DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Now available in the January 17th issue of the Downtown News is an opinion piece I wrote. They titled it "Another View of Downtown's Neighborhood Council: Board Member Says a Lot Is Going Right With DLANC" This is a response to last week's article, "Success and Growing Pains."

I was excited when I picked up a copy of the Jan. 10 issue of the Los Angeles Downtown News and found such a lengthy article on the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (DLANC). How disappointing, then, to find it stained with a negative tone.

I was elected to the DLANC board last August. While I do not claim to speak for the rest of the group, I feel it is necessary to provide clarity about the organization on which I serve. Author Chris Coates' piece is titled "Success and Growing Pains," but while he has much to say about the pains, the success seems oddly under-represented.

You can read the rest of the piece on the Downtown News site now, or it'll be in the print editions that'll hit sometime over the weekend.

I want to thank the Downtown News for giving me the opportunity to respond in print. I contacted them Monday, wrote my response Monday night, revised it a lot on Tuesday, and then it went to the editor on Wednesday. By Wednesday afternoon the piece was finalized and now today it's online. They offered me 600-700 words, I wrote 750, and after edits they ended up happy with the piece at a touch over 800 words. The entire process went better than I could ever have imagined.

My initially blogged response to the article is also online.