who've been studying these issues on the

matter of "Is it possible for a neighborhood council to

be too large?" So that's what the report addresses

itself to hopefully -- it does begin a good discussion

and, and do you wish to go into public comment now or --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Let's --

GREG NELSON: I don't know how much detail you

want me to go into.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Let's just hear from

the public at this point. Jim McCliston, Malini Lasowitz

(Phonetic), and GUY LIMUS (Phonetic) would like to speak

on this item.

140 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � JIM MCCLISTON: Jim McCliston, East Hollywood

Community Association. I think the ideas that Greg has

put into this material are very pressing. And we've seen

it all. All of us have seen the problem. And I think

Greg has accurately described the problem in general,

namely, if you get these places too big, why, they're

kind of self-defeating. I talked to the Neighborhood

Education and Neighborhood Committee today at their

meeting, and they were very receptive in getting the

ordinance changed. And I think really what we really

need to do is get up a few pressing items and put them in

TP11240 and get in and to get them down on the council floor

immediately, and I think they'll do it. And I think it

is the question of getting the -- mostly the entire

committee together or at least the ones that really want

to do the work on it. And I'd be willing to get up some

ideas too, and we really can have it added really quick.

And I think it will be very fruitful.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Malini?

MALINI LASOWITZ: Thank you for hearing the

comments, public comments. I don't know if I'll be able

to get back on the day or night that you take up this

issue, but I want to thank Greg for putting this issue on

the plate right now. I'll tell you if -- if a year ago

-- if the DONE had been advocating and educating as he's

141 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � suggesting we do, that larger doesn't necessarily more

power, I think we could have shaved off eight months of

turmoil that -- maybe even more than eight months of

turmoil in my area because that was the point I was

trying to make early on. And I think a lot of our

councils are too big. I think the point of being able to

bring especially the lower income, the disempowered, the

unempowered parts of our communities, the only way we're

going to do it is if we address issues that -- that

affect them.

And just like in council boundaries, the outside

edge of any council boundary is usually the ignored edge,

and I think we're going to find that with the

neighborhood councils too. And I'm very concerned about

these councils being too big so I really applaud his

TP11240 efforts to do that. I want to say that item No. 4 is

where we talked about how we can maybe address some of

these geographical boundaries by having more

interneighborhood council boundaries, and I want to agree

with the gentleman who wrote in comments about that that

that is really not the workable way to go, that if you

have to meet in a smaller neighborhood and then get some

senses and then go to the larger group and then once

again try to convince them of your rationale, I think

it's very unwieldy, very unworkable. I'm not excited

142 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � about this new trend about voting by geographical region,

but I do think it is a great process to make sure your

neighborhood council is looked at and what is our

subgroups? What are our subneighborhoods?

And the last thing I want to say is maybe we can

include in the application process a time where we ask

our councils when they are before the Commission, Why is

it better that you're a large group? You've determined

some interneighborhood small boundaries, why isn't it

better for them to be independent? And if we can put

that in our process now, it will be really helpful.

Thank you.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. GUY LIMUS?

GUY LIMUS: You have to bear with me because I

am tired. I'm going to say some other things during the

regular public comments so I'm going to try to separate

them, but they're really related. I'm from the united

neighborhoods of the historic Arlington Heights, West

Adams and Jefferson Park communities. And we'll be

TP11240 seeing on May 14 for our certification hearing. I don't

think it will be as lively as this one. I know it must

be very difficult for you all to be managing all of these

different neighborhood developments throughout a very

large city, a very diverse city, a very racially

stratified city, of a city that has lots of different

143 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � barriers to people getting along and people

communicating. And I hope you appreciate that forming

neighborhood councils with no funding, no direction, no

money -- it's -- it's quite a challenging task. However,

the first big chunk of neighborhood councils' submitted

applications was about 50. There's about 50 on the table

right now. You've only certified half.

We had a plan that was given to us that we gave

public hearing and comment on. And I just happened to be

looking -- I want to thank Greg for sending his

E-mails -- because if I hadn't seen this E-mail that he

sent me a week ago, I wouldn't have been able to have a

special meeting of my council so we could come and speak

on this issue. And so our overall concern is size does

matter, and we as a neighborhood council should be able

to determine what our size is. We know. We live there.

