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Volume 1, Issue 3

Co-Editors & Publishers: Morris Pichon moepichon@aol.com Edwin Ramirez ramediv@yahoo.com

Support your Pacoima Neighborhood Council The 3rd Wednesday,

Each month at 6:30pm At Pacoima Family and Community Center

Suite 3

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Prizes to Boost Voting? Offering a prize to boost the turnout of voters is asinine. Voting is more serious and important then buying a lottery ticket. Voters should be individuals who are seri-ous and knowledgeable about the candidates and propositions on the ballot. To turn voting in to a game is the most ridiculous idea to come out of City Hall in the past 20 years. If you want to improve voters turnout, it is imperative that the citizens are made aware that a Democracy can not survive without participation of the citizens. America begin with limited participation of voters. Poor white men, women, blacks and other non–whites were not allowed to cast a ballot. Here we are over two hundred years later and citizens are removing themselves from the voters rolls. Elections at the local level has a large effect on our daily life: driving laws, the minimum wage, immigration, education funding and other serious issues. A recent election for the 7th Council Dis-trict, only 5% of the registered voters showed up at the polls. We all have opinions on the officials and their worth to the population, but if we fail to vote on election day, our opinions are null & void. We have already won a prize, the right to voice our concerns along with our fellow citi-zens, in a place call AMERICA.

CD-7 Councilman Visits PNC Councilman Felipe Fuentes attend-ed the Pacoima Neighborhood Council meeting on August 20. The councilman fielded questions from the Pacoima Stake-holders for over an hour. We didn’t get all the answers we were looking for, but we had an opportuni-ty to talk to the councilman and make him aware of our community’s concerns. All citizens should make an effort to attend the neighborhood council meetings on the 3rd Wednesday at of each month. The staff of the various city, county and state officials are in attendance to hear your concerns, and hopefully correct them. You know what irritates you, come and tell the people with the power to do some-thing about them.

CD-7 Pacoima Office Staff Ruben Zaragoza 818-485-0600

Gibson Nyambura 818-485-0600

PNC Seek a No-Confidence Vote on DONE Management

The Pacoima Neighborhood Council is calling for a no-confidence vote on the D.O.N.E. General Manager, Grayce Liu and her staff at the September 17, 2014, at 6:30 pm meeting. PNC Board members have sited several problem areas: A lack of communica-tion with NCs; Incompetence; Failure to maintain control of submitted documents or return calls to various NCs; Little or no support from D.O.N.E.’s staff for NCs. The PNC will ask the full board’s vote of approval on the no-confidence Reso-lution which will be presented to the City Council. Pacoima Board members are encouraging other Neighborhood Councils to come forth with their own irritants with the General Manager of D.O.N.E. and her staff. D.O.N.E. personnel needs to be reminded that it is them who work for the citizens, and not the citizens working for D.O.N.E.

A Prize to Boost Voting? 1

CD-7 Visits the PNC 1

A No-Confidence Vote 1

Did You Know? 2

Comments From July 2

American Legion #176 2

The Role of DONE 3

D.O.N.E.? 4

Prettiest Place in Pacoima 4

Quality of Life Officers 4

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Pacoima Today September 2014 Volume 1 Issue 3

American Legion Post #176 American Legion Post #176 is welcoming new members to join the Post and share moments with fellow veterans with whom you may share similar experiences. The Post is located at 602 Pico, St., San Fernando, 91340. Post 176 offers your favorite Sports Channel, Pool Tournaments, and Taco Nights and vari-ous other functions. Membership requires an Honorable dis-charge from the U. S. Military services.

DID YOU KNOW?

The city is leasing an old Fire Station to a non-profit organization for $1.00 per year and giving hundreds of millions worth of tax credits and / seed money to big developers. In Pacoima, nobody knows how much rent “El Nido” is paying for the entire “Community Center”, also nobody knows when or why this decision was made, but we do know that the Neighborhood Council has a new landlord and with that comes new policies and re-quirements. Will their rent increase?

