(PDF) Toward Community Engagement In City Governance: Evaluating Neighborhood Council Reform in Los Angeles

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Toward Community Engagement In City Governance:

Evaluating Neighborhood Council Reform in Los Angeles

Juliet Musso, Christopher Weare, Mark Elliot, Alicia Kitsuse, Ellen Shiau

Civic Engagement Public Policy Briefing

The authors would like to acknowledge Civic Engagement Initiative Director Terry L. Cooper for his

leadership, and Dr. Kyu-Nahm Jun and Jonathan Hussain for their expert research contributions. We

would also like to thank Rosalynn Silva for her work in report layout and production.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

USC CIVIC ENGAGEMENT INITIATIVE

SCHOOL OF POLICY, PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES, CA 90089-0626

www.usc-cei.org

POLICY BRIEF 2007 1

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE:

EVALUATING NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL REFORM IN LOS

ANGELES

Juliet Musso, Christopher Weare, Mark Elliot, Alicia Kitsuse, Ellen Shiau

POLICY BRIEF

Reporting on a study supported by the Ralph and Dora Haynes Foundation, the Irvine Foundation, and

the National Science Foundation

his report presents findings from the

Neighborhood Participation Project’s

multi-year study of neighborhood council

implementation in the City of Los Angeles. We

discuss the extent to which the system has

developed the institutional requisites for success,

including democratically legitimate councils,

political innovations to support participation, and

the capacity for neighborhood councils to act on

issues of interest to their constituent communities.

We also consider the long-term effects of the

reform on political networks and civic culture in

Los Angeles. We find a mixed record of success.

While a citywide system of certified councils is in

place, and some neighborhood councils have

developed the capacity to act on behalf of their

constituent communities, other neighborhood

councils struggle, and the City has done a poor

job of developing participatory arenas within

which councils can interact constructively with

city government.

The charter reform that created neighborhood

councils was enacted in June, 1999. Formulation

of a plan and related ordinances to structure

system development required an additional two

years, and certification was launched late in 2001.

By 2004, a system of certified neighborhood

councils with elected boards was largely in place.

At this writing, there are 86 councils, of which 83

have elected boards, advising the City on behalf

of residential communities that average about

39,000 in size. This system emerged from the

grassroots; the self-organization of councils must

be attributed to the dedicated efforts of

community volunteers, good news for a city that

is frequently maligned as devoid of civic identity.

Now eight years into the reform, we see variable

results regarding the legitimacy, capacity, and

influence of neighborhood councils. The most

obvious—and regrettable—shortcoming is that

neighborhood councils do not adequately

incorporate the cultural diversity of Los Angeles.

Homeowners with long tenure in the community

are most heavily represented, which is not

surprising considering that the councils are

geographically defined advisory boards. The

ramification of this stakeholder orientation is that

Latinos are underrepresented, and boards are

disproportionately wealthy, white, and highly

educated. These representative biases endanger

the political legitimacy of the councils, and raise

questions regarding their ability to speak and act

on behalf of diverse constituencies.

T

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

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We also identify critical shortcomings in the City’s

development of political reforms—

“empowerment innovations”—that would

support constructive engagement of

neighborhood councils in governance. The

Charter contains five provisions intended to

create forums for interaction to connect

neighborhood councils in advising policy

formulation and service delivery. These

provisions received scant attention during the

City’s planning of neighborhood councils (the

plan focused primarily on DONE responsibilities

and certification procedures), and institutional

support for council involvement with the City

subsequently has evolved in an ad hoc and

halting manner. There is not adequate support

for council engagement with the City. We

advocate that City officials broaden their mental

mapping of the neighborhood council system to

contain not only the 86 councils, but also

structured arenas for their interaction with the

City Council, the Mayor’s office, boards and

commissions, and city departments.

Four conditions for success are identified in Berry,

Portney, and Thomson’s (1994) renowned study

of neighborhood councils: a citywide system,

adequate resource support, political support, and

empowerment innovations to support

participation in city governance. While the

citywide system is in place, political support and

institutional reforms have been lacking.

Moreover, it is not clear that neighborhood

councils have the leadership resources required to

operate effectively. Consequently neighborhood

council capacity varies considerably across the

City. Given the exigencies of self-maintenance,

and the limited assistance provided by the City, it

is not surprising that some neighborhood councils

struggle with the outreach required to sustain let

alone to diversify stakeholder participation. While

group conflict and electoral controversies get

political attention, many more councils struggle

quietly to gain traction on community issues.

The neighborhood council agenda is diverse.

While instances of land use opposition gain

attention, NIMBYism constitutes a relatively small

space on the agenda. Neighborhood councils

shape community design guidelines, assist local

community organizations, organize festivals and

invest in community beautification. What is not

widely understood is that they devote an

extraordinary share of efforts to self-maintenance

and external relations activities. These operational

tasks are necessary to survival, and they absorb a

tremendous amount of volunteer time.

Neighborhood councils and Department of

Neighborhood Empowerment staff agree that

outreach is the single most difficult challenge for

neighborhood councils.

Neighborhood council systems in other cities have

been found to improve civic culture by deepening

the quality of participation and fostering more

positive attitudes toward city government. Many

of these effects are attributable to the relationships

that develop among neighborhood councils, their

stakeholder constituents, and city officials.

Connections to community stakeholders are

important to inform council members of local

needs and preferences and enabling councils to

leverage resources for community action.

Relationships with city officials in turn connect

councils to the agents of government, promoting

information exchange and helping to foster

understanding and opportunities for partnership.

We do not see the councils developing strong

relationships with the community or with city

officials, perhaps not a surprising finding given

the institutional weaknesses of the system. Rather,

there is growth in political relationships between

neighborhood councils, the types of political

networks that can support more generalized

political mobilization. Indeed, in several instances

neighborhood councils have exercised their

muscles: in response to the city burglar alarm and

DWP rate increase proposals, and most recently,

in opposition to City Council placement on the

ballet of Proposition R to extend term limits.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 3

What emerges, in sum, is a system that while

efficacious in some communities, needs to be

broadened to incorporate a more diverse group of

stakeholder participants. The City needs to

provide much greater assistance to councils with

outreach and leadership development, while

developing more structured arenas for

engagement around policy formulation and

service delivery. We recommend reforms in the

following areas:

Participatory representation. To increase diversity

and improve community linkages, the City

should assume responsibility for elections and

generalized outreach. It should support councils

in performing targeted community organizing to

diversify stakeholder involvement. This

engagement should not be limited to meeting

attendance; councils should increase direct

stakeholder involvement in committees, and

undertake voluntary projects that are targeted to

involve underrepresented groups.

Empowerment innovations. To engage councils

constructively there is a need to develop

structured arenas for participation in policy

making and service delivery. Improved

communications are critical. The City should

improve the Early Notification System to be

searchable and to provide earlier notice so

councils have more time for consultation. The

City also should expand emergent service

partnerships, such as the DWP and Public Works

memoranda of understanding. It should create

regional forums for neighborhood councils to

deliberate with city departments. The Mayor’s

budget process should be made more concrete,

enabling councils to provide actionable input on

specific decisions such as capital investment or

community development. These reforms will

require changes to the culture of government in

Los Angeles and political leadership that takes

seriously the special role the Charter establishes

for neighborhood councils.

Neighborhood council capacity. To increase the

capacity and efficacy of councils, the City should

invest in sustained leadership development

programs with a particular focus on conflict

negotiation and collaboration. Neighborhood

councils should develop better deliberative

forums at the community level in order to

function more as conveners of community

dialogue and less as formalistic mini-City

Councils. There is also a need to emphasize

community organizing around projects, not

simply meetings, and to facilitate sharing of

information around council best practices.

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

4

I. OVERVIEW OF EVALUATION

n July 1999, when Los Angeles voters

approved a new city charter, the city

embarked on an ambitious project in

participatory democracy. The new Charter created

a citywide system of advisory neighborhood

councils that would represent the diversity of

stakeholders, defined as those who live, work or

own property in the neighborhood. The broad

goal of the reform as stated in the Charter is “to

promote more citizen participation in government

and make government more responsive to local

needs.” The Los Angeles model of neighborhood

councils stands out because Los Angeles is

extraordinarily large in both population and

geographic scope, and diverse in ethnicity, class

and languages spoken. While other large cities,

such as New York, have forms of neighborhood

governance, those systems are appointed and

directed centrally. In contrast, Los Angeles sought

to create a system that would evolve organically

from the grassroots.

The Charter contains several provisions expected

to improve neighborhood participation in the city

policymaking process. However, the Charter was

broad in its outlines, leaving much detail to be

resolved by ordinance in the planning process. In

turn the Neighborhood Council Plan left many

details about design to the discretion of

neighborhood council organizers, and provided

little guidance regarding the involvement of

councils in governance.

The City has invested significant resources in

developing this system. It currently appropriates

about $4.3 million per year for expenses incurred

by neighborhood councils, including the up to

$50,000 a year each neighborhood council

receives.

1

Through FY 2005-2006, the City had

appropriated $10.9 million for neighborhood

councils. In addition, the Department of

Neighborhood Empowerment, mandated to

1

City of Los Angeles Office of the Controller. Performance and

Financial Audit of the Department of Neighborhood

Empowerment. Nov. 28, 2006.

support neighborhood councils, had a $4.3 million

operating budget in FY 2005-2006. Yet the most

significant investments are the time and efforts of

the volunteer neighborhood council

participants—many of whom devote tens of hours

a week to their responsibilities.

In 2006, the Charter required the appointment of a

commission to review the system to examine its

development and assess the degree to which it

has achieved its goals. The timing of this review is

propitious in some ways but premature in others.

On one hand, the system of neighborhood

councils has had time to develop its central

components: The Department of Neighborhood

Empowerment (DONE) has operated for eight

years; neighborhood councils have formed in

almost every neighborhood in the city; and some

administrative reforms—such as the creation of an

Early Notification System and the Mayor’s

Neighborhood Council Budget Process—have

been implemented. It is appropriate to assess how

well these components are operating. On the

other hand, it is still relatively early to reach

conclusions on the overall impacts of the system.