You need to -- you can ask questions about our size, but

we cannot have as someone said a cookie-cutter approach

because our needs in south L. A. -- we know what our

needs are, and sometimes they're large. We're having a

gang warfare right now, people being shot every day. You

may have heard about that. It is not in a place where

there are 20 to 30 people that come to meetings and only

TP11240 400 -- so I think the science of what's being proposed by

folks from USC is interesting. I know they've called us

144 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � and said, What black clubs are in your area, but I don't

think that they are the ones that I want articulating in

some scientifical methodology how -- how do neighborhoods

function because in some neighborhoods we function in --

in a very massive way, and in some ways we function in a

very small way. But that's why we have black clubs. And

that's why we have neighborhood associations; and in

Nate's district where I hail from, we've had some of

these neighborhood associations for many, many, many

years. So from our view point the neighborhood council

is more a black umbrella organization which are standing

neighborhood associations can join, and we'll also will

have an ability to help develop areas.

I've heard some things called orphaned areas,

but we have lots of areas that are not developed with

black clubs and neighborhood councils. And what we're

doing right now and for the last two years is to try to

shore up those areas and come together and deal with all

of the issues that you know are present in the city

particularly the ones of diversity and racial tension.

That's what you're going to begin to learn about when you

get to south L. A. So I -- I really really have to say

that we need to put the brakes on creating new rules and

making changes. We're still trying to figure out what

the citywide plan said. I'm a lawyer, and it took me

145

TP11240 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � quite sometime to even understand. And the rules keep

changing. The rules keep changing. You can't do that.

Let us have some empowerment which means give us sometime

to say to -- to get our stuff together before you start

changing the rules.

I'm uncomfortable with any proposal other than

suggestions. I support suggestions. If you want to tell

us, We think you might want to consider being smaller, no

problem. But don't say you're going to change the

minimum requirement that you set up because we spent a

year so you know when I'm starting to make a little

argument -- we spent a year having debates over why some

people didn't think that was a good idea. And now we've

brought them over to the fence. We've had consensus.

Okay? Which you want us to have and now you're proposing

to change it before we even get to be certified so I

really think you need to think about when you set rules.

It's like saying when we get -- now you started with

monopoly and now you ended with socker.

So we really really need to pay attention to

this because that's not very empowering when you've been

trying to follow the rules and the rules keep changing.

It's actually causing some people to say, If the rules

keep changing like they, we're going to walk away from

the process. And I think that would be a loss for

146 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � everyone

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Can I ask you before

you leave the microphone? A couple of questions: You --

TP11240

is there a scenario that you could envision where your

neighborhood council would want to be more than 50,000

people?

GUY LIMUS: At the moment, no. And I'm tired,

but at the moment, no. Greg has a piece in his

recommendation that I believe may also hail from south

L.A. because unlike some comments about staff needing to

get out of the community here, his staff in south L. A.

is with us all the time. I know Dan, I know Danita,

Romerol actually lives in south L. A. so we -- we see

numbers of DONE staff. And so the issue of regions -- we

created our regions a year and a half ago. We have

neighborhood associations in each of these regions with

the exception of two that needs some assistance. And it

is those local neighborhood associations that consist of

numerous black clubs that basically elect the resident

stakeholders. In terms of business stakeholders --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER. No, no, no.

That's --

GUY LIMUS: -- that's a whole another story.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Slow down.

GUY LIMUS: -- but the resident stakeholders is

147 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � representation

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: My -- my -- my

question was, just to sort of, to -- to go to at question

of scale of neighborhood council --

GUY LIMUS: Oh, I'm sorry.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Is -- is 50,000

people big enough to satisfy most of the needs that you

TP11240

might see from the point of view of neighborhood

organizing? Then the flip side of that question is, is

20,000 people too many, or is it the right size to be

dealing with? And you're -- you're concerned about

changing the rules --

GUY LIMUS: Right.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Are you concerned

about us changing the rules on making the bottom

threshold lower or --

GUY LIMUS: Yes, I am because it would fall

under my rubric of changing the rules, because you have

given direction; and people went out and they worked on

that basis. For you to then say 20,000 is no longer the

threshold turns everything upside down, and there are a

number of arguments about that.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. That's fine.

GUY LIMUS: An remember the empowerment Congress

that you certified, and one of mark's -- no longer mark's

148 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � district -- but has 83,000, and I wouldn't begin -- I

wouldn't begin to say that's too large because I'm going

to respect that neighborhood knew what it was doing, and

you certified them so I assume you do too.


Anyone else want to speak to the issue?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Only if I can -- if I

can just ask the speaker one question. One of the

reasons why we certify was they met the criteria and they

met everything that we have asked for. But we were

concerned with the size, and we did speak on -- on that

TP11240

at that time. And size for me does matter. I mean, we

-- I don't think in my mind I want to talk about lowering

the number of the minimum, but I think I want to talk

about the maximum because I think when you have a large

area and you intend to represent everyone equally and

equitably, I think we will not be able to do that at

80,000. We will not be able to do that at 60 thousand.

