Mayor Welcomes Members of New Neighborhood Panel

Mayor Richard Riordan on Monday named seven Angelenos to a new board that will take on one of the city’s toughest problems: getting residents involved in government.

The Board of Neighborhood Empowerment, which was established by one of the City Charter reforms approved by voters June 8, will govern a new city department that will oversee a network of neighborhood councils throughout Los Angeles.

The board and department face the daunting task of reversing decades of dwindling citizen involvement in Los Angeles government. Voter participation in the city is routinely abysmal--only about a fifth of registered voters took part in the June election, for instance.

Before the sparsely attended City Hall news conference introducing the board members, Riordan quipped: “There were three times as many cameras when I was feeding a baby chimp [at the Los Angeles Zoo].”

The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment will create a system of neighborhood-based advisory councils in Los Angeles. The number of councils could range from 35 to 100 under various proposals still being considered.

The department must come up with a detailed plan for the councils within a year. The City Council will then have six months to act on the plan or to revise it. If the council fails to act, the department’s plan will take effect.

Along with low voter turnout, Los Angeles has relatively few council members compared to its population. Slightly more than twice as many people live in New York, for example, but that city has more than three times as many council members, 51 compared with 15 in Los Angeles.

Voters in June, however, rejected two measures that would have expanded the Los Angeles council to 21 or 25 members.

Thus, the neighborhood councils will be the chief tool to reconnect City Hall to the people. Board member Carrie Castro Armour said of taking the job: “As a social studies teacher, I’m always talking about participatory democracy and what it means to vote. This is participatory democracy.”

The new commissioners are:

* Armour, a high school teacher who lives in Sylmar.

* Lee Kanon Alpert, a Northridge lawyer who is also president of the city Building and Safety Commission.

* Pat Herrera Duran, executive director of Joint Efforts Inc., a San Pedro family crisis and AIDS prevention community group.

* Sister Jennie Lechtenberg, executive director of the Puente Learning Center in Boyle Heights.

* Christopher Pak, a Koreatown architect and member of the city Board of Zoning Appeals.

* Keith Weaver, a Sherman Oaks resident and Kaiser Permanente executive.

* William Weinberger, a lawyer who was a member of the elected Charter Reform Commission.