Pacoima is a fortunate community that has so may nonprofits and service providers working to improve it, or is it? YPI has been trusted to oversee federal funds from the “Promise Neighborhood” grant but who is overseeing YPI? Are they meeting the goals described on the grant?

Why are they not organizing services and activi-ties with the Neighborhood Council? They share the goals of improvements and services to Pacoima.

Pacoima Beautiful; their goal is to improve the environment in Pacoima. Why is it that they cannot work with the Neighborhood Council to eliminate abandoned vehicles, trash and blight? They work great with CD7 buy not the Neighborhood Council, even when they share the same goal.

Neighborhood Housing Services, their slogan is “buy it, fix it, keep it. But with all the new housing development in Pacoima, how many Pacoima resi-dents have gotten the money to buy their new home? Or have applied and gotten the money to fix up their homes? We know that many in Pacoima lost their homes to banks, so , so much for “keep it” slogan.

It is sad to see that many Nonprofits are created with the good intention to help Pacoima (or any ar-ea); their status is supported and sponsored by our elected officials, the community likes and supports the ideas of meeting the needs but at the end, they end up with a salary for a Director, Coordinator (s) and/or Supervisors; the actual work is based on do-nations and the implementation depends on volun-teers (Community members). Now, who is helping whom?

COMMENTS FROM THE JULY ISSUE Congratulations on an excellent work. Your courage, fortitude, and tenacity to bring to the forefront some of these critical issues in our com-munity is sobering and refreshing. I hope to con-tribute in the future to this voice that you all have crafted to showcase the “moral indignity “ that is suffered upon the Pacoima community by its elect-ed leaders and public servants.

You know Pacoima is the only place where they frown on food trucks like no other place. North Hills, Granada Hills, Chatsworth and Canoga Park all have areas where all or any lunch truck can go to sell its food...parking enforcement is just plain lazy. They go after all the easy prey. If you travel around and see all these abandoned cars in the street with spider webs hanging all around the tires…they should tow them away...but NO they might not have any owners and they might not col-lect from someone. It’s all about money I tell you! That is why I moved out of Pacoima!

I personally don’t care for the parking enforce-ment department because the city id just a bunch of thieves and use the parking enforcement as a vehicle to take the hard earned money from peo-ple, charging them hefty fines. I think that Mr. Ed-win Ramirez just don’t like eating at lunch trucks and who gives a care if a lunch truck is parked on the sidewalk, they are in no ones way or impeding a drive way. Those one hour signs are a joke.

Stay the course! Worried about lunch trucks The last thing on the laundry list of things to do in Pacoima. Drunks and homeless people up and down Van Nuys? Graffiti everywhere? Jobs for teens? Illegal dumping?

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Pacoima Today September 2014 Volume 1 Issue 3

Is the role of DONE to empower LA or suppress our way?

It depends on which neighborhood Council you ask. For example, the Pacoima Neighbor-

hood Council had on their August agenda a vote of no confidence in DONE.

What is DONE?

The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) established to assist neighbor-

hood councils with services, trainings and support to manage their city based govern-

ment Council. The mission of DONE is to promote increased citizen participation in

government and make government more responsive to local needs through the creation of

a citywide system of neighborhood councils. Each NC is allotted $37,000 annually to

spend in their community, and each member is required to take and see funding training

on how to properly use the funds.

Do you think DONE is doing anything to improve neighborhood councils?

No absolutely not. It is quite the opposite. In the past couple of years they

have been more difficult to work with. It was a lot easier a couple years ago to get

Neighborhood Council Business complete. We were more independent and we didn't have

them scrutinizing everything we did. I think DONE should change their mission state-

ment from Empowering Neighborhood Councils to how can we make DONE job easier. The on-

ly goals they have accomplished is making their lives easier by frontloading the fund-

ing paperwork on neighborhood councils so they don't have to do most of the work.