So I think that is a discussion that we want to have.

It's not about changing the rules now because we think --

but it's because we're seeing that more and more people

are coming out and saying, you know, We were not asked.

We were not represented. And because we were on the

southeast corner of this block, and we were not part of

that. I think that's the discussion and the thought that

149 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � we're taking on this approach about the size.

GUY LIMUS: Okay. And I think we respect size

matters if it's going to be on a case-by-case basis and

not a uniform rule. So that I would want to have an

ability to tell you why I believe 45,000 in my area is

acceptable because of the way my community functions, and

we can have a discussion about it. What I'm

uncomfortable with is setting a maximum or a minimum

because it takes away the neighborhood empowerment to be

able to say why in our wisdom we may think that will

work, and that's all I'm saying. It should be on a

case-by-case basis then rather than any set policy or

amendment to the bylaws because neighborhood empowerment

means we get to have a say.


TP11240

GUY LIMUS: Thanks.


LEON OLDER: I just want to say I wasn't

prepared to speak before -- Leon Older.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I need your name,

yeah.

LEON OLDER: I spoke before and I wasn't

prepared, and I may have, being unprepared, spoken

carelessly. I intended no criticism of the DONE's staff.

All the people I met were very open friendly and helpful,

150 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � and they appeared to be working real hard. I am very

concerned about the way the process is going on, but I

don't blame the staff. I would look at the Commission

and at your directions to the staff.


COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Thanks, I guess.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Maybe. Okay. We

will then continue the item to the next agenda and

hopefully have a full house to talk about it. And Item

No. 4 is a similar item.

GREG NELSON: And again, I will similarly look

to the Commission for what they prefer. In very very

brief description, this was actually an idea that hatched

in my head as we talked about the Yucca Corridor

situation in Hollywood, and I began to wonder what would

happen if -- if an area found itself inside of a

neighborhood council and then after the governing board

was elected found itself basically being ignored and

wanted to move itself into an adjacent and contiguous

TP11240

neighborhood council? And I looked at the plan and found

no provision for that so I thought that I would bring

that up for discussion whether we did want to actually

amend the ordinance to provide for that option as remote

and as rare as it may be.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Greg, isn't there a

151 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � provision that anybody can come back, and we just talked

about that tonight in complaint to the board -- the

Commission that this -- that this -- that they're being

ignored, or that the group is not living up to commitment

the neighborhood council and outreach that is part of the

plan, that they can come back?

GREG NELSON: Well, it's part of the plan but

the remedy is not directly that you could request that

the boundaries be changed now to -- to encompass -- to

change the areas of -- of two adjacent neighborhood

councils to encompass a different area.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Well, okay. Let me

bring that up for discussion.


COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: So it's -- so your

thought is to make an ordinance change which would allow

a particular area to say, I don't want to be part of the

Greg Nelson neighborhood council. I want to be part of

the, you know, Claudia Dunn's neighborhood council; and

that's the way it's going to be. And so in that -- in

that spirit to take it out and to allow a neighborhood

council to embrace a new area without penalizing either

one for -- for not doing maybe the outreach or -- or the

TP11240

work that should have been done because, you know, there

is consequence requests. If you're going to take an area

152 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � out of a neighborhood council that was certified with

that area included, I would imagine that we want to go

back to the neighborhood council and say, What happened

here?

GREG NELSON: And, Commissioner, hopefully all

of that would happen, that we would use our -- our

mediation techniques to avoid that. The only question

was whether or not the ordinance should enable this to be

one of the remedies if one of the mediation, if the -- if

the talking -- if the helping with the outreach fails.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: And I think the other

thought is what if you know the Claudia Dunn neighborhood

council doesn't want that piece of the Greg Nelson

neighborhood council, then what?

GREG NELSON: Oh, what I had proposed is that

two things would have to happen from -- the area that

would like to be removed would have to indicate its

preference, to do that through some process perhaps by a

certain name on the petition; and the area that would

absorb them would have to take a vote of their vote and

say, Yes, we'd like to cover boundaries change to include

them.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: (Inaudible) need a

little more discussion on that.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: That would come

TP11240 153 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � back to the Commission or the Department in that

definition?

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: And Mr. McCliston has

a card on the item.

