In a last ditch attempt to drum up attendance at Tuesday's City Council meeting, neighborhood council members spent Monday blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking and e-mailing their listservs in hopes of preserving the system's funding program.
   
The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which oversees the council system, is one of many city departments facing severe cuts outlined in the City Administrative Officer's Three Year Plan to Fiscal Sustainability to close the city's growing budget gap.

The City Council is scheduled to review the CAO's plan at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Last week, the Budget and Finance Committee approved a motion to slash neighborhood council funding by 50 percent for fiscal years 2010 through 2013. The committee also approved a 50 percent cut to the Department. The recommendations would reduce annual neighborhood council funding from $45,000 to $22,500 per year.

Leonard Shaffer, chair of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition and president of the Tarzana Neighborhood Council, said the councils' message is "twofold" -- come to City Hall if you can, but at the very least contact your councilmember.

In an e-mail to neighborhood council members on Monday morning, Shaffer wrote, "We must convince our [council members] that we want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem...We have a plan to both reduce the cost of DONE and the NCs while increasing efficiency."

The LANCC sent a letter to councilmember Paul Krekorian, who has openly supported neighborhood councils, on Friday with three budget recommendations for DONE. The suggestions include outsourcing the fiscal responsibilities of DONE to a non-profit, creating an alternate organization to DONE that would parent the council system and sending the CAO's recommendations to the Education and Neighborhoods Committee for "further review and deliberation."

BongHwan Kim, general manager of the Department, outlined the recommendations he will be making on Tuesday in an e-mail to neighborhood council members last week.  His suggestions, which include keeping the funding program within the Department and maintaining the Department as an independent city department, differed sharply from those made by the LANCC.

This division comes as little surprise to those who have followed the tensions between the neighborhood councils and their overseer, which have always been apparent.

"The recommendations of DONE's general manager, like the CAO's, are focused on the bureaucracy and not the neighborhood councils," said Doug Epperhart, a member of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council. "BongHwan wants to save as much of his department as possible. That's what all the managers in the city are doing right now. On the other hand, the neighborhood councils are trying to refocus the politicians on what's most important, which is the councils themselves."

Al Abrams, the vice president of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, which sets policies for the system, said some commissioners are in agreement with the neighborhood council members who want their own recommendations to be brought before the Education and Neighborhoods Committee.  

"Individual Commissioners feel that these important issues of NC budgets and adequate DONE funding need more time to be vetted and discussed," Abrams said. "So allowing a 'safe harbor' for 30 days so they can be examined by the E&N Committee is a very good idea."   

The 90-council system was established in 1999 following voter approval of City Charter Section 900. The amendment created a neighborhood council system that includes the citywide Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which oversees the system.
 
For the last 10 years neighborhood councils across L.A. have financed community improvements and projects that often make up for a lack of city funding. Councils have installed surveillance cameras in high crime areas, beautified parks and neighborhood landmarks, funded youth programs, and updated technology for police and fire departments.

Last spring, the budget committee recommended a 78 percent cut in funding to the neighborhood councils. But after a strong showing of support by neighborhood council members, the councils ultimately took a much lower 10 percent budget cut, as Mayor Villaraigosa had initially proposed. That slashed their budgets from $50,000 to $45,000.

There was a similar turnout at last week's Budget and Finance Committee meeting where many neighborhood council members spoke in support of the system, distancing themselves from DONE, whose flaws were largely exposed in City Controller Wendy Greuel's 2010 neighborhood council audit.
 
"The City Council is underutilizing the NC system," Shawn Simons, president of the North Area Neighborhood Development Council said in session, noting the councils' mobilization of volunteers during emergencies like the Chatsworth train crash and Yorba Linda fires. "This is a perfect example of how, if the City Council extended itself to the NC's, we could be of more assistance within our community and help bridge the gap of the budget crisis. We are worth far more in that way than the measly funds you will receive by cutting our budget."