Some neighborhood councils, for example, only

have been certified for a few months. More

importantly, the fruits of democratic reforms may

take a long time to materialize.

Evaluative Criteria and Methodology

The evaluation of an institutional reform such as

neighborhood councils is fraught with difficulty.

Some members of the press have declared the

system a failure hobbled by infighting and

irrelevance. Others tout it as an emerging social

movement that effectively can address local

problems and that has gained the organizational

strength to become a force in city politics.

Obviously, where one sits has a large influence on

one’s perception of the system.

I

POLICY BRIEF 2007 5

It is important to understand the roots of these

disagreements in order to evaluate the successes

and shortcomings of the neighborhood council

system in a way that allows for broad consensus

on the direction this system should take.

The first issue is that the vision for the

neighborhood council system outlined in the

Charter is broad and allows varying

interpretations of what the system should

accomplish. The Charter states that the purpose of

the system is to “promote more citizen

participation in government and make

government more responsive to local needs.”

Neighborhood councils must represent the

diversity of interests in the community, and every

part of Los Angeles must be located within a

neighborhood council. Article I of the

Neighborhood Council Plan, adopted to

implement the system, broadens the goals stated

in the Charter. In addition to promoting

participation and making government more

responsive, the Plan supports “opportunities to

build partnerships with government,”

collaboration and building a sense of community.

The wide range of possible interpretations of

these provisions was evident in focus groups the

Neighborhood Participation Project conducted

early in the implementation process. The

neighborhood activists who participated spoke

about the importance of community building,

lobbying regarding community needs, influencing

city services and connecting to the broader city

governance process. Another member quoted

former New York Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia:

“The essence of city government is good

housekeeping.” This prompted another to quip:

“Neighborhood councils should not be the maid

with the vacuum cleaner but the mother-in-law

with the white gloves.” The concern that the city

would “offload” maintenance duties was echoed

by a participant who stated: “We don’t want to do

the City’s job … like a self-service gas station.”

Some focus group participants felt neighborhood

councils could influence broad governance

processes, such as redistricting, while others

articulated the importance of community building

through social activities, such as community

festivals. The participants tempered their visions,

however, with a degree of pragmatism. “No one

has hope for revolutionary actions,” one

participant stated, “but the simple ability to be

heard.” Another agreed: “I don’t entertain any

delusions that neighborhood councils will share

power—I do entertain the vision that

neighborhood councils can serve as forums for

different interests to get together and address

issues. There is more value in the fact that these

different groups with separate interests come

together to focus on community issues.”

Beyond the broad and vague Charter mandates

for the neighborhood council system, the basic

character of this systemic effort at governance

reform is inherently difficult to evaluate due to

the process orientation of the reform, and the

typically contested nature of system outcomes.

Because of this, we rely heavily in our evaluation

on the extent to which the system seems to be

developing capacity for action.

Process orientation. The creation of the

neighborhood council system primarily changed

the process rather then setting concrete outcome

goals. Evaluating the attainment of process goals

remains very much in the eye of beholder. For

example, more participation generally is preferred

to less, but more participation also increases the

probability of conflict either on policy or personal

grounds. Less consensus exists on how much

conflict should be promoted and tolerated in the

system. To some, long raucous meetings in which

different parties clash signal that new voices have

joined the debate, while to others, such clashes

point to a system run amok.

Contested outcomes. The extent to which

neighborhood councils make substantive

achievements has been contested. If nothing else,

urban politics is about resolving conflicts between

contending interests. By adding new voices the

neighborhood council system changed the

dynamics of these policy debates, creating new

winners and losers. Naturally, winners and losers

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

6

will have contrasting opinions on the value of

neighborhood councils in these debates.

The creation of neighborhood councils has been

an exercise in building community capacity.

Capacity indicates the potential for community

action, but when and how that capacity may be

exercised remains elusive. Community capacity

often remains latent until a mobilizing issue, such

as a rise in crime rate or deterioration of traffic

mobility, prompts the community to act.

Simply looking at neighborhood council actions to

date provides an incomplete picture of their

underlying capacities. The notion of capacity

building implies a continuous, dynamic process.

Therefore, looking at neighborhood council

accomplishments in the relatively brief period

since council inception provides only partial

evidence on how well organizational capacity will

be developed and maintained over time.

In this evaluation of the neighborhood councils,

we strive to address these difficulties head on. We

seek to employ as broad a base of evidence as

possible by combining multiple data sources from

eight years of field work. Our criteria can be

divided into long-run effects of the system versus

the intermediate-level system reforms that are

necessary prerequisites for the long-run success of

the system. The intermediate system goals

include:

•

A strong participatory core. Councils that make

up the system must participate openly and

effectively with their constituent stakeholders,

which in turn requires open elections of the

governing board and broad, representative

participation in neighborhood council processes.

Deliberation requires effective outreach.

•

Political support and provision of resources.

Support of key political actors both in terms of

open access to policy making and in the provision

of resources is crucial. These requisites include

appropriate support by DONE and the

implementation of the political innovations

outlined in the Charter, including early

notification, input into the budgetary process and

monitoring of services.

These intermediate goals are discussed in Sections

II through IV of this report. The long-run goals of

the system of neighborhood councils, which are

assessed in this section of the report, are:

•

Increased participation of diverse stakeholders.

The system is intended to increase both the

quantity and quality of civic participation in Los

Angeles and thereby foster partnerships between

the City and communities to address pressing

public problems.

•

Improved community capacity. By increasing the

organizational capacity of their communities,

neighborhood councils should be able to have a

positive influence on policy decisions and their

neighborhoods.

•

Strengthening the civic culture of Los Angeles.

Neighborhood councils can influence stakeholder

perceptions of their government and their role as

citizens. Residents of Los Angeles currently have

relatively low levels of trust, and high levels of

political disaffection. The question is whether

these attitudes can change as a result of

involvement in neighborhood councils.

This evaluation uses a multi-methodological

approach, combining documentary research with

qualitative and quantitative field data. Primary

sources of data collection include two surveys of

neighborhood council board members; two

surveys of Department of Neighborhood

Empowerment project coordinators; in-depth

interviews with neighborhood council members,

city council staff and city department executive

liaisons to neighborhood councils; a survey of city

department staff who interact with neighborhood

councils; documentary data; three focus groups

involving neighborhood council stakeholders; and

extensive field research, including neighborhood

council meeting attendance and observation.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 7

System Overview

The reform has been successful in creating a

citywide system of operating neighborhood

councils. As the authors elsewhere discuss, given

relatively limited resource support from the City,

the development of the current citywide system

must be attributed to the tremendous efforts of

hundreds of volunteer community activists. By

2004, the system was largely in place, with 81

certified neighborhood councils and 74 elected

governing boards. Thus the city has had what

might be considered a functioning neighborhood

council system for approximately three years.

There are currently 86 certified neighborhood

councils of which 83 have elected boards; the

number of councils may increase in the future as

some of the larger councils are discussing the

possibility of dividing into smaller entities.

It is perhaps more accurate to conceptualize the

neighborhood councils as “community councils”

given that councils represent on average

residential areas of 38,000 people. The average

size of a neighborhood council board is about 21

board members. Most of these boards meet

monthly, and many have committee substructures

that consider policy issues and forward action

items for consideration by the governing board.

Neighborhood councils are also beginning to

coalesce into regional and citywide policy

networks. These include the Citywide Alliance of

Neighborhood Councils; the Los Angeles

Neighborhood Council Congress; Valley, Harbor,

and Northeast Alliances; and other issue- or

identity-oriented networks. These various

neighborhood networks have increased the flow

of information among community activists in the

city’s many sub-regions.

Civic Participation

The Charter lists promoting citizen participation

in government as a central goal of neighborhood

councils. Improved participation can be measured

in a number of ways. Neighborhood councils can

increase the number of times that individuals

undertake a participatory act, such as

volunteering, voting or attending a meeting. They

also can lead to higher-quality forms of

participation in which individuals feel a greater

sense of empowerment or learn civic skills. These

effects occur through a variety of means,

including direct involvement on neighborhood

councils, the ability of councils to involve

communities, interaction with city officials, and

building networks of relationships throughout the

city among neighborhood activists.

Direct involvement. A clear success of the

neighborhood council system over the last seven

years has been the creation of a nearly citywide

system from the grassroots. Individual volunteers

from across the city have labored tirelessly to

organize neighborhood councils, undergo the

certification process, and manage operations.

They have attended countless meetings, trainings

and city-level events, such as the Mayor’s Budget

Day and the Congress of Neighborhood Councils.

These accomplishments are all the more

impressive given limited city support and often

antagonistic relations with the city.

This accomplishment must be qualified, however.

It is doubtful that these core volunteers include

many newcomers to volunteerism and city

politics. In our 2006 survey of neighborhood

council board members, almost 98% said they

vote either always or nearly always. In addition,

neighborhood council board members are

substantially more likely than neighborhood

residents to be white, wealthy, highly educated,

and homeowners, as discussed in Section II of this

report. This is not surprising given the enormous

dedication required to be an active board

member, but it also suggests that neighborhood

council decision-making may not represent the

majority view of community stakeholders.

Community involvement. Neighborhood councils

have exerted increasing effort to reach out to their

communities. For example, more councils report

outreach in 2006 compared to 2003. This outreach

has improved the community awareness of

neighborhood councils. A 2003 survey by the

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

8

Public Policy Institute of California found that

only 27% of Angelenos had heard of

neighborhood councils. In contrast, a 2007 survey

by the Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles

found that nearly 60% of Angelenos were aware

of their neighborhood council.

2

While levels of

awareness are slightly lower for groups that tend

to participate less in politics—the young,

minorities, and renters with lower incomes and

less education—these differences are not

disconcertingly large (see Figure I-1). Despite

widely reported problems concerning election

disputes, elections have been relatively successful.

Most importantly, they attract multiple office

seekers leading to a large number of contested

races. Turnout is low but respectable for advisory

bodies in a city with historically low voter

participation.

