Tag Archives: neighborhood councils

Opportunity Knocks: A Grand Alliance for Neighborhood Power over Neighborhood Issues

Posted on December 15, 2011 by

The nation’s capital is stalemated by a destructive war of empty ideologies without regard to the welfare of the people. The state capital is hopelessly gridlocked by the same forces that put self-interest and special interests ahead of the public … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Hot Topics, Los Angeles, OccupyLA | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

Occupying Occupy Los Angeles: Local Community Activists Can Help Define City Issues

Posted on October 10, 2011 by

EDITOR”S NOTE: This column was written for Nina Royal’s North Valley Reporter monthly newspaper.which published it’s October edition today. Two weeks ago at the end of activist-organized Congress of Neighborhood Empowerment, the mayor offered his cheerleading analysis that the decade-old … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Hot Topics, Los Angeles, OccupyLA | Tagged , , , , , | 22 Comments

Don’t Sit Silent: Let City Hall Know You Want the Budget Problem Fixed

Posted on May 18, 2011 by

The City Council takes up the city budget for 2011-12 at 9 a.m. today and the only questions to be resolved is who will be hurt the worst, whose lives will be put at the greatest risk. It would be … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

LA’s Unity Coalition: Stand Up for Sanity and Public Safety at City Hall Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Posted on May 14, 2011 by

EDITOR’S NOTE: The City Council takes up the budget for the 2011-12 year on Wednesday and will make critical decisions that affect you, the quality of your life and  your and safety. If you care about your future, your neighbors, your city, you will join … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

A Blueprint for Holding City Council Members Accountable to the Community

Posted on March 2, 2011 by

Hooray for Marcia Selz and the CD5 Coalition for showing community groups how to pin down their City Council member and hold them accountable. They conducted a survey of leaders of the 36 homeowner groups in the coalition on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

The Failed Commission System — How to Fix It

Posted on July 22, 2010 by

Set aside for the moment, if you can, the incompetence, venality and indifference of most of our elected officials and focus on the citizen oversight that the commissions are supposed to provide to protect the public interest. Commissioners are in … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , , | 24 Comments

(Ir)Rationalizing City Government: An Exercise in the Pretense of Democracy

Posted on February 22, 2010 by

Three (Bronx) cheers for Antonio Villaraigosa — he boasts today that his decision to kill the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, the central reform that went into the new City Charter a decade ago, will save $2 million. Only $210 million … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

Winner-Take-All in LA’s Bankruptcy Melodrama

Posted on February 21, 2010 by

What you are seeing in the LA bankruptcy melodrama is a calculated and deliberate effort of the Mayor and his colleagues on the City Council to silence the voice of the people. It is a hopeless task. The silent majority … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

LA (Soap) Opera: A New Beginning — Or Just the Beginning of the End

Posted on February 4, 2010 by

The stage is set, the actors in place, everyone has rehearsed their lines — and the curtain is up on the drama that will determine the future of LA. The masses of workers, neighborhood activists, arts lovers, disabled have joined … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Amazing (Dis)Grace: Only a Miracle Can Save LA

Posted on February 2, 2010 by

We came as beggars and peasants pleading with the lords of the manor for mercy and they dispensed meager favors according to their whims.Hundreds of people with disabilities, the deaf and wheelchair-bound, Neighborhood Council volunteers, environmentalists, lovers of art and … Continue reading →

Posted in City Hall, Community Activists, Hot Topics, Los Angeles | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments