Daily News Delcares, "Neighborhood Council Crisis"
Gee, I can't imagine WHY Daily News reports "confidence in neighborhood council system has plummeted." A survey said so. (As a market research expert (sorry, I just am), I would like to see the questionaire: What was the questionaire verbage and what was the screening process. And WHO commissioned/paid for the survey. But besides that, OF COURSE the system is in crisis.
It's simple...elected officials in this City are too arrogant, pompous and greedy to be burdened with input from their constituents...that might slow down the flow of money into their coffers and force them to do something that's good for the area, that DOESN'T actually benefit them financially. And why even BOTHER with that?
Meanwhile, the system itself, from an operational standpoint itself (orderly process of the meeting) needs an overhaul itself. It's to un-official to be official. And too official to be un-official.
CLICK "READ MORE" FOR LINK TO DAILY NEWS ARTICLE AND VIDEO OF LAST WEEK'S VENICE NC MEETING THAT SHOWS THE PROBLEM ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ROPE.
First, City Council asks for participation...THEN they make you wait three hours to speak for two minutes, AND EVERYONE KNOWS CITY COUNCILMEMBERS ONLY LISTEN IF YOU ARE PAYING THEM, OR HOLDING A PR DAGGER OVER THIER HEAD, OR SUING THEY ASS. (SUING THEY ASS, SEEM TO BE A GOOD WAY TO GET 'EM TO PULL THEY HEAD OUT THEY ASS.)
Or you check the website for an agenda item. You show up to speak, or listen in on the agenda item. But when you get there, the agenda item has magically disappeared from the agenda??? (It's not like you wasted you time and money, just cause some shady politician had a "strategic reason" for the illegal disapperance/Brown Act violation.)
So, let's be real: ZD is a fan of many individuals who participate in the NC system (participants DO provide me with most of my info), but it's kinda tough to be a fan of the system, itself.
First, you MUST replace agendized NC blockers like Linda Lucks (whose sole purpose is to screen/block public input-- and advance the mayor's shady condo-construction agenda) with actual leaders of the community with the Neigborhood's interest at hand, not politicians'.
And City Hall must EMBRACE the concept of community input. Understand the value. And that value is "the gig is up" -- you are not fooling anyone. You may be beating us, but you aren't fooling us. And the more sophisticated activists become -- the more likey it is one or three of you are gonna be dragged out in handcuffs during a meeting, and we're gonna lose a quorum. So you have no choice. Stop being a bunch of desparate, greedy bastards and start being community leaders YOURSELVES, Mayor and City Council. Because I've seen VERY LITTLE of it this past year.
Sure, NC is required by the Charter...but you can't mandate "good will". We can jerk ourselves around for another five years, and tweak the system, and change this and that. NO SYSTEM IS GOING TO WORK EFFECTIVELY WHEN THE POLITICIANS IN THIS CITY DO NOT WANT IT TO WORK. (You think THEY want to have to listen to the voice of the community and do what's best for the area. Why would they want to? That might slow down the flow of money into their coffers??? What are you, a naive idiot?) So have fun figuring it out for another five years. I'll just save this thread and repost it then. Meanwhile, NC meetings are still a GREAT place to meet your friends and fellow stakeholders, and organize and network. But just like the City Council meeting themselves...don't expect to get anything done at the meeting itself.
Neighborhood council crisis
BY DANA BARTHOLOMEW, Staff Writer
Five years after the launch of Los Angeles' first experiment in grass-roots democracy, confidence in the neighborhood council system has plummeted, a survey released today says.
Daily News NC article.
HEY, YOU CAN BLAME HUNT/DOWD FOR THIS...But this was able to happen under the current operational system -- and that's part of the problem. The other problem, agenda items magically disappearing off the agenda:
contact: Zuma Dogg (310) 928-7544, zumadogg@netzero.com, zumadogg.com
It's simple...elected officials in this City are too arrogant, pompous and greedy to be burdened with input from their constituents...that might slow down the flow of money into their coffers and force them to do something that's good for the area, that DOESN'T actually benefit them financially. And why even BOTHER with that?
Meanwhile, the system itself, from an operational standpoint itself (orderly process of the meeting) needs an overhaul itself. It's to un-official to be official. And too official to be un-official.
CLICK "READ MORE" FOR LINK TO DAILY NEWS ARTICLE AND VIDEO OF LAST WEEK'S VENICE NC MEETING THAT SHOWS THE PROBLEM ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ROPE.
First, City Council asks for participation...THEN they make you wait three hours to speak for two minutes, AND EVERYONE KNOWS CITY COUNCILMEMBERS ONLY LISTEN IF YOU ARE PAYING THEM, OR HOLDING A PR DAGGER OVER THIER HEAD, OR SUING THEY ASS. (SUING THEY ASS, SEEM TO BE A GOOD WAY TO GET 'EM TO PULL THEY HEAD OUT THEY ASS.)
Or you check the website for an agenda item. You show up to speak, or listen in on the agenda item. But when you get there, the agenda item has magically disappeared from the agenda??? (It's not like you wasted you time and money, just cause some shady politician had a "strategic reason" for the illegal disapperance/Brown Act violation.)
So, let's be real: ZD is a fan of many individuals who participate in the NC system (participants DO provide me with most of my info), but it's kinda tough to be a fan of the system, itself.
First, you MUST replace agendized NC blockers like Linda Lucks (whose sole purpose is to screen/block public input-- and advance the mayor's shady condo-construction agenda) with actual leaders of the community with the Neigborhood's interest at hand, not politicians'.
And City Hall must EMBRACE the concept of community input. Understand the value. And that value is "the gig is up" -- you are not fooling anyone. You may be beating us, but you aren't fooling us. And the more sophisticated activists become -- the more likey it is one or three of you are gonna be dragged out in handcuffs during a meeting, and we're gonna lose a quorum. So you have no choice. Stop being a bunch of desparate, greedy bastards and start being community leaders YOURSELVES, Mayor and City Council. Because I've seen VERY LITTLE of it this past year.
Sure, NC is required by the Charter...but you can't mandate "good will". We can jerk ourselves around for another five years, and tweak the system, and change this and that. NO SYSTEM IS GOING TO WORK EFFECTIVELY WHEN THE POLITICIANS IN THIS CITY DO NOT WANT IT TO WORK. (You think THEY want to have to listen to the voice of the community and do what's best for the area. Why would they want to? That might slow down the flow of money into their coffers??? What are you, a naive idiot?) So have fun figuring it out for another five years. I'll just save this thread and repost it then. Meanwhile, NC meetings are still a GREAT place to meet your friends and fellow stakeholders, and organize and network. But just like the City Council meeting themselves...don't expect to get anything done at the meeting itself.
Neighborhood council crisis
BY DANA BARTHOLOMEW, Staff Writer
Five years after the launch of Los Angeles' first experiment in grass-roots democracy, confidence in the neighborhood council system has plummeted, a survey released today says.
Daily News NC article.
HEY, YOU CAN BLAME HUNT/DOWD FOR THIS...But this was able to happen under the current operational system -- and that's part of the problem. The other problem, agenda items magically disappearing off the agenda:
contact: Zuma Dogg (310) 928-7544, zumadogg@netzero.com, zumadogg.com
Posted by Zuma Dogg @ 4/23/2007 06:23:00 AM
10 Comments:
That's fascinating Zuma Dogg.
But...have you ever been to a Neighborhood Council meeting? If you had, then you would know how dysfunctional most of them are.
NO SYSTEM IS GOING TO WORK EFFECTIVELY WHEN THE POLITICIANS IN THIS CITY DO NOT WANT IT TO WORK.
Which is also why we constantly census the homeless, and use them as props for various programs, instead of actually housing them.
7:55am,
I know who this is...It's "Mr. Reading Comprehension Problems"!
Yes, I have been to NC meetings. Yes, I know how dysfunctional they are. My question is, DID YOU READ MY THREAD? DID YOU SEE THE VIDEO I POSTED after the "read more"? Maybe I better stop using "read more" since dummies like YOU don't read more, but you still pop off at the mouth?
Re-read the thread, you low reading comprehension DUMB-ASS crybaby.
ZD said...Meanwhile, the system itself, from an operational standpoint itself (orderly process of the meeting) needs an overhaul itself. It's to un-official to be official. And too official to be un-official.
Most might blame the dysfunction on the "whack-job, nut cases" who don't shut the f*ck up for two seconds, and end up sidetracking the whole meeting. But you have to blame the system for allowing this to happen. (See video I posted to demonstrate the problem. And shut the F*CK up from now on...you put your foot in your mouth more than Matt Szabo.
If it's true that "only" 10% of the people are participating in neighborhood councils, that is an incredibly high number. If 10% of the people even knew about NC's, that would be huge.
It's all in how you interpret the results.
Some meetings can get dysfunctional. For the most part NC's can actually help the city if they choose to participate. DLANC is a good example of NC's in action.
NC is more of a senior citizen tea party where everyone is there to brag about things that are senseless and not even slightly connected to logical or simple common-sense aspect of why things are not to be done in a particular way.
Then you have those young few who hold the board positions, those young few who have never in their lives handled or managed situations that are more complex that the groccery list, are now taking decisions for the city.
You have those other few who show up from nowhere to run the meetings around as they wish in any direction they intend, just because they belong to the so called endangered human species tactically find ways of getting their own kind more involved with the NC making decisions in the favor of the organizations that employ illegal aliens. So now these illegal aliens get a secured santury under the law to be here at their will and spend the hard earned taxed money of the legals in the way and will as wanted. NC is nothing but just a puppet show, nothing actually worked at NC. No decisions are taken, in fact none at NC are really qualified to take decisions.
Those hearings after hearings, same tea time chats, nothings going anywhere, its just a mockery of democracy. So why have it in first place, dunno, Zuma may put some light on this sometime, may be or may be not.
So, despite all that, which other organization, including the City Council and most unions, has 370,000 people participating in it?
Which percent, above 11%, would make everyone happy?
By and large the neighborhood council meetings around the city are good functioning meeting with volunteers who care and want to improve their neighborhoods. Fernando Guerra is a Mecha boy and another Antonio puppy. Remember the bullshit surveys he came out with during the mayoral election. And if anyone attended this week's Congress of Neighborhoods you all have to be asking what the hell did they spend $160,000 on? They had box lunches, crapy rooms and the worst congress overall. There weren't nearly as many neighborhood council reps as in past years. They were non profits Antonio sent in to make the room look filled. Many neighborhood council reps knew it was a staged event for AV and didn't go. What a waste of tax payer dollars.
5:24 PM, having a ton of people under one organization does not mean that the organization is doing great. Have an example of Ford and GM with the extent & spread they have, they too need re-scoping.
Check this out at Van-Nuys NC, they approved installation of hitech-restrooms that will be technologically driven, and costs $2,00,000 each. And how many did they install?, and so did Universal City North Hollywood NC (10+). So there goes $20,00,000+ taxpayers money into the restroom facilitiesm, flushed into the toilets so as to say. Now did anyone do their market survey to identify what kind of community lives in these vicinity? You have a ton of homeless all over the place, hey you decision makers out there do you know your area is full of homeless strolling around?
Again the amount of maintenance of this hitech-restroom facility is even the higher-ended one and not included in the capital expenses of the facility, why?
Now just check some mathematics (ofcourse if you know how to count numbers?)
- replace the technologically advanced hitech-restrooms with manually run facility
- have 3 individuals work in shifts of 8 hours to keep the area clean and tidy
- have 2 individuals work in shifts of 12 hours to monitor the quality of cleanliness of the facility.
So if you pay $8.00 per person for an hour
i.e.:
(a) 3 individuals working for $8.00 per hours for 8 hours shift (i.e. total expenses $24.00 per-hour, $192.00 per-day, $5,760 per-month, $70,080 per-year)
(b) 2 individuals working for $8.00 per hours for 12 hour shift (i.e. total expenses $16.00 per-hour, $192.00 per-day, $5,760 per-month, $70,080 per-year)
total expenses 1 restroom facility over a period of time:
(a) + (b) (i.e. total expenses $40.00 per-hour, $384.00 per-day, $11,520 per-month, $140,160.00 per-year)
total cost per facility per year comes to $140,160.00 with 5 individuals getting job to build up their lives, reducing the unemployment figures by some faction. Leaving $59,840 per facility to be utilized wisely for other community activities. Also if you now multiply this (5 individuals per facility) with the currenlty 20+ hitech-restrooms installed what figure are we looking at (100+ individuals per facility EMPLOYEED!!!) with actual capital cost benefit to be $11,96,800+ over all.
So what is the result, the legal taxpayers money was systematically wasted, no employment created, homeless problem remains un-resolved... What did the city benefit from this? NC are of no use, NC is not the voice of the citizens instead its just a second head nodding facility mocking democracy.
ZUMA DOGG IS GAY????????
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