Relationships with Los Angeles city

government. Implicit in the goals of improving

the responsiveness of city government through

participation is the notion that neighborhood

councils would help forge stronger relationships

between community stakeholders and city

officials. These relationships are slow in

developing because the city has not systematically

implemented one of the most important elements

of successful neighborhood councils, political

innovations to support participation with the City

(see Section III).

Instead, forums for interaction have developed

haltingly. While the Mayor’s Budget Day and the

Congress of Neighborhood Councils attract

relatively large audiences, they are not structured

as deliberative forums. Several City Council

members hold regular meetings with

neighborhood council representatives or send

field staff to meetings, but others maintain

distance. While neighborhood councils have had

positive experiences negotiating MOUs with

2

Further results of the survey by the Leavey Center for the

Study of Los Angeles may be accessed at

lmu.edu/csla/community/LARiots1651ToplineReport051507.p

df

certain city departments, many departments pay

little or no attention to them.

This failure of the system to forge more

collaborative and productive relationships is the

primary frustration voiced by neighborhood

council board members. When asked what can be

done to improve the responsiveness of the City,

the majority of suggestions point to either

improving communications with the City or the

responsiveness of individual officials. In contrast,

less than 30% of board members specifically cite

problems with neighborhood councils.

The available evidence on everyday interactions

does not paint a picture of strengthening

relationships. The average number of contacts

neighborhood council board members report with

city officials remained stagnant between our 2003

and 2006 surveys (Figure I-2).

3

Moreover

reported board member contacts with community

stakeholders declined slightly between the two

surveys, suggesting weak linkages to the

constituents that boards represent.

Board members report the highest level of

satisfaction with their contacts when they interact

in person with city officials. For example, more

than 80% of the board members who contacted

the Mayor’s office face-to-face reported being

satisfied or very satisfied, while only 50% of those

who contacted the Mayor’s office by other means

were satisfied. Unfortunately, personal interaction

is becoming less frequent, for example, falling

from 62% in 2003 to 49% in 2006 of all contacts

with the Mayor’s office as seen in Figure I-3.

3

In 2003 board members contacted an average of 2.3 offices in

the two weeks prior to their last board meeting. This number

increased marginally to 2.4 in 2006.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 9

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Stakeholders

City Officials

Count

Ot

her Neighborhood

Council Members

Other Neighborhood

Councils

Citywide Meeting

Attendance

2006

2003

FIGURE I-2: AVERAGE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL MEMBER CONTACTS AND MEETING

ATTENDANCE

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2003 2007

Up to

$39K

$100K to

$149K

High School

Diploma

Colleg

e

Graduate

18 to 24

Years Old

65 Years and

Older

African

American

Korean

White

Latino

Other

Renting

Mortgage

Paid For

Income

Education

Age

Ethnicity

Percen

t

FIGURE I-1: PERCENTAGE OF LOS ANGELES RESIDENTS AWARE OF NEIGHBORHOOD

COUNCILS

All Los Angeles

Residents

Homeownership

Status

Sources: PPIC, Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

10

Citywide networking. Neighborhood council

activists reported an increase in citywide

networking over time, from 0.4 board contacts

with other councils in 2003 to more than two in

2006. This network represents a significant

innovation in Los Angeles politics. These new

connections represent a store of political and

social capital that can serve the neighborhood

councils well in the future. Councils can improve

their use of this network by sharing and

disseminating best practices and innovative ideas.

Community Capacity

To advise the City effectively and help make the

City more responsive to community needs,

neighborhood councils must develop basic

organizational capacities, including the ability to

run meetings, recruit and manage volunteers, set

goals and conduct debates on controversial issues

while avoiding acrimony.

Getting people with differing interests, work

styles and busy schedules to volunteer together to

achieve common goals constitute a tall order.

Many community organizations fold after only a

short time. Neighborhood councils face

particularly entrenched difficulties because of

their hybrid nature. For example, they are

volunteer organizations but mandated to be

inclusive. Volunteer organizations reduce conflict

by attracting like-minded members. Members of

the Sierra Club, for example, share common views

on environmental issues, which go a long way

toward facilitating group activities. The mandate

for inclusiveness means neighborhood councils

have to learn how to manage conflict effectively.

Similarly, neighborhood councils are grassroots

organizations but are also creatures of city

government. Although they survive on the

volunteer efforts of their members, neighborhood

councils are burdened by the Brown Act and

other government mandates that typically apply

to agencies with a paid workforce.

Despite these challenges, neighborhood council

organizational capacity has continued to

develop. Our survey of DONE project

coordinators finds that a larger percentage of

neighborhood councils in 2006 can run meetings

effectively and set goals. Neighborhood councils

also have accumulated a steadily increasing set of

accomplishments, such as advising on land use

issues, community-building events and

neighborhood beautification projects (see Section

IV of this report for details). These successes

appear to be primarily local in character; Figure I-

4 shows that DONE project coordinators agree

that nearly 60% of neighborhood councils have

had a positive influence on their communities.

Respondents identified only 39% of neighborhood

councils as having influenced citywide policy, a

perspective generally shared by City Council

staffers interviewed by our project.

Our survey of city administrators who interact

with neighborhood councils, which asked

administrators to rate different actors on their

importance in providing information and

developing policy also found little neighborhood

council influence. Clearly, city departments have

not responded to the spirit of the Charter that

gave neighborhood councils a special role in

monitoring service delivery issues. Efforts to

implement MOUs between some departments

and neighborhood councils and to establish a

community planning process in the Department

of City Planning may ameliorate this situation,

but much room for improvement exists.

The successes of neighborhood councils in

building organizational capacity are fragile.

Leadership changes, burnout by key members or

new controversies can weaken these

organizations. In 2003 and 2006, we asked DONE

project coordinators whether neighborhood

councils had encountered difficulties. In both

years, a large number experienced either

decreasing community involvement (often due to

conflict in the neighborhood council) or increasing

group conflict (see Figure I-5). It is clear that this

system will face continued needs to recruit

capable community leaders, train activists and

support group activities.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 11

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Influencing Neighborhood

Influencing Citywide Issues

Percent

2006

2003

FIGURE I-4: PERCENTAGE OF NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS IDENTIFIED AS

INFLUENCING CITYWIDE AND LOCAL ISSUES

62

49

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2003

2006

Year

Percent

FIGURE I-3: NCS REPORTING PERSONAL INTERACTION IN CONTACTS WITH MAYOR’S

OFFICE

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

12

Strengthening the Civic Fabric of Los Angeles

The ultimate test for Los Angeles’ system of

neighborhood councils is whether it can improve

governance by making citizens feel more

empowered and government more responsive. As

we have argued, this evaluation can provide only

an early glimpse of a process that will take

decades to take root. Unfortunately, the early

returns on the broad impacts of neighborhood

councils on Los Angeles are at best mixed.

The good news is that compared to 1998—the

year before Charter reform was adopted—

Angelenos feel better about the direction of the

City and, in particular, the direction of their

neighborhoods (see Figure I-6). Council board

members continue to feel empowered: 90% of

them in 2003 and 2006 felt they could influence

city government working together.

But this improvement does not appear to be due

to better government performance. Public Policy

Institute of California surveys from 2003 to 2005

find that citizen perceptions of the ability of the

City to solve problems increased only marginally

and remained consistently lower than the ratings

for other cities in Los Angeles County, as seen in

Figure I-7. When residents are asked about

particular services, the responses are similar

(Figure I-8). Satisfaction with service delivery

(with the exception of the Los Angeles Police

Department ) declined between 2003 and 2005,

and remained consistently lower than other Los

Angeles County cities. And finally, after five years

of experience with neighborhood councils,

Angelenos are distinctly less confident that

neighborhood councils have a positive impact on

the governance of the city (Figure I-9).

In sum, the capacity of councils to work on behalf

of their communities appears to be growing, but

varies across the city. While the limited attitudinal

evidence we can bring to bear does not suggest a

strengthened civic culture in Los Angeles , it is

important to acknowledge that civic attitudes are

slow to change and difficult to measure.

We next turn to the elements of the system that

are critical to an effective neighborhood council

system: representative legitimacy, innovations

that engage and empower neighborhood councils,

and the fostering of capacity for neighborhood

councils to act on behalf of their constituent

communities.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Declining Stakeholder Involvement

Increased Internal Conflict

% of Boards

2006

2003

FIGURE I-5: IN PAST YEAR HAS BOARD EXPERIENCED DECLINE IN STAKEHOLDER

INVOLVEMENT OR INCREASED INTERNAL CONFLICT

POLICY BRIEF 2007 13

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

2003

2004

2005

2006

Year

Percent Good or Excellent

NC Board Members

LA City Residents (PPI

C)

LA County Residents (PPIC)

FIGURE I-7: HOW WOULD YOU RATE THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR CITY IN SOLVING

PROBLEMS

0

10

20

3

0

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1997

2002

2007

% of Residents

Los Angeles

Year

Neighborhood

FIGURE I-6: BELIEF THAT NEIGHBORHOOD AND CITY ARE HEADING IN THE RIGHT

DIRECTION

Source: The Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

14

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Improve Participation Improve Government Responsiveness

Percent

2002, N=1,600, Margin ±2.5%

Source: The Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles

2006

2002

Improve Quality of Government

FIGURE I-9: PERCENT OF LOS ANGELES ADULTS WHO RESPONDED “YES” TO

NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL QUESTIONS IN 2002 AND 2007

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

City

County

City

County

City

County

Recreation and Parks

Street Services

Police Department

% Good or Excellent

2006

2003

Source: Public Policy Institute of California

FIGURE I

-

8: LOS ANGELES RESIDENTS

’

RATINGS OF CITY SERVICES

2007, N=1,651, Margin ±2.4%

POLICY BRIEF 2007 15

II. REPRESENTATIVE LEGITIMACY:

DEMOCRATIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE

SYSTEM

number of provisions of the City Charter

and various ordinances seek to ensure the

representative legitimacy of

neighborhood councils. A stated purpose of

neighborhood councils in Section 900 of the

Charter is to “include representatives of the many

diverse interests in communities.” Section 906

requires that neighborhood council bylaws must

include “assurances that the members of the

neighborhood council reflect the diverse interests

within their area,” as well as “guarantees that all

meetings will be open and public, and permit, to

the extent feasible, every stakeholder to

participate in the conduct of business,

deliberation and decision-making.” What has

been less clear from the onset is what it means to

represent and reflect “diverse interests” within a

neighborhood council area. As Figure II-1

suggests, there are several conceptions of

representation that are applicable to

neighborhood councils in Los Angeles.

