Town Crier Starts DLANC Watch
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Town Crier Don Garza has started up a new blog, DLANC Watch. He writes that he intends to keep tabs on who's present at meetings and hold board members accountable for what they say at meetings.
I think the site's a great idea -- the more people watching what going on at neighborhood councils and getting involved the better -- but I think that any sort of a watchdog site has to be careful to be accurate in its accusations. For instance, Don alleges that since the agenda for the upcoming May 14th Board meeting had not been posted as of this afternoon that DLANC was in violation of the Brown Act. That's quite simply false. The Brown Act requires 72 hours notice for regular meetings, with no distinction for weekend and holidays. Therefore, 72 hours prior to a meeting held at 6:30pm on Tuesday would be 6:30pm tomorrow, Saturday.
Also, Don claims that the DLANC website "is considered to be one of the locations the Neighborhood council is required to post the agendas for the General Board meetings." That's not true. All agendas should be posted on the website (and often are not), but the required posting places are the five locations listed on the site.
Don Garza on June 10, 2005, at 08:32PM – #1
For those of us who put the neighborhood council together we know It was said that we were required to post at 5 different locations within the boundaries of the neighborhood council boundaries. It was also relayed to us that if we had a website we could do away with one and use the website as one of the posting places. It was told to us by the department of neighborhood empowerment that if we have a website we can remove one of the posting sites and use the website as a posting site.
It will still be true that no places where we have psotings will have the agendas posted by tomorrow at 6:30 pm.
As the person who posts at the different locations , reciveing the agenda on a friday afternnon precludes myself from having access to some of the posting sites on the weekend. The Downtown Los angeles neighborhood council has been in violation of the brown act for many years now as far as posting , for the mere fact they either notice on newdownton on a friday afternoon or a saturday or Sunday.
The Departmetn of NEighborhood empowerment has said that the website is considered to be one of the posting sites if we so choose. DLANC has already had outreach meetings in which we have discussed this. You weren't at those meetings.
Facts need to be made straight. That is not factual information on the website. During the weekedn it is impossible for people to access many of our posting locations.
Fact: DLANC is in Violation of the Ralph M. Brown ACT and also the requirement of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment