Photo by Tom Prete/Flickr
Even if you are not running in Saturday’s neighborhood council elections, you probably know someone who is since there are more than 200 candidates running for office in eight neighborhood councils stretching from Eagle Rock and Highland Park to Boyle Heights and El Sereno. The candidates range from middle school teachers and grandmothers to lawyers and an American Apparel executive. The job of president is up for grabs in the Eagle Rock, Highland Park and Lincoln Heights races. In Eagle Rock, the slate of candidates includes activists who opposed the city’s recently abandoned ban on marijuana stores, a hot topic in a neighborhood where many pot shops have opened in recent years.
Click on the link below for information about the Oct. 13 neighborhood council elections, candidates and polling locations.
Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council
(Hermon, Montecito Heights, Monterey Hills & Mt Washington)
Candidates Running: 28
Candidate & Polling Place Info
Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council
Candidates Running: 32
Candidate & Polling Place Info
Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council
Candidates Running: 33
Candidate & Polling Place Info
Glassell Park Neighborhood Council
Candidates Running: 22
Candidate & Polling Place Info
Greater Cypress Park Neighborhood Council
Candidates Running: 7
Candidate & Polling Place Info
Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council
Candidates Running: 37
Candidate & Polling Place Info
L.A. -32 Neighborhood Council
Candidates Running: 28
Candidate & Polling Place Info
Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council
Candidates Running: 13
Candidate & Polling Place Info
http://www.facebook.com/b2b4asnc
Goes to show the “stringent” qualification requirements needed to be a politician…
By the way, there won’t be any “election” at Greater Cypress Park NC — contrary to what’s listed above. To save costs, the City’s EMPOWERLA elections people only hold actual stakeholder poll voting when at least one seat it contested. The GCPNC board is made up of 9 “at large” representative seats, and only 7 people filed as candidates in time. All 7 will be “seated” right away as representatives. When this happens (in about 1-in-5 cases this election cycle), most NC boards then try and fill the remaining empty seats with new volunteers.
And, speaking of ways to “save costs” (looking at the picture used for this article – with the many languages on it), the same “Empower” people decided not to have bilingual or multi-lingual ballots this year for any City neighborhood council elections, because it might require the use of “a lot more paper.” So, now Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, etc. — anywhere. General “instructions” as to what kind of a mark to make on the ballot i order to cast a vote, etc. will be available in languages other than English — but other critical information, such as what seat the person is running for, and so on, weren’t translated. There will be translators at the polls in some cases, but if your NC opted to use vote-by-mail as well… well, L.A. City won’t be mailing anyone to your home to provide that service. “Candidate names are the same in any language” — City officials offered.
Now isn’t that interesting.
(Sorry, “NO Spanish, Mandarin, …” etc.)
The NCs of LA came into being to bring about civic engagement and extend
grassroots democracy. Hundreds and thousands of City dollars are expended
each year on outreach parties but translation of election material into Spanish and other predominantly used languages heard in LA communities … too costly?
In Echo Park, Empower LA/DONE and GEPENC took even greater measures to save trees by failing to post even a single flyer advertising the 2012 NC elections!
No flyers(official or otherwise) were seen anywhere in the community not even in the GEPENC “office”. What election? When? Where? This was a $600,000.00 costly party to select 1,500 to serve on NC Boards across LA ……..Is anybody at DONE doing the math, especially since this is in addition to the Outreach allocation and unrestricted terms in office.
Help!! The Historic Highland Park NC links to the Glassell Park NC. I want to know where to go to vote tomorrow. Is it at the rec center or at Franklin?