To date, enormous attention has focused on

formal and descriptive aspects of neighborhood

council representation, with relatively little

attention to participatory and substantive forms

of representation. Implicit in this approach is an

apparent “top-down” logic that suggests that

focusing on formal representative measures such

as fair elections, open meetings, and grievance

procedures will encourage descriptive

representation, and that a board that mirrors the

socioeconomic or cultural profile of a community

will necessarily represent the substantive interests

of the community. Yet this relationship is not

entirely clear. While some studies do suggest that

organizations that are descriptively representative

of their constituents also tend to be more

substantively representative, others find that even

descriptively representative boards may stray

from representing the broad-based interests of

communities.

In the case of neighborhood councils, the

operative question is arguably: Can a

descriptively non-representative board be

substantively representative? Our research

suggests that they can. However, we argue that a

“bottom-up” focus that emphasizes diverse

pathways to direct participation is necessary to

insure the robustness of substantive

representation. An analysis of the bylaws of 40

neighborhood councils revealed that the level of

participatory access to neighborhood council

activities varied across councils. Some councils are

relatively open to participation by their general

membership—allowing members to organize and

sit on committees and to speak at Board

meetings—while others appear to have

duplicated the bureaucratic style of City Hall, in

which committee membership is limited to Board

members and public comment at meetings is

constrained by time limits and submission of

speaker cards.

Evolution of Descriptive Representation

A significant challenge to descriptive

representation is the well-established finding that

higher-income residents are more likely to be

politically engaged across all forms of

voluntarism. Figure II-2 displays data from the

American Participation Survey, which shows that,

in general, the income bias is greatest in the

category of attending local meetings. This

suggests that neighborhood councils are among

the civic and political entities least likely to

achieve descriptive representation. This is

certainly true of the neighborhood council system,

which has a high concentration of individuals

who are white, upper-income, highly educated,

and homeowners. Moreover the system has

experienced little evolution in the demographic

profile of neighborhood council boards between

our first survey in 2003 and the second in 2006.

4

Unless otherwise indicated, data compares responses from 41

neighborhood council boards surveyed in 2003 with 86 boards

surveyed in 2006. Los Angeles City figures are from the 2000

U.S. Census.

A

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

16

FIGURE II-1: CONCEPTS OF REPRESENTATIVE LEGITIMACY

Concept of Representation Definition Example(s)

Substantive representation “Acting for” various group

interests in a manner responsive

to them; congruence of interests

between representative and

represented

An agenda contains issues that are of

interest to stakeholders within the

community

Formal representation Formal arrangements to ensure

accountability and legitimacy of

representatives

Fair elections; open meetings; recall or

grievance procedures

Descriptive representation Leaders mirror or reflect

politically relevant characteristics

of constituents

Percentage of substantive stakeholders or

cultural groups on board (e.g.,

representation of renters; businesses;

Latinos).

Participatory representation Organization provides

opportunities for direct

participation of stakeholders in

NC activities

Direct involvement of stakeholders in

committees, multi-way communication

channels; town hall meetings, etc.

Source: Adapted from Guo and Musso (2007), “Representation in Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations: A Conceptual

Framework, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36,2 pp. 308-326.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Volunteered for

local board

Volunteered for

campaign

Contacted local

official

Voted in loc

al

elections

Percent Engaged in Political Activity

L

ow income (<$40k)

High Income (>$40k)

Attended local

meeting

Source: Data from American Citizen Participation Study, 1990

FIGURE II-2: HIGH INCOME VS. LOW INCOME PARTICIPATION IN VARIOUS POLITICAL

ACTIVITIES

POLICY BRIEF 2007 17

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

City of LA

NC Board

Percentage on board or in population

White

Black

Hispanic

Asian

Other

FIGURE II-4: RACIAL/ETHNIC MAKEUP OF NC BOARD MEMBERS AND CITY OF LOS

ANGELES

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Business

Employee

Faith

-

Ba

sed

Homeowner

Property Owner

Renter

Social Service

Student/ Teacher

Other

2006

2003

FIGURE II-3: STAKEHOLDER REPRESENTATION: CONCENTRATION OF HOMEOWNERS

OVER TIME

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

18

Homeowners continue to be the major

stakeholder group within the composition of

neighborhood council boards (Figure II-3).

Allowed multiple responses, 63% of Board

members identified themselves as homeowners in

both 2003 and 2006. Meanwhile, the survey

showed declining identification with all other

stakeholder groups except business, which

increased slightly to 32%. Asked to identify their

primary stakeholder affiliation, half of all

respondents identified themselves as

homeowners.

The racial and ethnic composition of

neighborhood council boards does not mirror that

of Los Angeles residents. As Figure II-4 indicates,

whites continue to make up the greatest share

board membership, while Asians and Hispanics

continue to be under-represented in proportion to

their share of the city’s population. The

disproportion in racial/ethnic representation

increased somewhat from 2003 to 2006. The

race/ethnicity bias among neighborhood council

board membership is still more pronounced when

council boards are compared to the leadership of

Area Plan Commissions and other boards and

commissions in the City, positions that are

appointed by the Mayor (Figure II-5).

5

However, it is important to note that the

racial/ethnic profile of Boards varies widely across

the city. When representation is measured in

proportion to racial/ethnic share of the regional

population we see that people of color are better

represented in areas of the city with higher

concentrations of non-whites. For example,

African Americans are more highly represented in

the North Valley and West, South, and Central

areas of the city. Representation of Asians is

particularly concentrated in the South. Latinos are

underrepresented across all areas of the city, but

are more strongly represented in East and West

Los Angeles than elsewhere.

The overall picture is one of “elite” dominated

boards, with high-income residents over-

represented compared to LA City residents as a

whole. A dramatically disproportionate

percentage of board members have household

5

Note that while other volunteer commissioners may be more

ethnically diverse, it is likely that they are not representative

with respect to socioeconomic status. We do not have data

regarding commissioners’ income level.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

All LA Residents

(2000 US Census)

Likely Voters

(PPIC)

LA APC

Commissioners

Other LA

Commissioners

NC Boards (2006)

Percent

White

Latino

African American

Asian

Other

FIGURE II-5: RACE ETHNICITY BIAS IS PRONOUNCED COMPARED TO OTHER FORMS OF

PARTICIPATION

POLICY BRIEF 2007 19

income in excess of $100,000 per year, 41% as

compared to 14% of Los Angeles residents. The

percentage of members who reported household

incomes of less than $20,000 is only 3.7%,

compared to 28% among Los Angeles residents as

a whole. Along the educational attainment

dimension, we again see an inverse pattern

between neighborhood council board members

and Los Angeles residents. Residents at large are

much more likely to have less than a high school

education, and Board members are more likely to

be post-graduate than either residents or likely

voters. These disparities increased between 2003

and 2006.

There is also a continued gap in board

representation between those who have long-

established roots in their neighborhood and

relative newcomers. Although nearly half the

city’s residents have lived in Los Angeles five or

fewer years, nearly half of neighborhood council

board members surveyed in 2006 lived in their

neighborhoods for 20 years or longer.

Substantive Representation

Not surprisingly, neighborhood councils’ policy

concerns continue to center around a local

quality-of-life agenda. In both 2003 and 2006,

Board members identified public safety,

transportation, and land use as the issues of

greatest importance to them (Figure II-6). Los

Angeles residents similarly highlighted a strong

concern for public safety, but were much more to

be concerned about education. Neither council

boards nor the public express strong concerns

about the economy, environmental quality, health

and welfare, or housing, suggesting that these

issues are better addressed at a higher level of

jurisdiction than the community.

An analysis of neighborhood council agendas

shows that the substantive work of the councils is

somewhat different from the concerns identified

in surveys of board members and the general

public. Land use figures prominently in the

Board’s discussions, as do community-assistance

and beautification activities. Notably, public

safety items are less prominent on board agendas

relative to other areas of concern.

Summary of Findings on Representative

Legitimacy

Eight years after the inception of the

neighborhood council system, council boards fail

to reflect the rich socio-economic diversity that

characterizes Los Angeles. On the whole, board

members are significantly whiter, more highly

educated, and more rooted in their communities

than the rest of the Los Angeles populace.

Yet we argue that a narrowly defined emphasis on

descriptive representation is misplaced. Indeed,

empirical research suggests that striving for

boards that “look like” Los Angeles places an

unrealistic demand on the neighborhood council

system. Rather, the goal should be neighborhood

governance structures that “act for” the

community in addressing issues that are of

concern to stakeholders. To accomplish this

requires more attention to participation of

stakeholders in an array of council activities.

Some neighborhood councils responded to the

charter’s call for diverse representation by

adopting formal governance for stakeholder

composition of their boards. For example, a

number of neighborhood councils have

designated seats for particular stakeholders, or

elect board members by geographic district. These

alternatives to at-large elections, such as district-

based seats or seats designated for specific

stakeholder groups generally did not increase

minority representation on boards.

6

By contrast,

participatory mechanisms and measures that

would increase the connections of elected boards

to stakeholders have been virtually ignored by

both neighborhood councils and the City.

6

For more detail, see Kyu-Nahm Jun, The Democratic Legitimacy

of Community Associations: Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils in

Context, USC dissertation, 2005, and Jun and Musso,

Explaining Minority Representation in Place-Based

Associations: Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils in Context,

forthcoming in the Journal of Civil Society.

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

20

“Action committee” structures that allow

stakeholders to form and disband committees as

the need arises as well as meeting arrangements

that encourage informal exchanges between board

members and stakeholders are examples of more

participatory approaches.

