Pico Neighborhood Council

Dear Stakeholder,

This has been one of the most productive and empowering years in the history of this organization!  During this calendar year we have done everything from taking inventory of all the billboards in the entire CD10 district to leading the charge against the establishment of illegal medical marijuana dispensaries.  Additionally, we have continued our support of the area schools and businesses while continuing to build relationships within the community.

The PicoNC received praise as the one of the top 5 Neighbhorhood Council websites by the city as well as independent technical consultants on our Association Website Project.  In fact, the Dept. of Neighborhood Empowerment will be redesigning and modeling their own website after the Pico Neighborhood Council!

New simpler and more effective bylaws were adopted in January of this year.  As a result, we have increased board member participation to a record-breaking 646 event hours! This is an increase of approximately 575 hours over last year! (This does not include behind the scenes organizational hours, non board-member volunteer hours or other non-event type activities such as meetings, administrative duties, etc ). Clearly, the new bylaws are working!

Inspired by the Pico NC Saturn Garden Project, the non-profit group, The Rings of Saturn, was formed to work closely with administrators and teachers towards the betterment of Saturn Elementary.  To date, the group is spear-heading an effort to convert the barren asphault playground to a green park that will be available to the community during non-school hours. To see the masterplan in development visit http://rings.saturnelementary.com/ and join! 

Also in the works is an effort to create an educational group comprised of all the schools in the Pico NC area.  This group will share resources and scholastic programming experiences.  Such cooperation is bound to create a more robust and dymanic experience for the children.

We have increased our beautification efforts and paid for the cleaning of sidewalks, repaired and replanted parkways, assisted in relandscaping the Preuss Post Office, and made signficant contributions to Carthay Center Elementary's beautiful Shady Grove - a project that will be enjoyed by the community for years to come.

Lastly, we also worked to better security in our area by purchasing a license plate scanning unit and installed it in one of LAPDs local squad cars. By working closely with LAPD, we hope to continue to improve security by developing a plan to install cameras at critical intersections along Pico.  This will help alleviate crime, tagging and be a useful evidentiary tool for the overburdened police department.

Here is a summary of what we've supported and accomplished:

EVENTS & PROJECTS:

1. Billboard Inventory,
2. Big Sunday at Saturn,
3. Little Ethiopia Beautification,
4. Diversity Cultural Street Festival,
5. LAPD Open House,
6. Carthay Square HPOZ Training,
7. Association Website Project,
8. Pico Sidewalk Cleaning,
9. Masselin Parkway Rehabilitation (still in progress),
10. Tom Bradley Halloween,
11. Tom Bradley Thanksgiving
12. Tom Braldey Holiday Toy Give-Away,
13. Definien's Music Program,
14. Wilshire Vista Spring Mixer Event,
15. Wilshire Vista Heights Tree Planting
16. Assisted in the reformation of Redondo Sycamore & Pico Park Neighborhood Associations,
17. Wilshire Vista Halloween Event
18. Saturn Native Garden (still in progess)
19. Holiday Stroll
20. Saturn Summer Cleanup

LAND USE & DEVELOPMENT:

We've lead the way or had significant input on:

1. Medical Marijuana Dispensaries,
2. Billboard Ordinance, 
3. Residental Variances,
4. Pico / Hauser development,
5. General code enforcement of trash cleanup & graffiti.

POLITICAL:

Prop B - Researching the arguments for the L.A. Solar Plan and supporting the No-On-B campaign.  

Signage Ordinance - we have actively participated in the development of the new signage ordinance.

White Paper on MMDs - our work on the medical marijuana dispensary issue prompted the authoring a white paper that provided significant community input to our city attorney in developing his policy. 

Visibility - building relationships with other councils, council congresses, fixlosangeles.com, CD10 and other supportive gov't offices. We continue to be noticed and congratulated.  It's a long process that can only succeed with ongoing communication and involvement with these organizations.

ADMINISTRATIVE:

1. Maintaining excellent transparency 
2. More productive meetings
3. We continue to improve our efficiency and effectiveness ranking among neighborhood councils to the TOP 5 as stated by Urban Insight, an independent consultant for the city of Los Angeles!!

In 2010, many seats are up for election so I would like to take a moment to thank all of the board members for their hard work and participation this year.  The rewards of volunteerism is spreading and although it was work, a lot of fun was had by all and the community at large has benefited.  For those who will be moving on, I still expect to see you at our outreach events!  For those remaining, we'll roll up our sleeves and keep the momentum going in 2010!

As you can see, we have a lot to be proud of. Although there have been and continue to be economic challenges, we shall push on with a stronger sense of community and invite your participation and continued support in the upcoming year.  Together we will do great things in 2010.

Best,

Scott McNeely
President