COMMISSIONER STONE: Before we -- and I do want

to hear what -- what Jim has to say because I think he's

going to echo what I'm going to say because I'm echoing

what you'd said before. If we're going to get -- there's

a lot of echoes, and we are in Echo Park so it makes

sense. If we're going to explore amending the ordinance,

I do think we should not just consider this one -- I

think we as a Commission need to debate the merits of

this particular proposed amendments but also look at

other things that have come up. We've had discussions

about town-hall concept. We had discussion about size

being a potential amendment too, possibly implementing

some of the mayor's proposals to give to neighborhood

councils. I just think we should take -- if we're going

to get a shot -- I think we should just go with one --

with one proposal without at least having a discussion

about the other ones understanding that the more you put

on the table the more possibilities there is for council

members to take them in different directions, but I think

we at least need to consider going in.

GREG NELSON: That day is coming.

154 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER STONE: It would come if we -- if

we -- if we came with just one proposal, too, so I think

TP11240 we need to think about -- think about other possible

amendments to the ordinance too.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: But -- but I also want

to -- we're just fine if we have a very focused

discussion on the different amendments that we want to

make. However, I don't want to have -- have it where we

have what new eight -- eight new city council members,

and they're going to go at it and rewrite the whole

ordinance. And then, it becomes the headache that the

gentleman right here is talking about, about changing the

rules and about changing what has been started already.

So I don't think that we want -- we want to open the door

wide enough to make some changes that are appropriate

after 22 -- 23 neighborhood councils have been certified.

Now, we go with -- the with the WIP, work in progress,

Bill Christopher's favorite phrase so -- that we have

done that. I think we need to start looking, and this is

an -- an issue that I will bring up in the comments, this

is how we need to start making the policies and -- and

the process work for the neighborhood councils that have

been certified already. We want to open that door, but

we want to open very slowly and very gently. I -- I

don't want to slam the door open so --

155 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Jim?

JIM MCCLISTON: Jim McCliston, East Hollywood

Community Association. Echo, echo, echo, how is that?

One thing I want to say is I would not open the whole

ordinance to changes but there are maybe, let's say --

let's say four or five changes, and I think it would be

TP11240 ridiculous to go to the council with one or two changes

and say, That's going to fix the ordinance. You -- we'd

all be open then to complete criticism if there were some

more changes and the whole thing just collapse and there

are I would say two or three or four major problems that

we need to get at.

And I think with the new council and what I saw

in the ENN committee, they'd be very receptive to a few

changes and get on them immediately. And I don't think

it takes that long for us to get at these because we've

all gone through the process now, and we've seen what

happened and the result. And each one of us can write a

revision set, and we'd compare notes. And they'd all be

the same.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Very briefly.

LEON OLDER: Very briefly again, Leon Older

again. I'm here by accident. I didn't know about this

meeting. I wasn't notified. I've talked to my

neighbors. They don't know anything about it. We happen

156 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to be on the block that you just bartered from one

neighborhood council to the other. If you don't amend

the ordinance, how do you propose to eventually sometime

down the road let my neighbors choose whether we identify

with Silverlake or Echo Park?


All right. Greg, is there anything else in the general

manager's report?

GREG NELSON: Oh, I haven't done the general

manager's report but that would be the next item. These

TP11240 were agendized items that we're dealing with now.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Are we -- did

I miss one?

GREG NELSON: So we'll continue four of them.

On the general manager's report I did want to bring your

attention, we're going to have our first election

tomorrow in the Harbor area; and I have circulated to you

a list of election dates so this is going to be exciting.

This is going to be the way I am going to spend Wednesday

nights seeing how this election goes. My intuition tells

me it will go fairly smoothly because the bylaws down

there are very very broad. There shouldn't be a whole

lot -- whole lot of difficulty. We circulated 15,000

notices of the election door to door. You have Samples

of those, Spanish and English.

157 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: How did they -- do

they go by mail or do they go --

GREG NELSON: No. It was interesting that we

didn't have a whole lot of notice before this election,

and we got together with the staff. And I had been

working out an arrangement with the post office to do

saturation mailings, and staff came up with a better

idea. And that was to use an organization called Walking

Man which this Department had used in the past to

circulate notices for the workshops that they held, and

that worked out really good, one-day notice. So we

actually got 15,000 printed one day. I got them, I

think, the Walking Man the next day; and they all started

going out. One of the beauties of this, unlike mail it

TP11240 isn't stuck in with the Penny Saver and all that, you

know, junk mail. But it's, you know, put on the door

knob with a -- with a rubber band so this -- this -- this

method worked out very well in this area. We are going

to have some problems in our areas especially where there

are a lot of security apartment buildings, such as, you

would Park La Brea or other gated communities so in those

cases, we will use the -- the U. S. mails.

(End of side B)

(Beginning of third tape, side A)

They're amazingly inexpensive. It's about 5 and

158 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � a half cents a piece. Is --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Uh-huh.

GREG NELSON: You got these things --


GREG NELSON: -- delivered. I also had our

intern do a -- an analysis of a summary of best practices

I call it "How Each One of the Certified Neighborhood

Councils So Far Define Stakeholder and How They Put

Together Their Governing Board." I think that one of the

best favors to the group that are still developing is to

show them in a simple form how everyone else is doing it

so that people don't just develop bylaws from -- from the

ground floor. We're going to continue those best

practices.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Just by reading

through that, I'm not sure that there was enough

information on the development of the government bodies

in each of those descriptions. They may be a little bit

TP11240 too brief to -- to be able to convey the actual

mechanisms, the working of the neighborhood councils so

you might want to review the document and see whether a

little more information may help in understanding in how

those neighborhood councils are put together.

GREG NELSON: We'll do. And then in the meeting

of the -- of the Education and Neighborhoods Committee

159 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � today there were two items of interest to us. One of us

was a continued discussion of a motion that has been

introduced to address the whole issue citywide of

translation services. Again, our -- we actually had a

role in getting this motion introduced. Our -- our point

was although we were the forefront having to provide

adequate translation that the work that we do is

certainly no more important than the work that a lot of

other agencies do when they go and have community

meeting, planning, police, fire, the city council itself;

and it just seems to me that a citywide policy should be

developed.

So the city clerk came in today and presented

four -- four options, one of them ranging as high as

emulating what the school district does where they have a

six million dollar translatinging budget and that -- that

one was asked. And if what the committee ended up doing

is asking a number, I think five different agencies for

it to refine these ideas that the clerk had presented;

and they put me on the committee so -- so I will be there

adding whatever wisdom I have. It seems like the

committee is heading toward a proposal that would cost

TP11240 the city an additional 250,000 and will beef up a lot of

what they're doing right now, adding money for

contractual services and adding the ability to buy more

160 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � of the translating equipment and continuing to rely

pretty heavily on the city employees who get bilingual

bonuses.


GREG NELSON: And the last item that came up in

the committee was a report that was not completed by the

chief legislative analyst so the committee really didn't

discuss it very much. And they continued it, and it will

be coming up. And it refers to a proposal by

Councilwoman Ms. Sakowski (Phonetic) to develop a city

policy for how communities can rename themselves. To

most everyone's surprise, and there was an article in the

daily news just last week about Lake Balboa, sort of not

being Van Nuys anymore and becoming Lake Balboa. It came

to people's surprise that that process is as simple

pretty much as the council member of the area just

determining that they want to put up signs, and I think

it's because up -- up until this point there had not been

a lot of concern about where different neighborhoods were

and what -- what they called themselves. But what we're

doing here is adding a whole new emphasis to this that

the chief legislative analyst was trying to come up with

ideas and some of his ideas, which he didn't present

because he was not through with his report but I knew

they were coming, would involve this Commission in the

TP11240

161 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � process perhaps of determining when a neighborhood gets

renamed. At the committee meeting Councilwoman Hahn

added a few comments and said, "I would like this solely

to be the decision of the Neighborhood Council." The

discussion didn't go too much past that. If it had, I

would have recommended her that in some areas there are

multiple neighborhood councils so there still needs to be

a process that might eventually end up in the

neighborhood council; and I don't know how many other

different options the legislative analyst is coming up

with because he hasn't finished talking to a lot of

departments like Planning and Cultural Affairs. So this

one is coming, and I will keep you posted.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I would assume that

the neighborhood councils would have some role in that

discussion because since that we are defining

neighborhoods and neighborhood councils, most

neighborhood councils were considered what they're called

or what their neighborhoods are called close to a birth

right, although there are advisory to the city, the

question of their -- of their own ability and their own

empowerment to name their communities is probably

something that we don't want to get in the position of

taking away from them or -- or constructing a parallel

process that would cut them out of that loop.

162 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � GREG NELSON: One possibility, in fact, is to

require all the neighborhood councils in the area to be

TP11240

renamed, to agree to it; and if they don't, then that's

that.


COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Interesting.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Hearing no more

general manager's report, we will move to public

compliments. I only have one card from Mr. Limius for

public compliments -- Limus (Phonetic), sorry.