The other issue is that neighborhood councils—

and the City—frequently use impersonal and

broad-based outreach techniques such as fliers

and internet messaging. In contrast, community

organizers find that face-to-face invitation and

involvement in specific projects are required to

motivate busy individuals to become involved in

volunteer activities. Such targeted invitations are

particularly important for groups that have

limited resources, such as the lower-income

stakeholders who presently are under-involved

with neighborhood councils. Some options for

increasing participatory representation include:

•

Targeted organizing around specific projects,

rather than generalized outreach, to encourage

members of underrepresented groups to become

involved with the Council;

•

City incentives (targeted or in-kind grants) for

projects where neighborhood councils can

demonstrate that they involve underrepresented

stakeholders in activities;

•

Identifying and sharing “best practices” for

targeted community organizing across

neighborhood councils.

To date, much of the responsibility for

incorporating diversity has fallen to

neighborhood councils themselves. Yet outreach

and community organizing and outreach are

demanding tasks; indeed in our survey

neighborhood council board members identified

them as their single greatest challenge. Hence we

advocate that moving forward, the City provide

greater resource support for development of

participative and substantively representative

neighborhood councils.

Specifically, we suggest that the City assume

responsibility for running neighborhood council

elections to ensure formal legitimacy and relieve

overburdened councils. The City also can achieve

economies of scale in broad-based outreach and

advertising. This would free neighborhood

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

Economy

Education

Environmental Quality

Health & Welfare

Housing

Land Use

Public Safety

Transportation

Likely Voters

NCB 2003

NCB 2006

FIGURE II-6: PUBLIC SAFETY AND QUALITY OF LIFE DOMINANT CONCERNS OF BOARD

MEMBERS

POLICY BRIEF 2007 21

councils to focus on targeted community

organizing with the goal of increasing diversity of

participation in the system. We further

recommend that the City provide technical

assistance and incentives to encourage

neighborhood councils to invest in such

community organizing activities.

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

22

III. EMPOWERMENT INNOVATIONS:

PARTICIPATORY ARENAS FOR

NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS

his section of the report considers the

extent to which the City of Los Angeles has

implemented Charter provisions intended

to empower neighborhood councils in city

governance. The Charter contained five

provisions that required the City to provide

channels for neighborhood council involvement,

including participation in the city budget process,

relations with city offices and departments,

support for a Congress of Neighborhood

Councils, and the establishment of an Early

Notification System.

Studies of successful neighborhood councils in

other cities have emphasized the importance of

political innovations to support engagement of

councils with the City. Thus the Neighborhood

Council system in Los Angeles comprises not only

the 86 certified neighborhood councils but also

institutional reforms that create participatory

opportunities for neighborhood councils. Figure

III-1 summarizes the institutional targets of the

provisions contained in the Charter, the intent of

each provision, and the current status of

implementation. The remainder of this section

discusses the City’s accomplishments with respect

to four of these five these empowerment

provisions. We do not discuss the Charter

provision related to delegated hearings (section

908) in detail because there has been no action to

implement this provision.

The Congress of Neighborhoods

Section 901c of the Charter requires DONE to

“arrange Congress of Neighborhoods meetings if

requested to do so by recognized neighborhood

councils.”

7

The apparent intent was to promote

neighborhood council orientation to citywide

issues, reduce parochialism, and create a sense of

citywide collectivity. The implementing language

7

Charter for the City of Los Angeles, Article IX, Sec. 901 (c).

in the Plan for a citywide system of neighborhood

councils stipulates a more directive role for the

Department of Neighborhood Empowerment to

“coordinate, arrange, and convene biannual

Congress of Neighborhood Councils meetings.”

Meetings of the Congress of Neighborhoods as

organized by DONE have primarily functioned as

opportunities for information dissemination and

provision of training and technical assistance to

neighborhood councils rather than deliberative

forums.

Beginning in 2004, there was increased attention

to the idea of developing a Congress that would

function as a deliberative forum. In October 2004,

the USC Collaborative Learning Project sponsored

a facilitated meeting to discuss the idea of a

deliberative congress. The neighborhood council

representatives in attendance agreed on the need

for a deliberative body. Subsequently, a coalition

of neighborhood council members created a

working group that operated independently of

USC. In February of 2006, the working group

elected an interim chair and inaugurated the Los

Angeles Neighborhood Council Congress

(LANCC). The following July LANCC voted to

approve a form and mission that patterns LANCC

loosely on the US Congress: a ‘general assembly’

bring issues to the attention of the ‘senate.’

LANCC also established a provision that allowed

it to take position votes with input from

individual neighborhood councils. To date 40

neighborhood councils have voted to affiliate.

Since its establishment, the organization has

turned away from taking issue positions, and

instead serves as a forum in which neighborhood

leaders discuss broader strategic objectives. In

November of 2006, for example, the LANCC was

a forum for organizing resistance to Measure R,

the term limits/ethics reform proposal. Although

Measure R made it to the ballot and was passed

by voters, LANCC leaders term their efforts a

qualified success for influencing the policy

debate.

T

POLICY BRIEF 2007 23

FIGURE III-1: STATUS OF EMPOWERMENT PROVISIONS

Institutional Target Charter Provision Status

Creation of networking and

deliberation opportunities to

orient NCs toward citywide

issues, reduce parochialism, and

create a sense of belonging to the

larger City of Los Angeles.

City will provide support

for a citywide Congress of

Neighborhoods (Section

901c)

⇒ The DONE organizes a Congress of

Neighborhoods that functions primarily

for technical assistance and networking

⇒ A coalition of NCs created the Los

Angeles Neighborhood Council

Congress as a deliberative forum to

discuss citywide issues

Public involvement in decision

making by City Council, boards,

and commissions requires timely

information. Prior charter reform

public notification occurred only

72 hours in advance, through

physical posting at hearing venue

(typically downtown).

“Early Warning System” to

notify neighborhood of

pending city decisions with

“reasonable opportunity to

provide input.” (Section 907)

⇒ City provides automated distribution of

agendas, a significant innovation

⇒ Agendas are distributed only 72 hours

prior to meeting, no earlier than before

⇒ Some departments are providing earlier

notification and better information

⇒ Need to make system more user-friendly,

and provide earlier notification of issues

City Council deliberations are

centralized in downtown Los

Angeles and distant from

community stakeholders

City Council may delegate

hearing authority to

neighborhood councils on

matters of local concern.

(Section 908)

⇒ No action by City.

Prior to charter reform public

involvement in budgeting

occurred in public hearings by

City Council, after decisions had

already been made.

Neighborhood councils may

make budget requests to

Mayor (Section 909)

⇒ A regional budgeting process has been in

place since the 2004/5 budget

⇒ The process elicits only general

information about NC board priorities

⇒ There is a need to systematize NC

influence over specific arenas, such as

capital budgeting

Service delivery is simultaneously

centralized downtown and

fragmented between numerous

city departments. Community

members have difficulty knowing

who to contact with service needs

or complaints.

Neighborhood councils will

monitor service delivery and

meet periodically with

responsible officials. (Section

910)

⇒ City has not adopted consistent policies

for feedback on service delivery

⇒ There have been some efforts at

developing memoranda of

understanding between NCs and

individual departments

⇒ There is a need to develop more

systematic channels for interaction

between NCs and departments

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

24

Under the leadership of its present chairman,

Brady Westwater, position-taking has been set

aside in favor of a technical assistance orientation.

For example, LANCC has recruited former

department officials to advise neighborhoods on

policy issues (such as transportation) and focused

on facilitating issue-oriented sessions at the

DONE-sponsored Congress of Neighborhoods.

It is interesting that both the City-sponsored

Congress and the neighborhood council’s self-

organized LANCC now focus primarily on

technical assistance and information provision.

This is in no small part due to differences in

philosophy among neighborhood council

members. While some activists would seek

broader influence over city decisions, others

believe that the appropriate focus of

neighborhood councils should be on the local

community, or are hesitant to relinquish their

advisory powers to a citywide representative

body.

Early Notification System.

8

Charter Section 907 mandates an “Early Warning

System” (subsequently renamed the Early

Notification System) that would notify

neighborhood councils “as soon as practical” of

pending city decisions and provide them with a

“reasonable opportunity to provide input.” The

goal was to address information gaps that often

prevent community members from getting

involved in city policy. The system debuted in

July 2001 as a web page from which individuals

may subscribe to receive official notices via e-

mail. In February 2003 the City Council adopted a

system for “community impact statements,”

whereby the official view of neighborhood

councils will be part of the official agenda of city

policy bodies, and a full statement will be made

8

For additional details, see Musso, Weare, Cooper et. al.,

“Neighborhood Councils in Los Angeles; A Midterm Status

Report, available from the authors. Also see Musso and Weare,

“Implementing Early Notification in Los Angeles: Citizen

Participation by Other Means,” International Journal of Public

Administration, Vol. 29, July 2005.

part of the permanent record.

9

The ENS has made

significant improvements in information access.

Prior to establishment of the system, the City

Clerk distributed agenda information to about 800

on-line users. Since the advent of the ENS,

distribution of information on City Council

activities has blossomed to tens of thousands of

recipients. It is heavily used by City Hall insiders,

but about 60% of the subscriptions are from

outsiders. The range of available information has

expanded to include the activities of dozens of

boards and commissions not previously available

on the City Clerk’s system. The use of internet-

based dissemination is supported by almost three

quarters of neighborhood council board members.

Compared to other cities this system is innovative

in its use of technology and breadth of available

information, but its usefulness is hampered by a

number of factors:

•

It is not user-friendly. Neighborhood council

representatives report having spent over 20 hours

per week sorting through notices to find relevant

events. While the City had planned to make the

system searchable by neighborhood and policy

issue, these improvements have yet to be

implemented.

•

It is not early. Notification is not sufficiently in

advance of hearings to permit neighborhood

councils to provide meaningful input. Because

councils must agendize and discuss issues prior to

taking an official position, the usual monthly

meeting cycle precludes a rapid response. During

the Charter reform process, ENS proponents

envisioned early notification to provide 30- or 45-

day notice periods. During the implementation

process, however, advance notice has been

defined in terms of California’s open meetings

law, the Brown Act, which only requires posting

of agendas 72 hours prior to public meetings.

