Northridge Neighborhood Council |
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July 16, 2003
City of Los Angles Office of the City Clerk 200 North Spring Street Room 395,
City Hall Los Angeles, CA 90012
City Council Clerk Maria Kostrencich
Fax 213-978-1079 Voice 213-978-1059
The Northridge Neighborhood Council (NNC) formally appeals the decision of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) made on July 1, 2003 to deny its certification.
Northridge Neighborhood Council, through its elected directors, unanimously voted for this appeal at a special noticed public meeting on July 11, The basis for our appeal is that the provisions of the charter and the ordinances of the City of Los Angeles were repeatedly violated in the protracted application process. Please see the attached compendium of activities concerning the July 1st hearing.
In its report to BONC the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) made several erroneous comments that were not factual as well as expressing numerous unsupported opinions. Additionally DONE did not allow the NNC sufficient time to respond to its report to BONC.
We request the Los Angeles City Council refer this appeal to the Neighborhoods and Education Committee and possibly use the city attorney's mediation service to bridge the differences between NNC’s statements and DONE's statements.
After the DONE report is corrected and made factual and the unsupported opinions removed from the report, it is requested that the matter be referred to BONC to rehear the issue with both sides allowed to make a fair and factual presentation.
Contrary to DONE’s statement, it is the goal of the Northridge Neighborhood Council to work as a liaison between the city and the stakeholders for the good of both.
Charles Brink
Contact person on the original application
and
Vice President, Northridge Neighborhood Council
Compilation attached by FAX
Full set including supporting documents sent by US Mail
This is a compilation of issues and documents. Concerning our appeal of the decision of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (BONC) made on July 1, 2003
The Northridge Neighborhood Council applied for certification on November 19, 2001. DONE scheduled a hearing March 19, 2002.
Old Northridge submitted an overlapping area that was negotiated and agreed on December.7th. Then DONE canceled the hearing on March 15th of 2002 claiming our application, which they had had for nearly four months, was incomplete.
Article IV (Certification Process) of the city’s Plan for Citywide System of Neighborhood Councils ordinance. Section IV.2.(b)(i) then became effective:
(i)If consensus is reached at any time within said 20 business-day period or at any time during an extended time period pursuant to Article IV, Section 2(b)(ii),said period shall be terminated and all applications shall be deemed received by DONE for evaluation. In the event that all affected applicant groups agree in writing to terminate, for any reason, the process of developing a unified application within the 20 business-day period, all applications, as originally submitted, shall be deemed received by DONE for evaluation.If no consensus is reached within or at the end of the 20 business-day period, the applications, as originally submitted, shall be deemed received by DONE for evaluation.
As we agreed (and even if we had not agreed), this section mandates our application "shall be deemed as received by DONE" as of December 7, 2001.
There was no written request by all groups to extend the 20 days, as described in Section IV.2.(b)(ii),
DONE did not produce a report within 10 business days as called for in the ordinance. DONE did not adhere to the ordinance and present the matter to BONC without a recommendation as called for in Section IV.2.(b)(iii) ofthe ordinance. DONE had missed the 10-day deadline.
Section IV.2.(b)(iii) states
(iii) Once an application has been deemed received by DONE for evaluation through the processes described in (i) or (ii) above, DONE shall have ten business days to evaluate all applications as submitted. At the end of its ten business-day evaluation period, if DONE determines that all or some of the applications are complete according to DONE's evaluation, DONE shall forward the application, any accompanying information, and its recommendation to the Commission for consideration. If DONE fails to evaluate or forward the application (and any accompanying information, including its recommendation) to the Commission within said time period, DONE shall automatically forward the application without a recommendation to the Commission for consideration.
DONE did not produce a report within 10 business days as called for in the ordinance. DONE did not adhere to the ordinance and present the matter to BONC without a recommendation as called for in Section IV.2.(b)(iii) ofthe ordinance. DONE had missed the 10-day deadline.
DONE then claimed inappropriately and without evidence that our Town Hall format made our application incomplete. DONE failed to specify any law or ordinance that prohibited a Town Hall format. Members of the NNC met with the Mayor on the Town Hall format, which he said he supported. The Neighborhood and Educational Committee passed a motion asking the city attorney to clarify the Town Hall format.
After the election, it became obvious that a Town Hall format was not going to be accepted, so the NNC asked DONE to advise what changes needed to be made to render our bylaws acceptable to DONE. NCC received a letter in December from DONE listing changes. Each and every change requested by DONE in their December 2002 letter was incorporated into the Bylaws.
DONE was silent for the next six months. No communications were addressed to the NNC until June 2003 when DONE issued another six page letter requiring more bylaw changes, even though every single change requested in their December 2002 letter had been made.
The NNC again made every change requested in this new letter with the sole exception of a demand for same-day registration to vote in our elections.
DONE then issued a report by E-mail on Friday June 27th at about 10:00 p.m. This report, which is precluded under the ordinance Section IV.2.(b)(iii)contained a large number of misstatements of facts and unsupported opinions by the DONE staff.
The June 27th report was hand delivered to the BONC members’ homes the next morning, Saturday June 28, 2003.
The late delivery of the report to the NNC, which itself was prohibited by the ordinance, made it impossible for the NNC to receive a fair hearing by BONC.
The NNC, using volunteer staff, compared to the $6 million per year of taxpayer funds budgeted to DONE, was effectively prohibited from preparing any meaningful opposition which could be read by BONC prior to the hearing.
DONE, at no time, would meet with the NNC to discuss their nearly 30 pages of opposition to our certification. NNC did provide a written report to BONC 30 minutes before the hearing. BONC commissioners had four days to review the DONE report ahead of our response, which was delivered 30 minutes before the meeting.
At the hearing NNC provided both DONE and BONC written copies of opposition to the report and were ignored by both DONE and BONC.
The DONE representatives made inflammatory statements such as, "You are not the right people to represent Northridge", referring to our elected board.
We have attached the following documents to this appeal:
6-29-03 NNC Comments on DONE's third set of required by law changes sent to us at 10 pm on 6-27-03 as part of the findings. These were revised on 6-30-03 based on Walter Prince's input and recommended change to add our bylaws before the DONE's requests for easer reading.
6-29-03 NNC Opposition to DONE's report that they cannot recommend our certification
6-27-03 The proposed findings of BONC by DONE as to the evaluation of our Certification Application (File No. 01-016).
6-27-03 DONE's report that they cannot recommend our certification.
6-27-03 Rita Moreno's 4th letter of bylaw changes after we had made every change she demanded except voter registration during the election.
6-24-03 NNC History of bylaws changes
3-19-02 Transcript of the first DONE hearing concerning our certification. This is a large PDF File
6-23-03 Bylaw transmittal letter to DONE
6-6-03 Letter sent by E-mail from Rita Moreno
6-3-03 E-mail from Rita Moreno
2-25-03 Testimony by Charles Brink at the BONC hearing when the revised bylaws were hand delivered
2-25-03 Testimony by Jane Lowenthal at the BONC hearing when the revised bylaws were hand delivered
1-29-03 E-mail from Rita Moreno refusing to contact Jane Lowenthal or read our changed bylaws from the Website
12-20-02 E-mail from from Rita Moreno acknowledging receipt of bylaws
12-19-02 proposed changes to our bylaws to conform the DONE's requirements in their 12-18-02 letter.
12-18-02 This Memo was received as an answer to our question on what we had to change in our by laws from Rita Moreno, Senior Project Coordinator.
11-20-02 The council passed a motion to have Jane Lowenthal contact DONE to ask what changes had to be made to conform our council the LA City mandated version.
8-16-02 LA City motion to allow a "town hall" format for governing Neighborhood Councils allows councils which makes decisions on community matters through votes of the general assembly in a traditional "town hall" style gathering....
4-27-02 This letter was hand delivered to the DONE public meeting on 4-27-02 demanding our certification be placed on the 5-7-02 DONE meeting in Sun Valley.
4-18-02 The Council, by a unanimous vote of the stakeholders, approved all changes and unanimously rejected the denial of stakeholder rights to vote. The Bylaws have been changed to incorporate the amendments.
4-17-02 Response to DONE's 4-12-02 E-mail
4-12-02 E-mail from Rita Moreno
3-18-02 This is a press release to the media.
3-18-02 protest of the cancellation The Northridge Community Council hereby files this formal protest against DONE for the cancellation of our Certification Hearing from the March 19, 2002 agenda.....
3-16-02 Here is our position paper showing that our council bylaws conform to the charter and the LA City Council's approved plan does not override the voter approved charter.
3-15-02 DONE cancelled the 3-19-02 hearing based on their claim we could not allow the stakeholders to vote on decisions.
3-13-02 DONE has sent a letter critiquing our bylaws. Here is their letter and our board's response, plus reference information on the issue. This Letter contains the comments by DONE on our bylaws and the NCC board's response to those comments .....
Note all these documents appear electronically on our Website and allow access to the supporting documents, which are stored on our site. These are linked to make our position clearer than the paper copies.