GUY LIMUS: Let me try to be brief and succinct as

possible. Once you just mentioned that, I think you'll

have all that warfare if you try to mess with anyone's

name. It took us a year to come to ours. And also Mark

started a process where he had the city council

officially recognized community so I don't know how

you're going to do that undo that one. It's already been

fired so I think that should be left to neighborhoods.

There's two issues I want to address, and it's all under

the theme of empowerment. I think that I really want to

impress upon the Commission, I've read your (Inaudible),

and I've heard very good things about you,

Mr. Christopher, and others. I've been very impressed

about what Ms. Membreno has had to say throughout the

evening so my comments are not critical of you

163 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � personally. But I think we sometimes can lose sight as

-- as a city as big as Los Angeles, what were we trying

to achieve? If we're trying to achieve neighborhood

empowerment, I have to constantly tell the people that I

work with, the neighbors that I work with, it's our

neighborhood because every time someone comes with a new

TP11240

rule, Well, DONE said this. City council said this. The

City Attorney's office respectfully has this new opinion.

Use their bylaws. We threw it -- throughout our bylaw we

have the keen wisdom of Romerol working with us, and that

had been thrown out after our application was submitted

because we were told by Miss Point Dexter and others that

those just didn't wash. Where's the neighborhood

empowerment? There is an assumption that we don't know

anything and that we need guidance from big brother, our

big father, or whoever. There's lots of talents in our

community. You all come from communities. And wherever

you come from then I heard someone is from the

(Inaudible) hood then not every -- we may not all have

computers but we have talent, and we do have brains. And

sometimes we feel like we don't when too many decisions

are get made on our behalf.

And quite frankly, I don't think the focus

needs to go to the city council with amendments. I think

the focus should be how can we make sure that with the

164 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � groups that we certify and the groups to be certified we

get their feedback and input because it's not going to be

having something 11:30 at night because you're not going

to have a number of the elderly people who are in my

council coming out from South L. A. to sit here in a hard

seat with no food -- appreciate the water but that's not

going to do. And if we want to have neighborhood

empowerment, then I have some suggestions because you

know people love to complain. But you never get

suggestions. I think some guidance is necessary. Here

TP11240

is my suggestions and I have shared them with my council,

they are in full agreement. Certification hearings,

separate regular agenda. Do not mix both. I have talked

to your staff. And in their wisdom they say they told me

it was going to be 11:30 by the time I've had an

opportunity to make public comment because there was a

border dispute or any time you do two councils. You know

what time you're going to be here tonight; and as this is

a work in progress, then I think that needs to be

changed.

If you want to hear from the community rather

than have five people waiting here, then you have to

change business. Please do not take the city council as

a lead for neighborhood empowerment. This was not

supposed to be a project to have difference to not be

165 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � business as usual. So if that's going to be the case

then it needs to be modelled by the Commission. So

please consider very strongly and I hope to hear it. I'm

going to try to come on the 23rd that you start having

certification hearings only so those communities could be

respected because they happen to be waiting a very long

time. And then when you want to do regular agendum items

because there's a whole lot of steps that two groups are

dealing with -- let me tell you the first group is the

folks you already certified. You know what you're doing?

I heard the first group is having its elections. Please

also try to implement what you just certified so how are

they really going to be watching what -- what Greg in

terms of his creative proposals come up. They're not

TP11240

going to have really ability to speak to them because

they're trying to do the job that you certified them to

do. And those who are in my council's category will make

a very tough decision. Do we go before the Commission?

It will be politics to give criticism because, God, we

haven't been certified yet. That's an honest feeling.

There's a chilling effect on giving a Commission that is

going to certify that's empowered with some power over

you then come and be critical of that.

And I think that's why you're not hearing from

a lot of people. While I heard from the office, from

166 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � DONE is that only one group has commendated on all these

changes going on. I don't think that is because no one

cares about it in writing at least. I think it's because

this does not foster public participation so please

consider having two, two tiers of meetings, certification

hearings and then do regular DONE business so we can

speak to it. And my other and last suggestion for the

evening is that since we don't have technical offices,

although some of us do because we're empowering and we're

not going to sit around for two years and not have

somebody in charge so I am the president of my

association. Some of us are afraid to say that. But

what's important to note is that although there are going

to be elections, you still have a number of people who

are working diligently in the community who can give you

feedback so you don't have to -- the six of you -- figure

out what the entire city needs in terms of these local

communities. And please don't USC again. Ask us. And

TP11240

so what I want to encourage happen is there is a

wonderful list that DONE has put out that DONE was so

nice to give me that list every single neighborhood

council with all and its contact people. And what I'm

told is the first person is really the functional head of

each of those committees so instead of the citywide

alliance which has diversity issues and I plan to be

167 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � involved within this level, but South L. A. is not there.