9

Harrison Sheppard, “Neighborhood Council Opinions Will

Weigh More,” Daily News, February 13, 2003.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 25

•

It is necessary but insufficient to foster community

involvement in city governance. City government

and departments have not embraced the spirit of

collaboration that would provide a place for

neighborhood council input early in the decision-

making process. Without such proactive reforms

to city policy-making routines, technological

innovation cannot assure community

consultation. Due to these limitations, system

usage is declining and board members express

much less confidence in its importance.

Some improvements to early notification continue

to be implemented. The Department of Planning

has distributed biweekly reports to neighborhood

councils on new applications and has recently

begun to distribute actual applications well in

advance of decision points. The Department of

Water and Power has entered into a

memorandum of understanding with

neighborhood councils that clarifies early

notification requirements, sets a more useful goal

of 90 days notice, and provides more background

information with these notices. The City should

build on these initiatives, but continued progress

will require a sustained dialogue between the City

and neighborhood councils.

Participation in City Budget Process

10

Charter Section 909 authorizes neighborhood

councils to make budget requests to the Mayor,

and requires the Mayor to inform councils of the

deadline for submitting such requests so that they

may be heard in a timely fashion. The goal is to

provide greater community involvement in a

budgeting process that previously was shrouded

from the public until the final stage, when City

Council voted on a budget that had largely been

negotiated between the Mayor’s office and

departments in advance. However, neither the

Neighborhood Council Plan nor any

10

For more information see Juliet Musso, Mark Elliot, Michael

Sithole, and Chris Weare, “Implementing participatory

budgeting: The case of Los Angeles,” working paper available

from the authors.

implementing ordinances provided direction on

implementation of the budgetary process, leaving

administration of participatory budgeting to the

discretion of the Mayor’s office.

What has evolved is a regional deliberation

process that involves neighborhood councils in

providing input on broad service priorities.

11

In

general outline:

• The Mayor holds a Budget Day in which

neighborhood councils are oriented to the annual

mayoral priorities and the technical aspects of

creating the annual budget.

• The participating neighborhood councils

discuss and decide community budgetary

priorities in a public meeting.

• Each neighborhood council is invited to send

two representatives to a regional caucus (one for

each of the city’s seven regions) to discuss

neighborhood priorities.

• Each of the seven regions then selects two

representatives to meet with the Mayor and

discuss regional priorities.

• The regional representatives are expected to

report back to neighborhood councils in the

region about the outcome of the budget process.

On its face, the Mayor’s budget process embodies

several design features that are central to

successful participation. First, the City generally

provides information to neighborhood councils,

including in recent years a Neighborhood Budget

Summary that discusses revenue, appropriations,

and capital expenditures. Second, there has been

an attempt to collect systematic information

regarding neighborhoods’ budget preferences (in

some years, from stakeholders, in some, from

neighborhood council board members). Third,

11

The authors provided input to the City on this process,

including a policy briefing recommending use of a regional

panel approach.

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

26

there is an opportunity for regional deliberation

and direct citizen input by regional delegates.

On the positive side, the process has brought

many stakeholders to the table that had not

previously participated in the policy process.

Requiring stakeholders to administer (and

answer) a citizen survey has reminded

neighborhood activists that outreach and

education are important aspects of policy-making.

The process is limited, however, by issues related

to the character of neighborhood council

representation, difficulties of providing

appropriate information, and the challenges of

structuring deliberation that leads to meaningful

and actionable outcomes.

Issues of representation. Participation in the

budget process has varied substantially over time,

but a number of councils regularly decline to be

involved. For example, the FY 2005-2006 Priority

Based Budgeting process involved only 46 of the

82 neighborhood councils certified at the time

across the city. Moreover, given the elite biases in

participation discussed above, it is not clear that

neighborhood councils can speak authoritatively

on community fiscal preferences.

Issues of information. Both city officials and

neighborhood stakeholders have identified gaps

in stakeholders’ understanding about the budget

process. One respondent noted that neighborhood

councils must learn to rationalize needs and make

budgetary justifications or else requests from

neighborhood councils are simply inactionable

“wish lists.”

12

Other neighborhood activists have

called for selective information that will help

them understand which areas of the budget are

open to influence.

Issues of deliberation. It is not clear that

neighborhood councils generally engage

community members in deliberation regarding

the budget. Regional deliberation is also

hampered by vague or conflicting expectations

regarding the process. Moreover, the current

12

Interview with Respondent 201, June 24, 2002.

regional process is too removed from the real

politics of city budgeting. Some neighborhood

council leaders have expressed defeatism about

the extent to which they can be involved

meaningfully. Others seek the ability to “take

apart” the budget, and advise on fundamental

reforms, arguably not a feasible expectation given

the generally incremental nature of budgetary

decision making.

The Mayor’s office continues to meet informally

with a working group of regional budget

delegates to discuss future reforms to the system,

though a formal working group formed for that

purpose appears no longer to meet. We would

suggest that the following principles for

participatory budgeting be the basis for reforms to

the Mayor’s budget process:

13

•

The deliberative process should lead to

actionable recommendations. In other words, an

arena for budgetary recommendations should

seek neighborhood council advice on specific

matters where implementation is feasible rather

than on the citywide budget or general priorities.

For example many cities involve their

neighborhood councils in advising capital budget

decisions related to community improvement.

•

The process should be structured to integrate

data about preferences from a broadly

representative survey of the general public. The

City rather than neighborhood councils, should be

responsible for implementing this stakeholder

survey.

•

Neighborhood councils should be provided

the survey information for purposes of outreach

13

These recommendations are informed by the literature on

policy and budgetary participation, including Renn, Ortwin,

Thomas Webler, Horst Rakel, Peter Dienel and Branden

Johnson, (1993) “Public participation in decision making: A

three-step procedure,” Policy Sciences 26(189-214); Simonsen,

Bill and Mark D. Robbins. 1999. Citizen Participation in Resource

Allocation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press; Ebdon, Carol (2000).

“The Relationship Between Citizen Involvement in the Budget

Process and City Structure and Culture,” Public Productivity

and Management Review 23(3) 383-393.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 27

and agenda-setting, as well as receive

comprehensible information regarding the budget

process, real opportunities for influencing city

fiscal priorities, and the political context of

Mayoral policy priorities.

•

Neighborhood councils should be encouraged

(if not required) to involve community

stakeholders in a town hall-style discussion of

their budgetary deliberations. This could be

accomplished through creation of neighborhood

council budget committees charged with outreach

and public deliberation tasks.

Relations with City Departments

14

Charter Section 909 states that neighborhood

councils shall monitor the delivery of city services

in their respective areas and meet periodically

with city department officials. The goal of this

provision is to increase communication and

coordination among the neighborhoods and city

service departments. This requirement has not

been implemented systematically by the City,

with the effect that departmental coordination

with neighborhood councils varies substantially

throughout the city.

While systematic citywide implementation of

Section 909 has not occurred, several experiments

for developing neighborhood council

involvement with city services have emerged

through university-community partnerships and

grassroots organizing. For example, USC’s

Collaborative Learning Project’s Learning and

Design Forums facilitated the development of a

memorandum of understanding (MOU) between

four South Valley neighborhood councils and the

Department of Public Works concerning the

delivery of street services. Subsequent forums

brought the Department of Cultural Affairs and

the Department of Transportation together with

14

For more information see Jun, Weare, and Shiau,

“Determinants of department responsiveness as a local

government performance measure: The case of the Los

Angeles neighborhood council system,” working paper

available from the authors.

councils to discuss cultural programming and

transportation policy, respectively. Moreover,

neighborhood activists mobilized support for a

citywide MOU that was established in 2005 with

the Department of Water and Power in response

to the controversy surrounding a proposed 18%

rate hike in 2004. The 15-page MOU contains

several provisions favorable to neighborhood

councils, including a departmental liaison for

neighborhood councils, advance notification of

significant matters, education on departmental

issues, and regular meetings regarding service

delivery. Nearly half of the city’s neighborhood

councils are signatories to the agreement and are

represented on a taskforce to oversee it.

City departments vary concerning their

relationships with neighborhood councils. In

addition to the MOU discussed above, the DWP

sends a liaison to citywide meetings of

neighborhood councils. The Department of City

Planning has also recognized that neighborhood

councils are important representative bodies. Yet

our interviews with 17 departmental liaisons to

neighborhood councils in 2005 suggest that the

neighborhood council system has not altered

considerably the day-to-day operations of most

city departments.

While departmental officials perceive that many

councils have become more savvy in working

with the city, a perceived lack of representative

legitimacy seems to hinder council influence.

Rather than viewing councils as an official part of

the city service delivery system, departmental

staff members appear to view them as only one in

a crowded field of service constituents. In a

survey of city department staff, neighborhood

councils ranked last in importance to city

departments in setting departmental goals and

policies and in providing important information

to departments (Figure III-2). These rankings

suggest that there is a strong need for a more

formalized system of departmental interaction

that can promote the value of community

connections to city department activities and

service delivery.

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

28

Source: Survey of 154 line administrators from the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Public Library, Dept. of Public

Works and the Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning in 2006.

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

In Setting Goals and Policies

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

In Providing Information

A

General Manager

Dept. Commission or Board

Mayor’s Office

City Council

Dept. Co-Workers

Other Constituents

Other City Depts.

Neighborhood Councils

FIGURE III

-

2: IMPORTANCE OF NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS TO CITY DEPARTMENTS

POLICY BRIEF 2007 29

IV. DEVELOPING NEIGHBORHOOD

COUNCIL CAPACITY

apacity to address problems in the

neighborhood council context means

effectively marshalling individual and

collective energies to identify problems, access

resources, and take action. As in many

voluntary organizations, personal relationships

and networks of engagement allow volunteers

to leverage resources inside and outside the

community for these purposes. Yet outcomes are

only one indication of capacity. Others include

operational efficiency, the extent to which the

organization’s leadership is representative of the

broader interests of the community, and

numerous other factors.

