Group asks:Won’t you be my neighbor?
CITYWIDE — It’s back to basics for a group of residents who plan to resurrect a grassroots level of neighborhood activism that decades ago influenced much of how Santa Monica was governed.
And it appears that the City Council is behind them — $20,000 has been set aside in City Hall’s budget to help bolster the resident contingency.
The Neighborhood Council, whose members represent several neighborhood groups in the city, have been meeting regularly since March to determine how to make the most of its money. The latest idea is a web-based portal in which all residents would be able to communicate with each other on issues important to them.
The platform would have discussion boards, forums and other tools on the Web site designed to enable neighbors to communicate with each other on any issue — be it to inform one another of a recent burglary in the neighborhood or a trash problem in the alley. Larger issues of development, land use and city policies also could be debated.
The idea is to have one resident represent each of the city’s 67 voting precincts, helping to steward community involvement. About two-thirds of all the precincts so far have representation, organizers said.
“The idea is we want people to participate and create unity and resolve issues together,” said Arlene Hopkins, chair of the Neighborhood Council.
Many community activists believe that residents have become isolated and the level of activism has waned in recent years. It’s a national trend, but one way to reconnect with each other are resident portals, which are fast becoming popular in neighborhoods throughout the country, organizers said.
The funding for such a site is restrictive in that the money can’t be used for projects or activities involving political campaigns, candidate endorsements or ballot measures. And no city funds can be paid to individual organization members, according to City Hall spokeswoman Judy Franz.
Because the Neighborhood Council is not a designated nonprofit organization, the participating neighborhood associations that have nonprofit status would have to apply for the city grant and accept the money on behalf of the umbrella organization.
City Hall offers neighborhood associations that meet certain criteria up to $4,000 a year. Currently, there are four neighborhood associations that are authorized for city funding — Friends of Sunset Park, the Pico Neighborhood Association, the Ocean Park Association and Wilmont, which represents north of Wilshire Boulevard. Mid-City Neighbors and Northeast Neighbors are working on filing the necessary paperwork to receive nonprofit 501c3 status. North of Montana (NOMA) is organized, but doesn’t meet City Hall’s criteria for funding.
The next step for the Neighborhood Council is to finalize a plan and officially apply for the $20,000 grant, which is onetime funding.
“We can’t release funds if they don’t have a plan,” said Franz, adding $20,000 would most likely be earmarked in the 2006-07 fiscal budget if a plan is not finalized by June 30, when the 2005-06 fiscal year ends.
City Councilman Kevin McKeown, who has attended a few of the Neighborhood Council’s Saturday afternoon meetings, initially brought the $20,000 grant proposal to the City Council, which ultimately approved it last year.
City Hall for years has supported resident involvement. It reached its progressive peak in the 1980s when City Hall provided the staff to do the work for neighborhood associations in what was called a neighborhood support center, which operated as a nonpartisan entity.
Neighborhood associations have a long history in Santa Monica, and once were very powerful organizations that heavily influenced policy throughout city, especially regarding development issues.
“We’ve seen a gradual weakening of membership and the support in the neighborhood groups,” McKeown said. “Part of what we are hoping to do is start seeing the pendulum swing and re-empower these groups.”
Some neighborhood associations have been able to stay alive and organized because they still have big issues facing them, such as Friends of Sunset Park, which is constantly being affected by the growth of Santa Monica College and the airport.
Many city leaders who ended up in elected positions, including McKeown, first got involved in civics because of their experiences at the neighborhood association level. McKeown chaired the Wilmont organization 10 years ago and remembers what was known as the Public Electronic Network, which allowed residents to talk to each other without government getting involved.
“It showed us what could be done on a grassroots level,” McKeown said, adding the associations were strong but weren’t always connected even though many of their issues were larger, city issues. When the lack of parks became a citywide issue, then the neighborhood associations joined forces and received city funding to have the support center.
“I know what worked then, but I don’t know what works now, so I have been watching (the Neighborhood Council) try to figure it out... I’m continuing to be a resource, but without steering them in one direction,” McKeown said. “This is their ability to create an opportunity to be heard in the local decision-making process, and everything I can do as a city councilmem-ber to keep that alive, I will.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 24, 2006. Read the original PDF.