THE LOCATION:
For those not familiar with the meeting location, it's at at Intersection of Eagle Rock Blvd. and Verdugo (from south), and, the northbound 2 Fwy. (Glendale Fwy.) "Verdugo" off-ramp points you right at the building across Eagle Rock Blvd. (go straight across, veering slightly right to Verdugo's angled intersection there).
The Community Center entrance is at the rear of the Public Storage facility, accessible through the driveway (just N. of the Glassel Park swimming pool). That parking lot fills quickly. Street parking (no meters here but cramped) varies depending on interest in the event and the activities in the adjacent park and pool.
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THE EMAIL TEXT RECEIVED TODAY:
"From: Paul Michael Neuman
Subject: Inviting you to this Saturday's meeting of NECA (North East Central Alliance of Neighborhood Councils)
To: reneenahum@yahoo.com
Hello,
You are VERY welcome to join this Saturday's meeting of NECA -- the North East Central Alliance of Neighborhood Councils. Free to attend, it's Saturday, March 27 from 10:30am-12:30pm, at the Glassell Park Community Center, 3750 N. Verdugo, Los Angeles, CA 90065.
The special speakers are L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti, Board of Neighborhood Commissioners Vice President Albert Abrams, and Jack Humphreville, president of the DWP Advocacy Committee. We'll hear about and discuss such crucial topics as the city's budget crisis, the status of DONE, and the controversial proposed "EFAC" rate hikes associated with DWP. There will be Q&A, of course.
NECA meetings are open to the officers and other board members of the many Neighborhood Councils in the Central and East areas, and to stakeholders and other guests from throughout the city. Alliances such as NECA are NOT governed by the Brown Act, in part because generally, alliances do not solicit or attract that level of representation from any one NC. But we always urge appropriate sensitivity, common sense and responsibility regarding such matters, in particular when any individual NC has many members present. Motions can be made as part of a NECA meeting, though none are presently scheduled for this Saturday.
An Alliance is a great way of building a shared voice and common purpose. NECA is NOT about conquering territory -- it's about developing relationships and helping each other in local and civic causes. In our brief history, we've enjoyed meetings that have been provocative, informative and hopefully transformative, but we've also sought to be supportive, or at least respectful, and not belittling toward each other and our guests. To this meeting, we're inviting current board members, but also newly elected ones who are not yet in office, and even some whose status may be in doubt: a later NECA meeting, but not this one, will be focused on ways to examine and improve NC elections.
I appreciate any interest you may have in NECA and this meeting; I apologize if you've received redundant invites; I hope you'll contact me with any questions or comments, and an RSVP is especially useful. Lastly, I know of at least one other fine NC-related meeting happening at roughly the same time, in a different part of the city -- that kind of conflict can happen despite the best of intentions. Our meeting is scheduled to start at 10:30 and end at 12:30 but might last a bit later, in part to accommodate some folks who may try to attend both meetings, but also because we expect some great discussion. Thanks again,
Paul Michael Neuman
(also, co-chair of Silver Lake NC)
pmneuman@yahoo.com "
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DWP "arrangements" examined by KCET's TELEVISION "SoCal Connected-
Here's a fresh production from KCET that tells more of the dark side of things that help kick up your bills if you are a DWP customer, either as a business or as city residents:
Featuring DWP AND BRIAN D'ARCY, IBEW LOCAL PRES.
KCET "SO CAL CONNECTED" show- segment:"DWP- The Price of Power" Hosted by Val Zavala, (view online at
http://kcet.org/socal/2010/03/dwp-high-speed-rail-marcos-villatoro.html#comments ) It is a timely and illustrative production that is presented in the first part of this episode which just aired this week. The "High Speed Train" is the second big segment in this episode.
There are a lot of political shell games played at this level and you might be surprised seeing how DWP's pay scales so out of whack with that for the rest of city's employees. This is what you can see happens when you have "Union Clout" meet "inept contract negotiators," and that's a generous term, coupled with a "proprietary city agency" that has huge gaps as far as Council oversight (Note the case of David Nahai's full pay "consultant" contract that closed out last year after he resigned in October).
You might trade "inept" for "selling out" since the contracts really were not totally forced on the city, but accepted because it's all about votes. The unions typically are very disciplined and can get their members out to vote FOR or AGAINST somebody or some issue. But the expensive result for the CUSTOMERS (that would be the REGULAR city people) is a cushy situation in terms of salaries, benefits and conditions for IBEW at the DWP, where about 90% of the employees are IBEW members.
If you are or know a DWP worker and union member, you already know how good it is and that's due to its union leadership. See the KCET program and you can see that their president, Brian D'Arcy, is no way any sentimental guy but working only for his members, in fact, he's a pretty arrogant guy- portrayed in this program as being so in a subtle way. Our council members and world-travelling Mayor should work so effectively for us; they already have the arrogance when it comes to responding to constituents. And on that thought, as a theme of Mayor Villaraigosa's administration of city government, "We Can Dream."
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