I don't think Echo Park is there either.

So we need to -- you have a list, you know,

where we are so I would encourage Greg and his office and

the Commission to give that direction that when Greg has

his ideas and his report that I think it is important for

us to discuss, then you call each of those head contacts

of all of the 50 that you have and say, Hey can we have

some feedback? And, you know, Mohammad can't go to the

mountain then send Danny as Danny comes to every one of

our meetings have heard them get pulled the information

or Mel sat up here and gave a wonderful presentation at

this facilitated meeting. Why can't you do the same

thing? For the number of staff you're already sending to

our neighborhood councils to get that feedback so we at

least can our heads up or heads no. You ask me some

simple questions. Those can be asked by simply your

licensed staff was already going out these neighborhood

councils. We do not have to do it like this. Please

don't use the city council as a guide let's try to do

something new. This is what this is all about, wasn't

it? That's what I heard today, and that's what I'm

TP11240

empowered to do, and I hope that you've heard me.

This is from my community. South L. A. is not

heard a lot, and we want to be heard. And we want to be

168 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � empowered, and I can tell you if this doesn't -- if this

begins to look like just another bureaucracy where it's

rules and rules and we don't have any voice and we don't

have any power, everybody's going to go home and this is

going to be one more experiment that failed. I really

hope that doesn't happen. I'm very excited about this.

And I spend a lot of my hours to do this, but I am very

troubled by the direction so I just want to remind you

it's empowerment. How do we do that? It's by starting

with us.


Any other public comment? I hate to ask.

JIM MCCLISTON: I want to make a quick comment

about naming the various areas. There is a very strong

sentiment in EENN, and the naming should come from the

bottom up. And they didn't want the suggestion that the

CLA had made that there should be a separate board that

suggests names then it goes down and see if the people

really want that name so there was some suggestion about

that and this was going to be left, I'm sure, to the

individuals in the various areas. And it wasn't going to

have, let's say, my kind of a board consideration at all.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. All right. I

think by accident of fate we have reached the end of our

agenda. And we entertain Commissioner comment.

TP11240

169 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: For the sake of staying

here for another half an hour --

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Yeah.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: No, I'm sorry go ahead.


(Inaudible)

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: One of the things that

the gentleman just spoke about is one of the issues that

I wanted to bring up. Unfortunately, we don't have a

full board and I would really like to hear from everyone.

And that is the issue over these meetings, the issue of

the certification. I strongly believe that, you know,

these meetings obviously are long and require a lot of

attention especially when we have multiple applicants

coming before us; and I think there is no room for us to

have full discussions from the general manager, from

staff on difference from the community on different

things. I don't want to suggest that we have a second

meeting a week, but we do need to go back to -- to the

mayor's office. Bill, you and Greg are I think our

spokespeople for the Commission, and talk about how we

need to slow down this process. It is way too much for

all of us to -- or at least I'm speaking for myself --

and to try to -- to make some kind of not only decision

on the certification of the applicants but also on things

170 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � that are happening that require attention and that

TP11240 require for the Commission to be clear and explicit as to

how we want to move forward, and we're not doing that

very effectively.

Issues that are just amendtments to the

ordinance, issues that staff have to bring to us, you

know, we don't have time for that. I know policies and

procedures are out the window. We haven't been able to

sit down and talk about making those possible.

Strategies and how the plan -- how the neighborhood

council is going to move forward and how the Department

is going to do that and to help them, we haven't even

began to talk about that, let alone the elections and the

issues that are coming up. So I would urge for all of us

to any about how do we do this, you know. We either need

to slow down this process and -- and say, you know, every

three weeks we're going to have a week of just discussion

on items that are of concern. I -- I just don't think

that we're making -- we've had 23 neighborhood councils

that have been certified. We have enough WIPs, meaning

work in progress. We already have enough of those. I

think it's time to start looking at what decisions we

need to make in terms of policies.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Anyone else?

Ron?

171 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � COMMISSIONER STONE: I guess I'll just comment

on that, too, and some very good public comments tonight,

as we always get; but save the best for last at 1130 p.m.

I agree with what Tammy said about -- I think it is

important that we -- we examine having polling decisions

TP11240 at separate -- and what are public comment validity and

policy decisions made at a different hearing. I -- I

guess that the only thing I may different from You,

Tammy, on maybe that I wouldn't want to slow down. I

don't think it's fair to the neighborhood councils that

are already in the system that have submitted their

applications. I wouldn't want to see us take a week off

from our hectic schedule of approving folks that are

already expecting us to do so. I would say if we have to

add a second meeting every few weeks to handle policy

issues, then I'd be willing to do that.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: And I think you know

that's why -- why we want to make sure that the full

board is in accordance to that because I didn't want -- I

did want the board -- the rest of the Commission in terms

of time because some of us, you know, do have jobs.

