Neighborhood councils object to proposed suspension policy
The Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, or BONC, is considering passing an amendment to its code of conduct policy which would allow the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, or DONE, to suspend neighborhood council members for up to 90 days. DONE introduced this policy, which, if passed, will allow DONE to suspend any board members or committee members based on allegations of violating the city’s workplace equity policy or the commission’s code of conduct.
During this 90-day period, board members or committee members cannot act on any matter that comes before their neighborhood councils. DONE can only suspend members with the written approval of the general manager of DONE, Raquel Beltrán. DONE will be the sole decision-maker regarding the suspension, the member cannot appeal it. However, DONE needs to petition BONC to remove the member.
All three San Pedro neighborhood councils passed motions strongly advising BONC to drop the proposed amendment.
Melanie Labrecque, treasurer of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council, objected to the word “alleged” being used, as it means no proof is required.
Labrecque pointed out that something similar happened to Sheryl Akerblom, who was a minutes taker for several Harbor Area neighborhood councils for seven years, who also is a contractor to this newspaper. DONE fired Akerblom based on allegations from unidentified neighborhood council members, based on Beltrán’s decision. No one from DONE ever told Akerblom what she did wrong. She is now currently on the board of Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council.
Doug Epperhart, president of Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council, said that DONE, the City Attorney and the City Personnel Department were among the agencies that wrote this amendment.
The motions that the three San Pedro neighborhood councils passed in opposition to the amendment all have the exact same wording. This is because they were based on a motion drafted by a group of 15 to 10 neighborhood council representatives, many of whom are part of the Los An
geles Neighborhood Council Coalition, Epperhart said. Seven neighborhood councils have adopted it so far. In addition to asking that the proposed amendment be dropped, it asks that a group, mainly consisting of neighborhood council members, meet with BONC, DONE and the city attorney on a regular basis.
“We have a censure removal policy from the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners that was intended to deal with the problem children of neighborhood councils,” Epperhart said. “That has failed. We had a grievance process set up as a BONC policy to deal with those same problem children. That has failed. This policy is intended to be the magic wand that DONE gets to wave to make those problem children disappear, at least for three months.”
Dean Pentcheff, vice president of Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council, spoke of DONE’s recent history at the Aug. 16 meeting of his council.
“This is one of a series of increasingly intrusive resolutions that have come from the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and Board of Neighborhood Commissioners over [the] number of years that I’ve been working with neighborhood councils,” Pentcheff said. “This one is a particularly good one, because its language is so extraordinarily egregious that it provides a very, very easy and straightforward target for us to attack.”
Coastal board member Noel Gould echoed Pentcheff’s frustrations. Gould argued that General Manager Beltrán could potentially use this amendment to remove anyone from the neighborhood councils that she does not like and replace them.
“This is the slippery precipice, not slope, that this attempt by DONE and BONC to completely remove any decision-making from communities and keep it in the hands of the city,” Gould said.
Lou Caravella, president of Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council, encouraged council members to go to the informational meetings that DONE will be hosting about the amendment and speak out against it. The first was on Aug. 30.
“This is really also just a divide between neighborhood councils and DONE generally,” Caravella said. “We need them to be supporting neighborhood empowerment, not trying to arbitrarily throw out people.”
Atziri Camarena, a representative of DONE, said that threats of violence were one of the issues discussed when NC meetings were all in person. Currently, all such meetings are on Zoom.
However, Pentcheff cast doubt on how helpful the amendment would be in deterring violence.
“The idea that the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment would take on the physical protection of neighborhood council members by the creation of an extrajudicial process to suppress board members is so patently ridiculous and useless that I don’t think it deserves even further mention,” Pentcheff said. “If someone is threatened, there are laws to deal with that, we don’t need the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment to take that on.”
Epperhart said DONE introduced the amendment with the intent to deal with bullying, or other unpleasant behavior that does not break the law.
Matthew Quiocho, vice president of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council, said that the code of conduct policy created by DONE takes away what’s special about neighborhood councils.
“We are elected,” Quiocho said at the Aug. 17 meeting of his council. “It would pretty much treat us like employees of the city.”
Quiocho said he attended the last meeting of BONC and saw no real discussion of the amendment.
“Everybody on the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners seemed to be in lockstep on this,” Quiocho said. “I didn’t really hear any dissent. So, unless the neighborhood councils really speak out, it’s probably going to pass.”
Epperhart pointed out that the city’s workplace equity policy has not yet been adopted. It is currently in draft form, the final version could potentially have different policies.
Central board member Linda Alexander said the suspension policy could be misused by board members accusing each other of misconduct as retaliation based on suspensions.
“I can see this as a circular firing squad in the worst of times,” Alexander said. “You’d think DONE had better things to do, but apparently they don’t.”
Representatives from DONE and BONC did not respond in time to comment on this story.