In a three-hour session Sunday, January 9, 2010, members of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition (LANCC) met to see if they could discover a way to bring this city out of its fiscal mess. It will not be solved with faultfinding and blame throwing.

LANCC met because help is needed. Few elected officials want to ask for budget cuts. It is much easier for them to say they are meeting the demands of citizens than it is to decide what should be kept in the budget or deleted from the budget. It is as simple as that.

Except the budget for Los Angeles is not a simple matter. Some revenue can only be used for specific purposes. Cutting out the city money used for a specific purpose can mean losing grant money.

Our Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa is offering a Budget Survey to determine what cuts the citizenry finds acceptable. Some LANCC members felt this survey is biased. But it is not necessary to fill out each item except for the initial page where the survey asks for the zip code, age, and Council District to be shown. It also asks for the email address of the participant, but that is not necessary.

Each of the following pages has a “Take Action” button for participants to make their own comments. So, whether or not you agree with the items the Mayor has selected for your input, you can pick and choose the items you think should be addressed and you can make suggestions. Most important, by responding to the Survey, citizens let City Hall know that voters are paying attention. Go to: http://www.lacity.org

Since the City Budget is not a simple matter, LANCC members voted to establish a committee of knowledgeable persons (individuals who know how much must be set aside for employee benefits or how much it should cost to operate a city service). And each Neighborhood Council (NC) can set up a City Budget Committee where responsible stakeholders can deliberate the budget issues and make recommendations. Toward that end, results from the LANCC committee will, I am sure, be available to all who are interested.

More often than not the good ideas come from stakeholders. At the meeting Sunday several persons said that NCs can help the city save money by sending out calls for volunteers to staff service desks at city departments.

Working together is how it can be done. This is our city. Our city is in trouble and it needs our help.

DeDe Audet