In the first election to fill positions on the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council in 2003, more than 700 votes had been cast. Just a year later, less than half that number were cast. But while Sherman Oaks Council President Jill Banks Barad attributed the downturn to just half the council seats being up for election the lower number may still be indicative of challenges facing the councils in terms of getting people involved. “Every council I know of wants to increase turnout,” said Barad, who was a founder of the Sherman Oaks council. “It is frustrating. For some councils you can get elected with 13 votes.” Neighborhood Councils came into existence in 1999 when voters approved a new Los Angeles City Charter. The councils come under the auspices of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. Of the 24 neighborhood councils in the San Fernando Valley that have had multiple elections, 16 saw a decrease in voter turnout from their first election to the most recent. Five councils have had only one election each; one council was only certified in January and has not had an election; and one other council was decertified. The Valley Village Neighborhood Council saw the biggest boost in ballots cast with 759 in the 2005 election compared with 187 in the 2003 race. The biggest drop was seen in Sherman Oaks, although West Hills and Pacoima experienced decreases as well. Among those involved with councils or who monitor their progress, major factors in determining how many voters cast ballots is the number of candidates running and whether there is an issue important or controversial enough to draw voters in. “When there aren’t any issues and nobody is upset then you don’t pack the house,” said Ken Draper, editor of City Watch, an e-mail newsletter on the city’s neighborhood councils. In the Valley, land use issues seem to bring the neighborhood councils to life and create voter turnout, said Chris Weare, a professor at USC who is one of the three researchers for the Neighborhood Participation Project at the School of Policy, Planning and Development. “Up in Granada Hills they’ve been able to organize around Sunshine Canyon (landfill),” Weare said. The project’s research has also found that organizing a neighborhood council is the easy part while the outreach into the community can be difficult and time consuming, Weare said. The time factor is what Reseda Neighborhood Council president Walt Sweeny found as the biggest roadblock to getting more people involved. Reseda has seen a gradual increase in its voter turnout from 151 ballots cast in 2002, to 166 in 2003 and 192 in 2005. What was done differently in the 2005 election was sending out 1,200 mailers to residents who have been active volunteers and were the most interested in the governing of Reseda, Sweeney said. “We wanted to make sure everyone who was interested had an opportunity to vote,” Sweeney said. The councils receive up to $50,000 from the city for the year and some elect to spend that money in helping out the area they serve than for mailers, Draper said. For the elections, the city does provide funding for one mailer and one door hangar for outreach but there is a question about whether that is sufficient to move people, Draper said. “If you have, say, a (Los Angeles City Councilwoman) Wendy Greuel running for office she depends on more than two mailings,” Draper said. Sherman Oaks’s Barad believes that part of the problem is that the neighborhood councils are still so new that residents aren’t aware of what they do or they even exist. “Until the councils establish themselves people are not aware of them yet to want to run for a seat or vote for somebody,” Barad said. Los Angeles City Councilman Greig Smith said he finds that some councils get tied down with the minutia of running the council that they forget that they need to be informative and educational. Residents can be turned off by infighting in a council and need to see that they accomplish something, Smith said. “If they feel there is something good about it, then they will take the time to vote,” Smith said.
