First, find your neighborhood council
- Find out which council represents you by searching your address here.
- Sign up to have council agendas sent to your inbox here.
- Find information on when and where your council meets here.
- Check out all Community Impact Statements your council submitted since 2008 here.
- Want to get paid to attend and document public meetings? Learn how to become an LA Documenter here.
1. Your neighborhood council is one of the easiest ways to get involved in LA government
If you’ve ever complained about something happening on your block, wondered why a project was approved or wanted your neighborhood to get funding for an event, a neighborhood council meeting is a place to start.
The Neighborhood Council system, established in 1999, is made up of volunteer-led councils that give residents a direct way to weigh in on hyper-local issues, proposed projects and neighborhood programs.
There are 99 neighborhood councils across LA, each serving about 40,000 residents. That gives residents a more local forum for raising concerns than the city’s 15 City Council districts, which each represent nearly 260,000 people.
So what can a neighborhood council actually do?
Neighborhood councils don’t make city laws or set city policy. But they do have a couple of ways to make their voices heard. They can approve Neighborhood Purpose Grants of up to $5,000 for nonprofits and schools, helping pay for neighborhood events and programs.
They can also draft Community Impact Statements (CIS) that tell the mayor or City Council whether the neighborhood council supports, opposes or wants changes to a proposed policy or project. And meetings are a chance to hear directly from city, county and state representatives about what their offices are working on.
2. You don’t have to be a neighborhood council member to participate
Neighborhood Council meetings are generally open to anyone who lives, works, studies or runs a business within the council’s boundaries. And you don’t have to sit on the board to speak during public comment.
What to expect at your first meeting: Every neighborhood council is a little different, but most include updates, agenda items and public comment. If you want to speak, check the meeting instructions or ask how to sign up. And it’s OK to just listen the first time.
3. Check the agenda before you go
This is the part that can save you from showing up to a two-hour meeting only to find that the issue you care about has been moved to another meeting — or that the meeting itself has been canceled at the last minute.
The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, also known as EmpowerLA, maintains a database of neighborhood councils, including their members, meeting frequency and locations.
Meeting schedules are also available through the LA Documenters public meetings database under the “Meetings” tab.
Some councils also maintain their own websites and social media pages with meeting dates, locations and agendas. Before you head out, check at least one of those sources — and ideally the council’s own website or social media — to make sure the meeting time, location and agenda haven’t changed.
