Voices of 90037 Neighborhood Council faces money freeze



Normandie Elementary School auditorium stood nearly empty at the start time of the Voices of 90037 Neighborhood Council meeting on Tuesday night. At about 6:30 pm, the room held more community members than board members.

Not until nearly an hour later did the last board member arrive, allowing the neighborhood council to reach a quorum and get started. A quorum is the minimum number of people needed to hold a meeting.

Below are some highlights from the night.

BUDGET UPDATE
The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) froze the neighborhood council’s bank account, because it does not have an approved neighborhood council budget on file for the current fiscal year.

Treasurer Angelica Cookson said that she and two other Board Members had personally dropped off the budget approved at last month’s meeting at DONE’s headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles.

Cookson cited DONE’s high employee turnover rate resulting in many shuffled papers lost in the transition process as a possible reason for the missing budget. She plans to follow up with DONE to clear up the confusion.
Until then, Voices of 90037 will not be able to access the $40,500 DONE distributed to each neighborhood council for this fiscal year.

SAFETY REPORT
LAPD Officer Sean Anderson gave his crime report before the official opening of the meeting.

· Chain snatching is still going on, but incidents have decreased since last month.

· Car break-ins are on the rise. Recently, a burglar broke into three cars in an underground parking lot in one night. Anderson warns residents to keep valuables stored in cars out of sight.

· LAPD is working on curbing prostitution along the S. Figueroa Corridor and Western Blvd. areas. Police stings are regularly being held to catch prostitutes and “johns.”

Any incidents relating to these and other crimes should be reported to the LAPD Southwest Division at (213) 485-2582.

MANUAL ARTS UPDATE
imageRobert Whitman, the new Manual Arts High School principal, shed light on the current situation at his school. MAHS lost federal funding dedicated to reducing class sizes because it did not meet its student achievement goals for last year. As a result, student-teacher ratios have increased to 32:1 for 9th and 10th graders and 44:1 for 11th and 12th graders.

Whitman also wanted to draw attention to the need for more African-American parent support at the school. “It’s not unusual for me to go to a parent meeting and not see one African-American parent,” Whitman said. About 17 percent of the MAHS student body is African-American.

COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
Two community programs were introduced during public comments.

Semaj Wilbert, a program assistant for the Vermont/Slauson Economic Development Corporation, introduced a new water conservation initiative aimed at residents to reduce their water and energy consumption. The non-profit offers free advice and educational resources on how to make homes and businesses greener. For more information, go to www.vsedc.org.

A new peacekeeping training program is being offered. Classes train and certify people on how to deal with gang-violence in their communities. The orientation will be held Oct. 27th at 6 pm on 1409 West Vernon Ave. For more information, call (323) 295-1904 or (213) 219-9204.