The Los Angeles Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) will be taking an aggressive approach in the coming months to gain direct input from Neighborhood Council board members, stakeholders and LA residents on the key critical issues facing the city's NC system.
One of these is the sensitive subject of NC bylaws.
A Town Hall Meeting on "Bylaws Structure Modernization" will be taking place this Tuesday, August 3rd, at 6:00 PM, at the Center for the Arts, 2225 Colorado Boulevard, Eagle Rock, CA 90041.
The Commissioners would like to hear from as many people as possible on this issue.
In a nutshell, there is a call to provide a uniform "table of contents" structure for all bylaws of the 91 Neighborhood Councils. (The actual language that makes up the bylaws, their content, would be up to each NC to determine, as they currently do now.)
With this proposal, the only thing that would change would be a matching table of contents for all NC bylaws across the City of Los Angeles. Is this a bad thing? Do you see any drawbacks to implementing a common structure for NC bylaws?
If so, we'd like to know.
Some NCs don't have any language in their bylaws dealing with important issues such as grievances, complaints or removal procedures for NC Board members. It's not a good thing legally, or otherwise, for an NC to be silent on these topics.
In the rare cases where an NC's bylaws don't deal with them, the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment would like to provide some language choices for an NC to consider using. In the event that an NC can't decide on language to cover these very critical issues, the Department would like to provide default language that would fill in these empty topic areas. With these issues, silence is not golden.
Again, is there a problem with this suggestion? Does it make sense? We'd like to know what you think.
Finally, there is a proposal afoot that "NC Regional Panels" be instituted to handle many of these grievance, complaint and Board member issues "locally" before they blow up. These panels, manned by NC Board members and stakeholders, would be set up like the current system of citywide Planning Commission panels.
How would the members of these panels be appointed? Would they be "Brown-acted"? Would the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners have the final say on their decisions? We'd like to know your opinion.
The BONC Commissioners will be seeking your active input on these and other important issues in the weeks and months ahead. Make your voice heard. Influence policy. Let us know what you think!