EmpowerLA Prevents San Pedro Central Neighborhood Council from Booting Its President
By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
DONE’s Director of Outreach and Communications, Stephen Box, was begrudgingly given a compliment at a May 16 Central stakeholder meeting. “Regardless of how you’re treated, you just keep coming back for more,” one constituent said.
But his ability to take a licking from constituents was not what “endeared” Box to this hostile Central San Pedro crowd. It was the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment’s extreme step of taking over the council’s functions by way of “exhaustive efforts,” which was initiated on May 15, just a day before the stakeholder meeting.
After 45 minutes of heckling and constituents challenging his authority to take over the council’s proceedings, he nearly brought the meeting to a close noting that the body didn’t have a quorum.
As previously reported in Random Lengths, the board has seen three resignations in the past couple of months, including Joanne Rallo’s resignation in dramatic fashion at the April 18 stakeholder meeting.
With board president Mona Sutton and her allies on the board boycotting the stakeholder meeting, the board should not have had a quorum.
But on May 16, Rallo was back at her regular post almost as if nothing happened.
The one-time member of the Saving San Pedro uprising explained that several days after the April stakeholder meeting, Sutton sent her an email saying that her resignation wouldn’t be accepted unless it was submitted in writing and that if she didn’t reply by to that email by midnight, her non-response would be regarded as that written resignation letter.
With Board President Mona Sutton and her allies on the board boycotting the stakeholder meeting, the board should not have had a quorum. But on this night, the board achieved quorum anyhow, as Sutton’s boycott was thwarted by the surprising reappearance of Rallo at her regular post, almost as if nothing happened.
The one-time member of the Saving San Pedro uprising explained that several days after the April stakeholder meeting, Sutton sent her an email saying that per the council’s bylaws, her resignation wouldn’t be accepted, unless it was submitted in writing. If she didn’t reply to that email by midnight, her non-response would be regarded as that written resignation letter.
Rallo said she had a change of heart, and replied before the deadline that she would remain on the council.
Box told the board that the City Attorney is deciding whether Joanne’s verbal resignation is binding. If it was, all actions that were voted on at the meeting will be nullified. They will have to be re-voted on in another meeting.
The Path to Exhaustive Efforts
DONE’s actions were precipitated by the council’s leadership repeated requests for assistance with board dynamics, processes and governance.
The neighborhood oversight department cited the council’s placing of Sutton’s removal from the council’s presidency (though maintaining her membership on the board) on the agenda as the final straw. DONE noted that the council’s action was agendized despite a city attorney’s opinion that further review was needed.
Among the issues DONE is looking to address:
- Clarifying the process of creating board meeting agendas and calling board meetings
- Clarifying the process for reviewing and agendizing Neighborhood Purpose Grants and Community Impact Projects
- Establishing a holiday/Sabbath schedule for meetings
- Selecting legal liaison (in addition to the president)
- Clarifying the roles of the executive officers and their responsibilities
- Clarifying appropriate behavior on the board and with the public
- Clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the committees
- Holding dispute resolutions mediation for Central SPNC board members
- Requiring leadership workshop for all board members of the Central SPNC
- Maintaining Exhaustive Efforts for at least three months
The Recap
The council’s troubles are multifaceted and arguably began as soon as the new board took their seats in June 2016. Some of the struggles stemmed from lack of experience on a governing body using Robert’s Rules of Order. Other struggles stem from community advocates unaccustomed to having their every decision being checked by an overseeing authority like DONE.
Then, there is the emergence of the primarily working-class Latino residents of Barton Hill, who successfully organized and rallied against the attempted placement of a Navigation Center designed to store the belongings of homeless people while providing various case management services.
Allegations that Sutton sought to check Barton Hill’s influence and the suggestion that the move was rooted in racial animus has sharply divided the council in recent months. This, along with the emergence of a LGBT voting bloc comprised of Mona Sutton, Leslie Jones, Aidan Garcia-Sheffield and Allyson Vought has inserted a level of identity politics not seen in recent memory at the neighborhood council level.
Barton Hill resident Maria Couch for the past few meetings has kept this issue at the forefront of the council’s attention.
“I’ve been attending these meetings for a while,” Couch said. “The only thing I have seen is the fact that there are personal agendas between Mona Sutton, Aiden, and Alyson and a lot of efforts to push what they want and some things they don’t want. Now there was something very serious that happened during the last meeting… where it came that Mona Sutton referred to the people at the Rancho projects as ‘those people.’ And to me, that has not been addressed — not even in that letter. To me as a stakeholder and as someone who’s trying to do their part in helping this community — that’s a big issue. I want to know: when is it going to be addressed? Is there going to be some kind of training or can we remove her and that type of mentality from the board?”
Work Accomplished May 16
The council heard request for support for Godmothers Saloon’s conditional use permit that was under review. The proprietors of the longtime San Pedro watering hole and entertainment venue noted that have worked to become better neighbors by installing a secondary door at their eastern entrance facing the Centre Street Lofts to mitigate excess noise.
The council was also able to hear presentations from legal marijuana advocate Matt Garland on the work being done on marijuana industry regulations and sound the warning of the city’s attempt to to zoning rules limit the number of dispensaries other industry related businesses further than what currently exists.
Another group, Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling, or STAND, requested support on legislation that would end oil drilling within the city of Los Angeles.
After the fight over the legality of DONE’s action was put aside for the time being, the council looked and sounded like a functional body. But it remains to be seen what future council meetings will bring. Read RLn publisher James Preston Allen’s take on DONE’s takeover of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council on page 8.