Audit finds L.A. agency lacks mission

Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick released her audit Tuesday of the agency that oversees neighborhood councils, concluding that elected leaders now must decide how far they want to take the city’s vast experiment in grass-roots democracy.

Chick’s audit of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment found that, though the agency has taken steps in the right direction, it still lacks a direct mission statement.

This has created confusion over exactly what the role of the agency should be in helping the city’s 86 neighborhood councils be effective, the audit concluded.

The neighborhood council system was created in 2001 in response to the unsuccessful San Fernando Valley secession movement and citizen concerns that City Hall was ignoring the basic needs of many neighborhoods.

Since then, dozens of neighborhood councils have been formed, although there remains considerable debate over their role. “Grass-roots democracy is not an easy or pretty thing,” Chick wrote in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and the council. “It takes hard work.... Now is the time for the elected leadership of this city to deliver on the promise of a real Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.”

Chick’s audit identified other problems:

* The department has allowed each of the neighborhood councils to adopt its own bylaws, resulting in “86 different sets of bylaws” that the agency “must understand, manage and administer.”

* The agency has provided lax oversight of how neighborhood councils spend money provided to them by the city. For example, the audit found that the agency never questioned why one council spent $80,000 on accounting and office supplies over the last three years, while the vast majority of councils spent under $5,000 on those services.

* The agency and the neighborhood councils do not do a good job at promoting civic involvement in Los Angeles government. In particular, the audit found that 56 of 86 neighborhood councils never submitted official statements showing their positions on issues within their boundaries.

In addition to the audit, the neighborhood council system is being reviewed by a 29-member commission appointed by the mayor and the council.

The department also is searching for a new general manager. Former Villaraigosa deputy Lisa Sarno has been interim chief since April.

Sarno said she agreed with the audit’s findings. “There are too many internal disputes” in the councils, she said. “I think because a lot of the tools weren’t provided, a lot of the internal conflict has gone unresolved and it has become an obstacle” to success.

Tammy Flores, president of the Sylmar Neighborhood Council, said that the agency didn’t provide much help when her council was launched several years ago. However, Flores said the council has proved fruitful, with its members closely monitoring government and serving as a watchdog in the Sylmar area.

“The elected officials did not know the power that neighborhood councils would gain, and that in a way probably frightens a few because we’re the people -- we’re votes for them,” Flores said. “I think they don’t know what role they want us to play or expected us to do what we’re doing in following policy and legislation.”

The City Council and some neighborhood council members have clashed in recent months. One dispute involves the council’s delaying making a decision over whether neighborhood council votes should be made part of the city’s official legislative record.

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steve.hymon@latimes.com