DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — I went to my second neighborhood council meeting last night. My first meeting was a good gentle introduction to the whole concept. Last night, though, was for real.

A big topic of the night was conflicts of interest and the question of whether a paid lobbyist should be allowed to have a position on a neighborhood council. Now, this was all in the comment section, so there wasn't a vote or anything (not that I'm sure we would even have the authority to do so). That said, the position that I think many people agreed with was that you can't go around saying people can't be on the board for this or that reason without getting to the edge of a very dangerous slippery slope. Yes, a person should recuse themself from any vote in which they or a company they represent has a financial interest. Yes, they should be very upfront in revealing when they're being paid to lobby for something. No, they should never take money to lobby their own council. But of course they can still be very valuable members of the group. If they're stakeholders in downtown they need to be allowed to have a voice.

Whew...

In other news:

• Roy's Restaurant is looking to open a location downtown at 800 S. Fig. It's an old bank branch location that's been shuttered for many years.
• We get business cards. I need them.
• We had a big debate over whether to spend money on someone to take minutes at board and executive committee meetings. The money had been approved previously, but a motion was made to reverse that decision. Here we actually had a vote with role-call. I voted no to keep the money in place. I like seeing good minutes. It makes me have less to write down during the meeting.
• I have to turn in a "professional bio" for the new DLANC website. It should be fun making that up.
• During discussion Ed Marzec used some word I didn't understand, so I wrote it down. I don't have my notes with me here, but I'll post an update on that when I get back to them and can look it up.

Next week is the next AACE meeting (here are my notes on the last one). Tuesday, 6:30pm, City Hall. Check out the AACE yahoo group if you're into that sort of thing.