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Neighborhood Council Territory Tussle

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Category: Neighborhood Councils

Published on Saturday, 03 September 2011 22:23

Written by Dianne Lawrence

Mid City Neighborhood Council (MINC) has emerged the victor in a territory tussle with South Robertson Neighborhood Council (SORO).

In 2009 when the Department of Neighborhood Councils  (DONE) discovered various Neighborhood Council (NC) boundaries did not include some local neighborhoods, they alerted the appropriate NC’s and gave them an opportunity to claim them. SORO and MINC were alerted to a community that included the popular arts district and high end galleries along La Cienaga, south of Washington Boulevard, right in the middle of the two council districts. MINC responded with interest and in March of 2010, Karen Mack from DONE presented the opportunity to the MINC Board who then voted to approve the adoption.

DONE began working on an expedited process that would not require formal petitioning. Over the next year while MINC followed up with DONE, SORO began to express interest, unaware that MINC had accepted the offer and that the ball had begun rolling. SORO submitted a petition in April of 2011 putting MINC in the position of having to do the same. This generated a Board of Neighborhood  Council (BONC) hearing to consider both sides and render a decision.

The first meeting in early July ended in a tie of 2 -2.  All parties met again August 2 where approximately 35 MINC members easily outnumbered SORO representation. Both sides were required to present separately with SORO presenting first. The Board rejected their presentation 5 – 1. One would imagine this gave MINC the greenlight but after their presentation, people were surprised to see the Board split 3-3 in their decision to award the area to MINC. Lora Davis, a MINC member was impressed with the level of civility in the discussion between Board members regardless of their frustration, as they continued to debate the issue. They voted and discussed the issue three more times before a dissenting member finally relented, generating a 4 – 2 vote to approve the awarding of the area to MINC.

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