NW SPNC to Test Hybrid Virtual, In-Person Meetings
The Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council has agreed to be a guinea pig in the City of Los Angeles’ new experiment — hybrid in-person and electronic meetings. The council voted 5-1 on Dec. 12 to test out the pilot program proposed by the EmpowerLA virtual governance working group, or EVG. Board member John DiMeglio was the sole no vote, but board members Melanie Labrecque, John Barbera and Vic Christensen abstained, and board president Ray Regalado recused himself. However, whether the council ever actually uses the program depends on if the Los Angeles City Council is willing to fund it.
Josh Nadel, co-chair of the EmpowerLA Virtual Governance working group, said that the group has been meeting for a year and a half to come up with the program. They chose 14 neighborhood councils to be used as the first testers of the pilot.
Nadel said the program should cost $10,000 to $15,000 for each set of equipment. He argued it would be unfair for neighborhood councils to come up with that money for the pilot, since if it doesn’t work out, the councils would never use the equipment again.
“As far as the pilot program is concerned, from the workgroup, from the department perspective … none of us were keen on asking NCs to participate right now paying,” Nadel said. “We’re going to be asking the city council sometime soon for this money.”
Labrecque, who is also a member of the working group, said the pilot program will not happen if the city council doesn’t fund it. Specifically, she said that Raquel Beltran, general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, promised that the NCs would not have to pay for the equipment.
Nadel spoke about Assembly bill 2449, which changes the rules for public meetings when it goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. The state of emergency allowing public meetings to happen virtually will end in February 2023, unless it
is extended. AB2449 allows hybrid meetings to happen even after the state of emergency is over. However, it requires that board members only be allowed to remotely participate in three meetings per year. Nadel would like to change this to allow more.
“An effort is being made to try to make changes in Sacramento to this,” Nadel said. “The NC system is the only system that is affected like this. And we want to try to make sure that Sacramento is perfectly aware that we’re asking for specific changes that will only affect the NC system.”
In addition, AB2449 requires that a majority of the board be physically present at the meeting in order to reach quorum.
“We need to think of it from the stakeholders’ point of view,” Nadel said. “Imagine, if you’re showing up to a meeting, and it’s in person and it’s on Zoom, and there’s a board of 20 people, and one person shows up. And it’s 19 people on Zoom.”
Nadel said that stakeholders might not feel as comfortable presenting to people who are not physically in front of them. The board members that participate remotely must also have their cameras turned on.
Labrecque pointed out a big obstacle to the hybrid model working for her council — the lack of internet access. Before the pandemic, the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council held its meetings at Peck Park, in a room that is not wi-fi accessible.
“We may have to move somewhere else,” Labrecque said. “Now, the other challenge is whether or not we can get that meeting place for free like we are at Peck Park, or whether or not we’re going to have to pay, or whether we have the funds to pay.”
Labrecque suggested they could use a hot spot, but wasn’t sure if it would work.
Laurie Jacobs, former vice president of Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council, said that the council had already tried using a hot spot, but it was spotty because of the type of the building the meeting is held in.
Nadel said that the equipment needed for internet access would be covered by the city council, at least under his working group’s proposal.
“Part of the package that we’re considering including for NCs would include mobile hot spots,” Nadel said. “And it may even include more than one mobile hot spot, because we understand that there are a handful of NCs that have some sorts of physical challenges.”
Northwest’s difficulty with Wi-Fi is part of the reason the working group chose it, as it was looking for NCs with challenges, so that they can be worked out.
“We’re going to be rolling this out to 99 NCs,” Nadel said. “If we picked a bunch of easy NCs to do the pilot program, the easiest 14 picks and easiest seven back-ups, if we do the program it will look fantastic. And then the second we roll it out to 99 NCs we’re going to have a disaster.”
Nadel said he wants the city council to pay for the entire program, beyond just the pilot. If the city council wants the NCs to help pay for the equipment, Nadel said the working group had several suggestions. One of them was that the city offers the NCs a loan with 0% interest, that they could pay back $1,000 per year.
“I’m on an NC too,” Nadel said. “If you told me it was $1,000 for all this, I would still be upset, but I mean you’re not murdering my NC’s budget at $1,000. That would be literally the limit of what I would tolerate.”
Doug Epperhart, president of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council and a member of the working group, said that not all NCs will necessarily get their own set of equipment.
“One of the things we’ve all talked about is the idea that there may be equipment pools, where four or five or more neighborhood councils might share a single set of equipment as a way of cost-saving, for example, so that you’re not buying all this expensive equipment to use it one day a month,” Epperhart said.
Epperhart said there will probably be costs to the NCs, such as potentially needing a stronger wireless connection, or having someone operate a camera.
“Hybrid’s going to change the way we do things,” Epperhart said. “But as I told everybody, this is an ideal in which we’re not trading the folks who are not technically savvy or capable for the folks who can’t show up in person. This is the way we hit everybody.”