We're not retired.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: I wish I hadn't

retired; at least, I could get some rest. I agree with

both Tammy and Ron. Now, we've got -- we're so tired of

172 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � calling each other with Tammy and Ron now as

Commissioners.

COMMISSIONER STONE: That's our name.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: But I'd also like

to add this. We do need to take sometime to do some

planning. We do need to take sometime to discuss a lot

of decisions. I've written about five of them here but

-- but I do think that we need to go over. One of the

things -- this was something that came up in the retreat,

TP11240 and this was one of the reasons that I'm going to want to

invite -- I don't think Tammy was here last week when I

mentioned that I'm going to go get together with Gary

Deloroso who was the the facilitator in our retreat to

have a paper regarding the outcomes and what we have

decided and what, you know, the processes of retreat.

And I'm going to -- Bill suggested to bring a draft, but

it's an invitation to anybody to participate. I don't

want it to be just my -- my work. Gary and I were

supposed to meet last week. We didn't so we're going to

meet again, and anybody who -- who wants to join us,

please -- please do so.

But I want to make sure that in terms of the

issues that we're talking about here in slowing down, I

agree with Ron that probably it wouldn't be a good idea

to slow down. But I do agree with Tammy that we do need

173 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � to take sometime out to conduct some business, and I

don't want this to fall on deaf ears. I don't want it to

be bouncing against the wall, and we hear nothing about

it. I am very serious about it. There is some things

that -- that we as a Commission need to discuss and some

policies we need to iron out an all of these issues. So

I would like that to be brought back as soon as possible

to the full Commission to see how we can handle it

because we are getting too far behind on some of these

things that the public is waiting for us to decide.


COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: And I'd like to add

one more thing. Has the ad hoc committee with the budget

TP11240 met yet?

COMMISSIONER STONE: We are scheduled to hold --

or we're trying to set up a meeting for, I believe, next

Monday.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: Okay.

COMMISSIONER STONE: Next Monday, yeah. And

actually, on the budget I know you -- sorry to interrupt,

but in maybe something that -- Bill, you want to have

covered, it sounds like just from the preview of the

budget there are some good news for the -- for Department

and for neighborhood councils so that's exciting.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I have no other

174 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � information on the budget other than what you've seen on

the newspaper so far so hopefully we'll get more

information in the coming week on that score. I'm open

to -- to scheduling an extra session every once in a

while in order to try to -- to catch up on the policy

issue. I try to agree with Commissioner Stone that we --

we've promised the neighborhood people who have submitted

their applications that we will deal with them in a

timely manner; and, in fact, we're by law obligated to do

it in a certain timeframe, which we have probably met

maybe once out of the 23 so far. So slowing down is a

problem to the best of my knowledge from the point of

view of the people who are out there working very hard to

become certified. But I agree with the -- with the --

with the other comments that we do need to -- to spend

sometime and some effort on the -- on the policy side of

the equation as well.

TP11240 COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Two other thoughts that

come to mind is that you know we also need input from the

community, you know. We should not be afraid of some of

these ideas and some of these thoughts to get the

comments. I mean I really don't want to have more people

come back -- I feel that this gentleman, you know, that

we're just here to hear things and not take actions on

some of the items. I think this is why we're here.

175 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � We're part of these communities. We know what the needs

are, and we need to hear those things. But we also need

to bring those folks out to -- to let us know how we're

moving along in one direction. And if they're not moving

along in the same direction, then we have a problem so

--so I think we need to kind of (Inaudible) on that as

well.


Commissioner comment?

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Just one last comment

that we need to advocate for more city attorneys. So

that those folks can spend a little bit more time in

giving direction on the bylaws and all of the questions

that we have.

COMMISSIONER HERRERA DURAN: I agree.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: I would agree with

that. I think it's part of the -- as part of the budget

discussion, we will advocate for more than one city

attorney for --

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: Absolutely.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: -- for this

TP11240 operation. All right. With that I will entertain a

motion to adjourn.

COMMISSIONER MEMBRENO: So moved.

COMMISSIONER CHRISTOPHER: We have a motion and

176 LYNDEN J. AND ASSOCIATES, INC. (800) 972-3376 � several seconds and please leave.

///

///

TP11240


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