Want To Bring Parks To YOUR Neighborhood? Want To Bring Economic Development To YOUR Neighborhood? Find Out How To This Saturday!

Saturday April 21st from 8:30 AM – 3 PM the Congress of Neighborhoods will meet at the Bonaventure Hotel at 404 S. Figueroa Street in the California Ballroom. Parking is free with validation at the City National Plaza Parking garage at 400 S. Flower and there will be a complementary breakfast and lunch.

The Opening Session/Mayor's Welcome begins at 8:30am in the California Ballroom.
Mayor Villaraigosa, Carol Tharp, DONE GM & BongHwan Kim, AGM, Council members Eric Garcetti, Ricard Alacon, Janice Hahn and others will be speaking to participants at the Opening Session. The first workshop session - and there iwll be dozens of different workshops - starts at 9:30 AM. You aren't required to stay to the end, or get there early, you can drop in at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel any time and leave when you want.

Three of the many sessions will be held by the Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Congress and you want to increase community outreach, develop jobs and businesses in your community or need more parks and green spaces in your community - the Los Angeles Neighborhood Congress will multiple experts to answer your questions as well as NC members to tell you their success stories.

You will each be given specific action items to take back to your communities Monday morning to get to work to solve these problems. .

From 9:30AM – 10:45 AM, a speaker from the Trust for Public Land will explain how neighborhood councils can develop political support for parks, use “greenprint” maps to make a case for additional park space in their communities and learn the basics of land acquisition and how to use that information to acquire more park land.
Also on the panel with be a representative from the LAUSD on how to working with the school district to use school facilities after hours, someone from Parks and Rec to discuss the parks assessment survey and several community based organizations that have successfully created parks and green spaces throughout Los Angeles including BONC commissioner, Tsilah Burman, Executive Director of the L.A. Neighborhood Land Trust.

For more information on this event and a complete list of guest speakers on this topic, go to our temporary website www.parksforla.blogspot.com.

From 11 AM to 12:15 PM, real world examples of how NC's can – and have – brought economic development to local communities will be presented. Experts will explain how to get financial incentives for local businesses and how to access job training and jobs for youth’s programs in your communities

Downtown Los Angeles, as one example, will detail exactly how it turned the worst drug dealing neighborhood in the city - Fifth and Main - into Gallery Row, a neighborhood now filled with ethnic restaurants, clothing boutiques and book stores as well as art galleries and then describe how four DLANC board members brought Fashion Week back to Los Angeles from Culver City in just six weeks. Other NC’s will describe how to create both cultural tourism and locally based events that have brought economic and cultural benefits to their neighborhoods.

For more information on this event and a complete list of guest speakers, go to our temporary website: www.lameansbusiness.blogspot.com.

Everyone talks about outreach, but nobody seems to know what to do about it. Well, from 1:30 PM to 2:45 PM here’s the place for the latest ideas in promoting what your NC is doing in your community.

Our main guest speaker is Rob Barrett who is head of all things web and interactive at the Los Angeles Times. He is also in charge of making the LA Time website the place to go for hyper-local coverage of the communities of Los Angeles.

And while he has a lot to say on how we can use the Times to promote the NC movement, just as importantly he – and the LA Times – want to hear from us about how we feel how latimes.com can do a better job covering our neighborhoods.

Among the other topics covered will how NC’s can get involved in placing computers in underserved parts of the community to allow everyone on-line access, now NC’s can help better connect our communities by providing access to literacy and English as second language classes and programs to better allow everyone in our city to participate in civic affairs and how anyone can create a website in five minutes or less.

For more information on this session go to our temporary website. www.LANCCOutreach.blogspot.com.