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Council advances neighborhood-empowerment ordinance but withholds final vote amid friction over scope and appointments
Summary
After hours of public comment and extended amendments, the Los Angeles City Council voted to withhold final adoption of the enabling ordinance to create a Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and a board of neighborhood commissioners for one week so staff can prepare a final printed ordinance; several proposed amendments were referred to committee.
The Los Angeles City Council spent the bulk of its July 13 meeting debating an ordinance to implement the charter provision creating a Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and neighborhood councils, ultimately voting to withhold the final ordinance for one week to allow for redrafting and referral of multiple amendments to committee.
The debate followed public testimony urging bottom-up neighborhood organization. "We want neighborhood councils to organize themselves into boundaries they define, not bureaucratic districts," said Carmen Rogers of the Neighborhood Participation Project at USC during the public hearing.
Council members then turned to the ordinance's details: composition and qualifications for the board of neighborhood commissioners, duties of the new department, and whether the…
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