This section examines community capacity in

the neighborhood council system as suggested

by neighborhood council activities and

participants’ observations. It assesses the types

of activities councils are pursuing according to

general meeting agendas; what they have

accomplished as described by board members

and other observers; and, through surveys of

participants, the extent to which councils have

been able to tap resources and solve problems.

Finally we offer brief examples of citywide

policy effects that suggest achievements in

capacity-building.

There appears to have been a slight drop in

participation in neighborhood council activities

between our midterm report and this writing.

The DONE project coordinators reported in our

2006 survey that 22 stakeholders on average

attended meetings (down from about 26 in

2003).

15

Though hot-button issues attract over

100 stakeholders, general meetings more often

attract only a few stakeholders. Still more

15

Our own fieldwork also shows that meeting attendance

has not significantly declined or increased over that time.

We found from attending approximately 175 neighborhood

council general meetings (across all regions since mid-2002)

that only 20 stakeholders attended a general meetings on

average – barely one-third more than the number of board

members attending.

worrisome is an observed decrease across the

system in the number of councils that were able

to attract stakeholders to participate in

committee work. According to project

coordinators, only 42% of councils were able to

count stakeholders as regular committee

members or chairs, down from 47% in 2003.

Neighborhood Council Agenda Activity

Neighborhood councils differ from other

participatory entities, such as citizen panels

charged with a specific task, or residents’

associations, which involve a relatively

homogenous membership and a limited agenda.

To gain an accurate idea of what neighborhood

councils are actually discussing, we coded the

content of agendas from 43 certified councils

that were active over a three-year period.

16

Agendas show how councils spend time and

suggest how they may allocate their resources.

Non-Issue Activities. Our agenda analysis finds

boards devoting fully two-thirds of their energies to

internal operations (Figure IV-1). Internal

operations include attention to procedures and

bylaws changes, managing committees, and

appointing officers. We view these non-issue

activities as the ‘overhead’ of neighborhood

council operations. While the City Council has

paid staff to handle operations, volunteers

undertake this responsibility in neighborhood

councils. The second most common area of non-

issue activity is government relations (26%)

followed by community relations and events,

which jointly account for 17% of non-issue

agenda items.

16

Requested agendas for monthly meetings were selected

randomly from each quarter for which the council was

meeting in the three years prior to collection efforts in mid-

2006. We received every agenda requested from only 15

neighborhood councils; for 28 others we were able to gain

most of the requested agendas by request or via the council

website. A total of 410 of the requested 794 agendas were

received. We were unable to secure any agendas from 19

additional certified councils despite multiple attempts.

C

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

30

This distribution of agenda items hints at the

types of capacity building activities

neighborhood councils are engaging.

Relationships with City Council office staff and

city department administrators develop

councils’ capacity to oversee service delivery,

while community relations and involvement in

events develop networks within the community.

Networking between and among neighborhood

councils is an area where there is little agenda

activity, an interesting finding considering that

board member survey data suggests an increase

in inter-council connections. It may be that these

types of relationships are developed at the

individual level and do not involve official

actions of the Board.

Issue Activities. Despite a necessary occupation

with internal operations and government and

community relations, councils manage to

address issues at a variety of scales (Figure IV-

2). Issue-oriented items account for one-third of

all agenda items citywide. Neighborhood

councils are involved in a variety of quality-of-

life issues at the neighborhood level, as well as

addressing regional issues. For example, they

are monitoring (and in some cases opposing)

port and airport expansion as well as seeking to

mitigate the regional environmental effects of

waste facilities. Councils are also active on

larger issues, such as public financing of

campaigns, animal rights advocacy, and

homelessness.

Land use and planning (including

transportation) together constitute the single

most important issue area to councils at 49% of

all issue-oriented activities. Activities related to

specific discretionary actions, such as requests

for zoning changes and other project-level

variances, account for nearly half of land use

agenda items. These specific project activities

comprise a quarter of all issue activities.

Contrary to perceptions that neighborhood

councils are reflexively oppositional, not-in-my-

backyard- (NIMBY) oriented activities account

for only a small fraction (3%) of all land use

agenda activities citywide. Indeed after specific

projects, transportation-related planning (nearly

a third of land use agenda issues) and proactive

planning (13%) are most common land use

activities.

Assistance (including funding) to local

programs comprised 13% of issue-oriented

items, followed by beautification at 11% of

items, the fourth largest category. Some 12% of

council agenda items addressed public safety

concerns. Agenda items on the environment

were 7% of all issue items, while the economy

(clearly an issue of interest beyond the

neighborhood) accounted for 5% of issue items.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 31

49%

5%

13%

7%

11%

3%

12%

Land use

Economy

Environment

Housing

Public safety

Beautification

Assistance

FIGURE IV

-

2

: ISSUE

-

ORIENTED AGENDA ITEMS

BY TYPE

10%

26%

5%

52%

7%

Co

mmunity relations

Internal operations

Community event support

Alliance building

Government relations

FIGURE IV

-

1: NON

-

ISSUE AGENDA ITEMS BY TYPE

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

32

Neighborhood council agendas vary by planning

area (Figure IV-3). Land use assumes a larger

place on the council agenda in the West and

North Valley areas than in the Central and

South Valley areas. By contrast, East and Harbor

area councils focus more on issues other than

land use, such as beautification and larger

concerns such as the economy, environmental

issues, and community assistance. Agendas

from the South Los Angeles focus on social

issues and prioritize community assistance to a

much greater degree.

Neighborhood Council Accomplishments

While agenda items suggest what neighborhood

councils are engaging, items included in surveys

of board members and project coordinators

asked what councils had actually accomplished.

Of 530 respondents to the 2006 board member

survey, 470 (89%) reported more than 800

accomplishments. Of these, nearly half (48%)

were non-issue operational accomplishments

related to community relations and outreach,

internal operations, or government relations.

Accomplishments related to substantive issues

accounted for 52% of reports citywide, and like

council agendas, tended to center heavily on

quality of life types of activities (Figure IV-4).

Citywide, land use was the single most

frequently cited area of accomplishment (29%).

Community beautification and transportation

were mentioned at 23% and 11% respectively.

Other issue accomplishments were safety (12%),

assistance to community programs and parks

(10%), education (5%), environment (4%), and

accomplishments related to the economy (3%),

such as influencing utility rates or helping

businesses. The focus of reported

accomplishments varies across regions, with

transportation getting heavy mention in the

West region, and environmental

accomplishments noted more in the Harbor.

Regionally, the South Valley shows the most

accomplishments in land use and community

beautification.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 33

Land use 29%

Beautificatio

n 23%

Safety 12%

Transportation 11%

Assistance 10%

Education 5%

Environment

Economy

Housing

Other

FIGURE IV

-

4: ISSUE ACCOPMLISHMENTS REPORTED BY BOARD MEMBERS CITYWIDE

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

West

North

Valley

Central

South

Valley

East

Harbor

South

Public safety

Housing

Beautification

Environment

Assistance

Land use

FIGURE IV

-

3: ISSUE ORIENTED AGENDA ITEMS BY

PLANNING AREA

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

34

Local and Citywide Influence. When asked about

neighborhood councils’ local effects, project

coordinators noted 89 specific accomplishments

(across 51 councils) that helped to improve the

community (Figure IV-5). Accomplishments fell

into two general categories: improvements in the

physical environment and outreach. Assistance

and event participation comprised just under one-

third of outreach-related accomplishments. Efforts

such as trash pick-ups and tree planting suggest

how these categories may overlap, however,

while larger social accomplishments, such as

fighting gang activity, were mentioned as other

achievements but don’t neatly fit into any

particular category. Nearly 60% of councils were

viewed as having a positive effect on the

neighborhood–a view unchanged from our 2003

survey.

DONE project coordinators in 2006 cited 38

examples (attributed to 25 councils) of positive

citywide effects. Most frequently mentioned were

land use and safety/preparedness, which together

accounted for nearly two-thirds of observed

effects (Figure IV-6). Success in opposing the

DWP rate increase in 2004 was the most

frequently cited economic effect, however, which

confirms some board members’ views that the

agreement should be a model for department

oversight.

Political Influence Is a Mixed Picture. We

followed up on our survey of project coordinators

with interviews to gain qualitative insight from

their perspective on the extent to which councils

have a political effect. Project coordinators who

mentioned political influence said that influence

appeared to increase as a result of neighborhood

councils. Many of those who mentioned political

support said that they thought the Mayor’s Office

has come to support the system. Yet project

coordinators also thought that City Council offices

were less likely to support councils. This mixed

finding may reflect the different role played by

executive and representative leadership. Because

the City Council has historically been the channel

through which stakeholders field complaints and

receive services, the position of the new system of

neighborhood councils in metropolitan

governance in Los Angeles may complicate

elected representatives’ views.

The posture of the City Council toward

neighborhood councils is also likely a function of

political considerations. As elected officials,

council members must take into account the

representative legitimacy and credibility of

council boards, but nearly half of the project

coordinators in interviews said they thought that

boards did not do a good enough job reflecting

the issues that stakeholders care about (land use

issues were an exception). This suggests an uphill

battle for cementing the political influence of

neighborhood councils within city government by

local leaders.

Alliances also can be a key to marshaling political

power. But Project Coordinators did not indicate

that they were viewed alliances as particularly

helpful to councils in the political arena. Few

Project Coordinators mentioned the role of

citywide alliances as forums for political

mobilization or any other function, for example,

and those who did were only slightly more likely

to view them positively.

An important objective of Charter reform is to

improve representativeness and increase local

empowerment. The Neighborhood Council Plan

assigns to DONE the responsibility of mitigating

barriers to political participation in part by

providing assistance to areas with traditionally

low rates of participation. Yet one quarter of

project coordinators interviewed thought that the

system had actually exacerbated political

inequalities. Neighborhood councils can become

effective channels for stakeholder voice only if

they are able to develop the institutional capacity

to function effectively and efficiently and, most

importantly, act as a bridge between all

stakeholders and City government.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 35

Safety/Emergency Preparedness

29%

Land Use/Development/Planning

29%

Transportation

11%

Health,

education,

welfare

13%

Economy

18%

FIGURE IV

-

6: PROJECT COORDINATOR IDENTIFICATION OF CITYWIDE EFFECTS

Assistance

4%

Beautification

17%

Event

16%

Safety/Emergency Preparedness

19%

Transportation

8%

Outreach

8%

Others

9%

Land Use

/Development/Planning

FIGURE IV

-

5: PROJECT COORDINATOR IDENTIFICATION OF COMMUNITY EFFECTS

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

36

Challenges to Neighborhood Council Capacity

DONE project coordinators identified an array of

challenges that may impede capacity building at

the neighborhood council level (Figure IV-7).

