Neighborhood Council Debates How to Spread Limited Wealth

In recent weeks, the has more than $3,000 in Neighborhood Purpose Grants to fund educational field trips for a total of only 12 students of Benjamin Franklin High School.

With each of the funding approvals, though, concerned members have raised questions about how the neighborhood council is allocating its money and whether it is benefitting a large enough portion of the community. 

At Thursday's neighborhood council meeting, debate swirled around a $2,200 request from Richard Ledesma of American Legion Post 17 to send three Franklin High School Students to Boys State/Girls State leadership seminars from  June 18 through 25 on the campus of Cal State University in Sacramento.

Though funding was eventually approved, members Janet Dodson and Lisa Brewer openly question if allocating such a significant portion of the Neighborhood Council's $45,000 budget was appropriate.

Update: HHPNC Treasurer Mark Reback told Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch that he checked with the Department of Neighborhood Engagement, and learned that the neighborhood council actually has $65,000 to spend in the current fiscal year.

Dodson explained that the Department of Neighborhood Engagement (DONE), who provides neighborhood councils with their annual operating budgets, make it explicitly clear that the money can only go toward area non-profits or programs for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Those guidelines also recommend, though they do not strictly require, that the funding be used for the benefit of as large a portion of the community as possible.

"Considering the guidelines, and the spirit of what DONE has asked us to consider, it seemed like a small portion of the community," Dodson said.

Dodson said the council's sponsorship of a pair of letters that will be relit on the sign as well as the trimming of trees on York Blvd. are the kind of quality of life improvements that the council should be putting their limited resources toward.

Ledesma's request came directly on the heels of another funding request from Franklin High School to send nine students to a legislative seminar in Sacramento, during which the students will get a first hand look into the lawmaking process.

This request for $1,190 was approved, under the provision that the students come bak to the neighborhood council and report on what they learned.

These recent funding approvals, and the attendant debates, shed light on the current existential crisis faced by a new neighborhood council that is looking to establish itself in the community.

One of the main problems, explained member Richard Marquez, is that so few members of the community are even aware of the neighborhood council's existence.

"We're a neighborhood of nearly 70,000 people, and I'd guess that less than 10,000 of those people even know that there is a neighborhood council," Marquez said.

As a result, most of the funding tends to go the same few places that aware of the neighborhood council and it's funding allotment; most notably, Franklin High School.

To that end, Marquez has volunteered to write a letter to the each of the schools in Highland Park to introduce them to the council, and the Neighborhood Purpose funds.

However, Marquez said he sometimes questions if the neighborhood council is making the most of its money by funding "one time events" like the legislative trip or Boys State/Girls State.

Neighborhood councils were first established in the early part of the decade after a failed effort by San Fernando Valley communities to secede from the city of Los Angeles, citing concerns that they were not being adequately represented in municipal government.

Marquez said the goal of neighborhood council's is stand up to special interest groups who have the time and money to effectively advocate on their own behalf to the Los Angeles City Council.

"What are neighborhood councils really meant for? It's to give the community more voice in city council," he said. "When we start spending money on these kind of events, we really get away from what the neighborhood council was designed for."

Marquez made it clear that he also recognizes the value of funding programs like the legislative trip, though. In fact, he mentioned that's volunteered to drive the students up to Sacramento himself.

"It's an tough dilemma for the neighborhood council," Marquez said. "I find myself leaning toward both sides of it at different times."

Another issue faced by the neighborhood council is that, oftentimes, they are unsure whether they will be allowed to roll over their funding allocation from one year to the next. If not, the councils will find themselves engaged in "spending sprees" to ensure that the money ends up  being used in the community.

Dodson said addressing the dilemma starts with outreach, letting the community know that they exist, and ensuring community members that followed previous councils, who flirted with decertification due to careless spending and mismanagement, that the dysfunctional days of old are over.

Secondly, she said, the neighborhood council needs to devise a funding guidelines of its own that can be used in concert with DONE's. If the council decides its going to continue to fund school events, it needs to determine how much it will put toward them each year.

A discussion on this matter is planned for the next neighborhood council meeting.

"We wish to be scrupulous and extremely careful," she said. "This is taxpayer money."