The election day coming on April 26th for the group of neighborhood councils in Region 8, including most of east and northeast, from Eagle Rock to El Sereno to Boyle Heights, including Lincoln Heights. Candidate registration was to end Wednesday March 12th, but extended another week since there's many NCs without enough candidates filing to make a race.
The last election was at the end of October of 2012, rushed after the City Council decided to yield to the4 protests of NCs when the Council wanted to skip the elections to save money and continue terms of then-current board members for 2 years.
The normal election period is during the springtime months of even numbered years, so 2012 was a rush to complete the elections after the City Council decided on holding elections after all.
The newcomers to the NC system were many and there still are some thinking that the current elections being held for 12 regions separately over the current months were coming early. No, it's the 2012 elections that came late, and this is the normal election period for neighborhood councils.
A lot of people think that what the NC are about is making decisions for their neighborhoods but the NCs only have "advisory" power, and the city council is free to do whatever it wants, to consider NCs input or not. The council members usually give the appearance that the NCs matter but not all of what happens ever follows the recommendations of an NC.
What I think really matters is how much lobbying is done by special interest and the campaign funding activity that goes on and that is not noticed much by the average city person. For that matter, most of what happens in city hall is not noticed by most people. This condition is what most elected officials in the city like since it cuts down on anyone getting in the way of what they want to do.
There may be a lot of grumbling people after a decision is made by the City Council, but if you consider that the city elections bring out about 20% or less of the city's registered voters, you see that the majority don't even bother to vote.
This accounts for many elections decided by 11% or less of the registered voters, with Council district turnouts for a winner being anywhere from 6 to 9 thousand votes for some districts.
Well, the NC elections will be held and the NCs have another uphill battle to get voters to participate but first, there needs to be some candidates for some selections to be presented for voters.
Unfortunately, getting the word out by any NC may not be very effective. Outreach, communication to the neighborhood residents and businesses is supposed to be made anyway, theoretically to inform of what the city is doing and finding out what the people consider should be done. Since that sort of outreach is not very well established by many, if not most, NCs, you see this "election outreach" as more or less starting from "square one.."
It's also a matter of asking the NC board members who want to remain in office to work against those interests by recruiting what will be their election opponents. The extent of impact that this may have is not certain but still, it's a factor.
More on this later.
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