Challenges related to group processes were cited

most frequently by project coordinators on a

citywide basis. Project coordinators identified

increased internal conflict as a challenge for over a

third of councils, up from only a quarter three

years earlier. Interviews confirmed that for a

significant segment of the councils, an inability to

work together productively interfered with the

council achieving its goals. Problems included

divisiveness, lack of commitment, “rogue” board

members, and procedural challenges.

Though the most-publicized cases of public

discord appeared to be an anomaly, the

perception of conflict could be a factor in

depressing stakeholder involvement at meetings.

For nearly a third of councils, according to project

coordinators, declining stakeholder involvement

was a greater challenge in 2006 than earlier (up

from less than a quarter of councils in 2003)

despite a greater use of community newsletters

and increased participation in community events.

Low turnout at meetings (and elections) was

identified as a problem by board members, too, in

both our 2003 and 2006 surveys.

In our 2006 neighborhood council board member

survey, in fact, over a third of respondents (37%)

indicated that outreach was a continuing

challenge to their council. Yet at the same time,

nearly one-third identified outreach as an

accomplishment of their council. Indeed 63

respondents cited outreach as both an

accomplishment and a continuing challenge.

While meeting turnout is not necessarily an

accurate measure of capacity, an inability to bring

stakeholders to meeting has a multiplier effect: it

may dampen enthusiasm among fellow elected

board members; suggest to elected officials that

the system does not function as a credible

representation of stakeholder interests; and fail to

encourage new people to participate in council

activities. Without public participation, moreover,

councils forgo volunteer labor that could expand

the capacity of the council. Achieving diversity in

representation is another key objective of the

system, yet board members themselves say that

councils are not as representative as they would

like. In our survey, representation accounted for

nearly 10% of all mentioned challenges.

Other challenges concern institutional (or

contextual) factors that may inhibit council

capacity. Project coordinators in interviews

overwhelmingly (14 of 19) remarked that

Department of Neighborhood Empowerment

staffing was below what was required to

adequately support the council system, though

respondents were divided on whether there was

sufficient operational support in the field. It is

worth noting that only 20% of identified

challenges described by board members in our

survey were attributed to city policies. Challenges

related to conflict, organization, and vision

comprised more than a third of all challenges

mentioned by board members.

Lastly, our attendance at meetings and interviews

with project coordinators suggest a troubling

divide emerging between councils that are able to

attract stakeholder interest and those that lose the

interest of the public. Board members who

specifically said that the board had alienated the

public were also less likely to name an

accomplishment and sometimes observed that

their council was merely ‘spinning its wheels.’

POLICY BRIEF 2007 37

Examples of Influence on Policy Making and

Service Delivery

While we do not have information to assess the

effect that 86 neighborhood councils have had on

their communities, we can identify several cases

where councils have influenced policy

formulation and service delivery by the City.

These cases are reflective of neighborhood council

capacity to organize for impact. While not always

achieving the objectives that leaders identified,

there have been some neighborhood council

initiatives that have met with qualified success.

Burglar Alarms. The LAPD joined nearly 90 cities

in early 2003 to reconsider their burglar alarm

response policy in order to reduce the 92% false

response rate in Los Angeles. The Police

Commission announced a new alarm policy in

early 2003 without early notification of the issue,

prompting neighborhood council volunteers

packed City Council chambers to protest. The

neighborhoods found support among several

council members, and neighborhood council

representatives joined the Burglar Alarm

Taskforce to roll back the policy, which was

modified to include task force recommendations

in June 2003.

DWP Rate Increase. After 12 years without an

increase, the DWP proposed in November of 2003

to increase water and power rates an average of

18% without advance notice. With support of at

least three City Councilmembers, neighborhood

council gained time to coordinate a campaign in

opposition to the policy. Council leaders succeed

in gaining resolutions in opposition to the

increase from 39 of 83 then-certified councils.

Organized opposition to the proposed rate

increase in late 2003 encouraged the City Council

to recognize the political costs of failing to notify

councils. In early 2004 the City Council balanced

neighborhood councils’ demands to be included

in the decision against the department’s warnings

of fiscal crisis. Taking a pragmatic approach, the

City Council supported a compromise increase of

11%, and ultimately entered into a letter of intent

to include neighborhood councils in future

decisions.

(By Number of Neighborhood Councils Mentioned)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Group Process

/Cohesion

Outreach

Organ

ization

/Procedures

Education

/Information

Other

Weakness

FIGURE IV

-

7: NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Strengths

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

38

Service Co-Production Agreement with

Department of Public Works . At the invitation of

the USC School of Policy, Planning, and

Development’s Collaborative Learning Project,

four South Valley neighborhood councils and the

Bureau of Street Services Division of the

Department of Public Works committed to a

series of four working sessions in the Fall of 2003

to explore opportunities for better cooperation in

the delivery of constituent services. The express

intent of the USC process was to formalize

responsibilities for both participating

neighborhoods and the department in terms of

communication and knowledge-sharing to deliver

services more effectively.

With the support of the Mayor’s Office and City

Council, a memorandum of understanding was

signed in February 2004 (and ultimately

recognized by City Council) to provide the four

neighborhoods with street assessments, sanitation

plans, tree plans, lighting plans, and an

engineering report from the Bureau. The

agreement also provided for neighborhood

opportunities to participate in service delivery

decisions. Though follow-through by the four

neighborhoods varied, the Bureau was able to

develop a model for a neighborhood-based

annual service plan. Following on this agreement,

Mayor Hahn’s office directed that each

neighborhood would be allowed to allocate

$100,000 (in existing gas tax revenue) according to

Infrastructure Assessment Reports distributed

citywide.

Collaborative Policymaking: The DWP-

Neighborhood Council MOU & Oversight

Committee. The letter of intent signed by the

DWP in early 2004 to include a greater voice for

neighborhood councils in department

policymaking served as a foundation for a

memorandum of understanding (MOU) in 2005

that institutionalized a greater neighborhood role

in department policymaking. Department

responsibilities included effective early

notification to councils (90 days) as well as a

greater a role in collaborative policymaking. The

MOU, signed by the department and 40

neighborhood councils in April of 2005,

demonstrated that effective organizing could

open opportunities for neighborhood

participation with departments. It suggested the

political value of citywide issue organizing

through neighborhood councils as a new channel,

and is today identified by community leaders as a

template for future neighborhood-department

relationships.

POLICY BRIEF 2007 39

V. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

We find a mixed record of accomplishments in the

City’s implementation of a neighborhood council

system. Specifically:

(1) While the development of a citywide system

is a major accomplishment, the neighborhood

councils are not descriptively representative

of the social and economic diversity of Los

Angeles residents. They are less

representative of residents than the

population of likely voters or the mix of

individuals who serve on Los Angeles boards

and commissions.

(2) Many neighborhood councils struggle with

outreach and infighting, which hampers their

ability to address community issues, recruit

volunteers and develop leaders.

(3) Neighborhood council board members have

created strong citywide networks amongst

themselves, creating the ability to mobilize

politically. Nevertheless, neighborhood

councils remain largely peripheral in city-

wide policy making and service delivery

issues. Moreover they do not appear to be

developing strong networks connecting them

to neighborhood constituents.

(4) While some neighborhood councils and city

departments have developed arenas for

improved participation, overall the City of

Los Angeles has not systematically

implemented the changes in practice

envisioned by the Charter, constraining the

effectiveness of neighborhood councils. As

such most of their accomplishments are at the

local rather than citywide level.

(5) The capacity and activities of NCs vary

substantially across the City. Overall,

neighborhood councils have focused heavily

on land use and transportation issues, though

they have also worked on sponsoring

community events, beautifying their

neighborhoods, and providing community

assistance.

To achieve the core goals outlined for

neighborhood councils in the Charter,

neighborhood councils and the city have to work

together in three key areas: 1) improving

diversity of representation, 2) building leadership

capacity, and 3) strengthening opportunities for

neighborhood council input into city policy

making. Specific actions can include:

•

Transferring responsibility for elections

and generalized outreach and

advertising to the City, so that

neighborhood council board members

can focus on targeted outreach to

improve and diversify participation. To

accomplish this, it will be important for

councils to develop an array of arenas for

involvement that go beyond simple

meeting attendance to include active

engagement in projects and action

committees.

•

Providing incentives for targeted

involvement of underrepresented groups

in council activities. These might include

specific grants for community

improvement, education/recreation

programs, public safety, or other

activities demonstrated to increase

diversity of participation in the

neighborhood council.

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN CITY GOVERNANCE

40

•

Providing more consistent technical

assistance and administrative support to

facilitate organizational maintenance and

outreach by neighborhood councils.

There should be recognition that as

voluntary organizations neighborhood

councils face particular challenges to

sustainability, and that the Department

of Neighborhood Empowerment needs

to provide consistent support around the

most difficult tasks: community

organizing and conflict management.

•

Providing in-depth leadership

development for neighborhood council

board members, with a particular

emphasis on dispute resolution. This

might involve programs that involve

neighborhood council boards and

stakeholders in deliberation and

collaborative pursuit of community

projects.

•

Redesigning procedures for input into

city policy making that recognize the

special role reserved for neighborhood

councils in the charter and encourage

board members to reach out to

stakeholders and share knowledge of

community preferences with decision

makers. These might include a

searchable Early Notification System,

reforms to the Mayor’s Budget Process,

and development of partnerships

between neighborhood councils and city

departments.

Cover Photo Credits:

Photographs by Mark Elliot

Art Direction/Design: USC School of Architecture

Office of Publications

TOWARD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMEN