Recently in Neighborhood councils Category

All 10 candidates for the open CD2 seat have confirmed to be at the Council District 2 Candidates' Forum on Monday, Sept. 14, under the auspices of the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council

There's a "meet and greet" at 6:30 p.m. (free refreshments!) with the forum following at 7:15 in the auditorium at Sherman Oaks Elementary School, 14755 Greenleaf Ave. (one block south of Ventura Boulevard, just east of Kester).

The moderator will be former Assemblyman Richard Katz.

It's official — that square of Van Nuys targeted by the Part of Sherman Oaks (big P, big S, big 0) movement for inclusion within the community boundaries of Sherman Oaks is now just that: part of Sherman Oaks (small p, big S, big O).

Read about it at Dailynews.com, and don't miss the report by Zach Behrens of LAist (and not-un-conflictedly of the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council) for the play-by-play.

Most importantly, do I rename this blog? Do I archive it and start anew?

I welcome your suggestions.

Outgoing City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel and the City Council Education and Neighborhood Committee have gone where both the Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Councils have not — approving the inclusion of the 1,800-resident Van Nuys neighborhood bordered by Hazeltine Avenue to the east, Sepulveda Boulevard to the west, Burbank Boulevard to the south and Oxnard Street to the north, according to the story by Daily News City Hall reporter Rick Orlov in the story linked to above.

Things about the story, as it stands, that are different than what was previously proposed are:

The northern "border" of what might be Sherman Oaks is listed as Oxnard Street. Previous information from Part of Sherman Oaks indicated that the northern border it sought was either Emelita or Tiara streets. If by that they meant the inclusion of those streets, both the north and south sides, then a border of Oxnard Street would indicate that all of Tiara (the street just south of Oxnard Street) would be included in the new Sherman Oaks.

Would this also mean, by extension, that the many auto-repair businesses on the south side of Oxnard Street would also be in Sherman Oaks?

So what's standing between this now-Van Nuys neighborhood actually becoming part of Sherman Oaks? Unlike the last time a hunk of Van Nuys was added to Sherman Oaks, when the Chandler Estates area got its name change, it takes more than the approval of the area's City Council member.

Instead, the measure to bring the neighborhood into Sherman Oaks must pass the entire City Council.

Questions: Why should the rest of the City Council, aside from the outgoing Wendy Greuel, care? What political favors, if any, do the other council members owe to the Part of Sherman Oaks people? And what do they owe to the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association and the two neighborhood councils that oppose the move?

I'd like to put in a plug to day for CityWatch, which provides news about Los Angeles with a focus on the city's neighborhood councils. Thus far I find it to be the best way I know of finding out what's going on with the NCs as a whole and how the neighborhood-council system is faring in regard to the larger city government under which they serve.

Reading the history of CityWatch, I learned:

CityWatch exists to monitor the political business of City Hall, and other government agencies, to monitor the progress of the empowerment of LA's neighborhoods and to encourage grass roots civic engagement.

CityWatch is an electronic journal of observations, analysis and perspectives ... complimented by ideas and information all viewed and presented from the POV of LA's myriad grass roots neighborhoods engaged in the ongoing struggle for empowerment.

We hope you find it useful, informative and provocative.

For those of you who have been with us for the two years past, we thank you for your support and your input. Without which we could not have grown from the 256 email addresses of two years ago to the better than 60,000 subscribers of today.

I do, and I do. And I do get the site's news by e-mail. Aside from its regular news stories, there are links to every neighborhood-council Web site. The "Super Planner" for community events is currently empty, and an initiative to bring video and audio to the site hasn't quite gotten off the ground, but just the provision of all those links and the regular news stories is, in my mind, more than enough to make CityWatch a valuable site.