What is the hidden agenda behind DONE?

Their real hidden agenda is the slow up neighborhood councils from doing real

activist work in the community. Neighborhood Councils (NC) are heavily regulated. DONE

have NC's jumping through loops all the time. If neighborhood councils were fully able

to do their jobs then they would be utilizing every city department in their community

to the fullest. NC’s are a threat to every elected official because they are volun-

teers and many times they are doing the jobs of the politicians.

Who complains about DONE?

No one complains about DONE. There is no process to grieve done if we are unsatisfied

with their work. Neighborhood Councils should be able to give them a report card on

how well they perform.

Is it true that DONE withheld $20,000 from the Pacoima Neighborhood Council?

Unfortunately it is true. Many items that the PNC approved to spend in their

community were not approved by done for various reasons. Sometimes the paperwork

submitted by PNC to DONE was lost by the employees of DONE. Other times it was a

simple missing signature but every time something needed to be fixed and by fix that

means a PNC board member has to go all the way down to LA city hall. There were no

DONE advocates traveling to Pacoima to try to work and help them situate the paper-

work.

Is it true that the money not spent by the neighbor counsels goes into the city

coffers?

No, it goes back to done to spend at their own discretion?

Wouldn't there be a conflict of interest or motivation for DONE to discourage neighbor

councils for spending their money?

Absolutely!

By: A Pacoima Neighborhood Council Board Member

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Pacoima Today September 2014 Volume 1 Issue 3

COMMUNITY QUALITY OF LIFE OFFICER/COORDINATOR Council District 7 needs to establish a position of “Quality of Life Officer” to be responsible to: 1. Patrol for abandoned/junked vehicles and refer them to ABONDONED VEHICLE, Department of Transportation and have them towed or destroyed. 2. Patrol for, arrest, or issue summons to individuals who litter. 3. Provide CODE ENFORCEMENT locations of abandoned or structurally unfit residences that may be used to commit crimes. 4. Assist CODE ENFORCEMENT with health and environmental issues such as location that contains high levels of grass and weeds, illegal dumping of oil/tires in the district.

Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (D.O.N.E.)

It appears that the only empowerment is the ability for D.O.N.E. to tell the Neighborhood Councils how to fulfill their responsibilities. Nothing is accomplished without their approval. D.O.N.E. was established as a re-source and support unit for NCs, but over the years they have become the authority that runs the NCs. When you become a member of the Neighborhood Council, you are required/mandated to take the Ethics training, Treasurers training, become familiar with the Brown Act, Robert’s Rules of Order, NC’s Bylaws and the City Charter. When you are hired by the department you are required to learn one line: “I will check at the office or City Attorney and get back to you.” D.O.N.E. knows that not every community has the same needs, face the same challenges, share the same con-ditions, move at the same pace or even have the same capacity but, their goals are to establish uniform Bylaws, procedural steps and requirements that would simply make their jobs easier and the Neighborhood Councils more dependent of them, “not empowered.” Perhaps the Department Neighborhood Empowerment was created to keep NCs away from City Government and Elected Officials; they do an excellent job by introducing new requirements and/or procedures, every time NCs meet the last ones! Is this a management problem, policy problem or City strategy for controlled empowering? Neighborhood Councils are only as good as the people involved in them and yes, it requires training, knowledge and more time than expected by any member. Their biggest problem is not in learning the ways: their biggest problem is finding the resources and the support that will empower them. Mandates and directives are easy to find!

THE PRETTIEST PLACE IN PACOIMA The Hansen Dam Golf Course with its beautiful greens and well kept trees just happens to be the prettiest place in Pacoima. But only if we can see through the illegally parked 18 wheels tracker trailer on Glenoaks Blvd. It would be nice if the city officials saw to it that the city laws were enforced. Pro-active code enforce-ment on the part of DOT would be appreciated by the community of Pacoima. Attention CD7.

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