Time To Stick A Fork In It...?

Is it finally time to stick a fork in it?

Yet another lackluster Neighborhood Council election season. Especially for Silver Lake. 21 board seats were up for grabs, with only 28 folks running. 3 out of 8 regional races within the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council (SLNC) were uncontested.

To vote in an SLNC election, you must be one of the following: property owner,

renter, business owner/employee, member of an organization, student, homeless

person: all within Silver Lake boundaries. There are between 30,000-40,000

residents/stakeholders in Silver Lake - but only 234 people voted this year! Silver

Lake’s results are not an anomaly. Other NC election outcomes were worse.

There are 99 Neighborhood Councils in the City of Los Angeles, which receive a

yearly budget from taxpayers. For fiscal year 2024-2025, the budget was

$31,168.00 per NC with a total allocation of over $3M. Past budgets have been as

high as $45,000.00 per NC. Although there were slight improvements in the SLNC

2025 election cycle, as only 70 voted and only 24 candidates ran in 2023, the final

results were embarrassing. See the review of the 2023 election here: It's Time to

Retire the Neighborhood Council System.

Based on the growing lack of public interest in the Neighborhood Council system, it’s

time to seriously consider suspending the entire program, and re-evaluate the size

of the L.A. City Council. SLT believes L.A. communities may be better served by

increasing the number of elected city council members, based not only the voting

population of a particular district, but also on the specific needs of each district.

Neighborhood Councils are purely advisory, with no governing power or autonomy

outside of their bylaws. And not surprisingly, city officials and representatives, who

are required to attend monthly NC meetings, rarely, if ever, attend in person. Most

submit a letter or email report, denying attendees the opportunity to ask questions,

receive answers or share comments directly, in real time.

The problems of our great city are only getting worse. We can no longer waste

taxpayer dollars and human resources on yet another program that has either

ceased to function or was never meant to function in the first place.