Neighborhood councils
To promote public participation in government and make government more responsive to local needs, voters created neighborhood councils in the Charter Reform of 1999. The councils were first proposed by City Council member Joel Wachs in 1996 and were hotly contested for a number of years. Indeed, they are still hotly contested ten years later.
The councils cover districts which are not necessarily identical to the traditional neighborhoods of Los Angeles, the borders of which often reflect those of cities that were annexed to Los Angeles.
86 neighborhood councils are certified and all "stakeholders" – meaning anyone who lives, works or owns property in a neighborhood – may vote for council members. Participation in NC elections has, for the most part, been proportionally as narrow as in city, state and federal elections.
Though the councils are strictly advisory, and have little actual power, they are still official government bodies and so must abide by California's Brown Act, which strictly governs the meetings of deliberative assemblies. These and other regulatory requirements have proven frustrating for some activists unaccustomed to bureaucratic procedures. For those with organizing experience, or the administrative ability to overcome regulatory hurdles, the councils have been effective advocates for community interests.
The first notable achievement of the neighborhood councils, collectively, was their organized opposition in March 2004 to an 18% increase in water rates by the Department of Water and Power (a municipal monopoly), which led the City Council to approve only a limited increase pending independent review. More recently, the councils petitioned the City Council in summer, 2006 to allow them to independently introduce ideas for legislative action, but the City Council voted to give the idea further study (this, despite 18 months of committee hearings).
As Mayor, James Hahn provided each council with $50,000 for any project of their choice and an additional $100,000 for street improvements in their neighborhood. These financial commitments have been maintained by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
