East Hollywood ArtCycle Video!

Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson Jr., who rode along on the 3:00 p.m. ArtCycle ride I led (The 2-hour Extended Director's Cut edition :)) made this great video that shows the energy and excitement of last weekend's East Hollywood ArtCycle. Check it out, you might also see some familiar faces too...

East Hollywood ArtCycle!

Today was the big day for East Hollywood ArtCycle, our community's version of an art walk/artcrawl. It was something that was born in the fall of 2008 at the EHNC Arts & Culture committee meetings, and it's the brainchild of the co-chairs of the committee -- Jennifer Moran, an artist, and Enci Box, a cyclist. After months of planning, organizing, outreach and a $2500 budget from the EHNC, it finally happened.

But a simple artwalk on two wheels it was not. It was helluva lot more than that. It was a street festival at Hel-Mel, it was a concert, at least four candidates in this coming Tuesday's municipal election showed up to represent, and there was even a (n illegal) fireworks display!

Much of the people came from elsewhere, but nothing wrong about that - part of the reason this was organized was to highlight East Hollywood. I did see the neighborhood Latino and Armenian kids and families either curious join in or extended the party to their front yards by putting up lights and blasting their own music.

I got to lead one of the four hourly bike rides through the neighborhood from Hel-Mel to art studios in the Cahuenga Library area to Sunset Junction - which is technically Silver Lake, but it's still East Hollywood Adjacent, to La Luz de Jesus gallery on Hollywood and a couple of private studios in Thai Town. My ride, which had over 20 people, left Hel-Mel at around 3 p.m.

Of course, myself being the "Hijo de E-Ho," I wanted to show off some of the 'hood...so I gave them the Director's Cut. The 1/5-hour ride turned into a 2-hour ride, not only stopping at the designated galleries and studios, but pointing out things like the histories of the Ukrainian Cultural Center, LACC, Thai Town, Little Armenia, and even Keifer Sutherland's secret lair (shhhh!), the lighting yard-cum-park to be and the "EAST HOLLYWOOD" advertising kiosk at Hollywood and Sunset.

The event attracted several hundred people. Not bad, eh?

It was a true community event. I got to re-connect with familiar faces in the community. I got to
connect with new people involved in the EHNC. I even met, for the first time, a neighbor of mine who lived in East Hollywood about as long as I have, and he even rocked his own Y-Que "East Hollywood" t-shirt. One of my friends turned up just because he read my Facebook status on ArtCycle!

Personally speaking, I'm real tickled. This is the first major event of the EHNC that I didn't have to directly plan and organize, and I'm actually happy about that - it's about damn time! Most of all it's gotten the "East Hollywood" name out there, as the event posters have attested, and it would leave no doubt to the visitors as to where and what E-Ho is. Kudos to Jen, Enci, everyone who helped out and look forward to ArtCycle 2010!

Yes, Virginia, There IS an East Hollywood!

Twelve years ago, I got into the community improvement thing partly because I lived through the 1992 L.A. Riots and wondered, "Okay, I'm still here, what should I do now?" and partly because back then, after volunteering for a community cleanup event in Echo Park, I wondered, "Wow, how do I get something like that going in my neighborhood?"

So I started a little community improvement association that year and wondered what name to use to describe the area. I guess I decided to use "East Hollywood" because it's the eastern, non-touristy part of Hollywood, and also that I heard some vague historical reference that this area once actually had that name.

"East Hollywood" was common sense to many and a hard sell for some; a few of the improvement association members bought into the "Anything that's the 'East' is not good" stigma, but I didn't care. Eventually it just grew on me and a semblance of community pride grew around that term. And eventually I organized a neighborhood council with that name.

A few years ago, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority contracted French outdoor advertising company JCDecaux to place street furniture, newsstands, ad kiosks and coin-operated, self-cleaning public toilets near transit stops around Los Angeles, just as they have done in Paris, or more locally, in San Francisco. The Los Angeles amenities either have "Los Angeles" emblazoned on the top of the dark-green structures, or the names of the communities in which they are located. I always thought it would be cool to see an "East Hollywood" ad kiosk, for example.

On Tuesday night, bicycle activist, fellow urban geek and friend Stephen Box gave me a call and told me he spotted exactly one of those over the weekend, on the corner of Hollywood and Sunset boulevards -- yes they do intersect, at a complicated 6-way junction. I got so excited I rode my bike there ASAP and snapped the pictures above.

I hope having those things help put to rest those silly names some people call this community, as well as an overall lack of neighborhood identity. Aside from having a certified neighborhood council, our Councilmember Eric Garcetti's Office recognizes "East Hollywood," there's an East Hollywood Business Improvement District and the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) has an "East Hollywood" project area. One local pizza chain lists their Vermont Ave. location as "East Hollywood." I even saw a newscast tonight that used "East Hollywood" as a dateline for a police incident - okay, not the greatest thing to be proud about, but I'll take it.

The only thing missing? Those wonderful blue community signs that officially designate communities in the City of L.A. There are about 170+ of them, and the EHNC is spearheading the effort to gather the 500 signatures to get East Hollywood an officially-designated community. Within East Hollywood there are the designated communities of Thai Town and Little Armenia - both of which long-deserved - that represent the businesses and cultural institutions of their respective ethnic groups. An "East Hollywood" designation will neither cancel nor downplay any of their designations - in fact many prominent Thai and Armenian individuals and groups support the "East Hollywood" designation - but rather tie them both together into one super-diverse community (joined with many other groups as well). We are also home to "Virgil Village," designated in the late 1990s, which started as a project neighborhood of the Richard Riordan-created Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI) program. But not many people actually use "Virgil Vilage" and the LANI project quickly became inactive after its implementation, and not much happened after the project's local organizer passed away in 2003. There's also a "Wilshire Center" sign in our neighborhood, and no one uses "Wilshire Center" to describe any neighborhood anymore (It's either Mid-Wilshire or Koreatown).

The old East Hollywood also included a large portion of modern-day Los Feliz and was in fact an independent city until 1910. It, along with Hollywood, got annexed into the City of Los Angeles to tap into L.A.'s aqueduct water supply. Hopefully, by 2010 we can celebrate a century of East Hollywood being a Los Angeles community, with an official designation for this neighborhood.

EHNC Candidate Information Session

Independent Election Administrator Stephen Box fields questions from EHNC candidates.

Nearly twenty East Hollywood stakeholders who are considering running for one of the the 17 seats in the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council's inaugural election attended a candidate information session on Monday at the Hollywood Youth and Family Center.

The session, led by Independent Election Administrator Stephen M. Box, was designed to inform potential candidates on the basics of the EHNC's upcoming October 30 Governing Board election and also let them know what was expected of them if they were to be elected to the EHNC's Governing Board.

A number of of people from the nine-member Interim Board or were active in the EHNC's formation committee have announced their intention to run, but many new faces also expressed interest, notified by the bilingual election information leaflets distributed to the neighborhood on Labor Day weekend.

Of the 17 seats in the election, 11 of them represent specific geographical areas known as neighborhood districts. The other six represent at-large stakeholder categories: Renter, Property Owner, Business, Student, Community Services (faith-based and non-profit groups) and Youth. All voters will be able to choose one candidate for each other 17 seats.

If you are interested in running for the neighborhood council, contact IEA Stephen Box at 323.962.6540 or email him at stephen@thirdeyecreative.net. For more info on the EHNC's elections and to download candidate registration forms, visit their election website at www.easthollywood.net/vote.

EHNC Shows, Tells at Southern California Community Partners Meeting

Representatives of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council delivered a lunchtime presentation in front of nearly 100 attendees of the Southern California Community Partners quarterly meeting on Monday at the California Endowment's Center for Healthy Communities in Downtown Los Angeles.

The EHNC's Israel Stepanian, Alfredo Hernandez and myself talked about the neighborhood council's formation and unique outreach techniques on how to communicate with and involve a uniquely diverse community using resources like relationships with schools, institutions and the use of technology and multimedia, which was exemplified with the screening of the EHNC's "This is East Hollywood" video presentation.

The three EHNC representatives also joined a panel discussion with representatives from the Empowerment Congress Southeast Neighborhood Development Council, a neighborhood council in the South Los Angeles area.

The meeting's attendees comprised of elected officials, city workers and community leaders from Los Angeles, San Diego, Palmdale, Anaheim, Pasadena, Glendale and many municipalities around Southern California. The event was hosted by the City of Los Angeles' Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which oversees the city's system of 89 neighborhood councils.

The EHNC's delegation also included Election Committee chair Christine Jerian and Independent Election Administrator Stephen Box.

Southern California Community Partners is an affiliate of the nationwide organization Neighborhoods USA, which is a network of agencies, community groups and municipalities from across America dedicated to improving and empowering their neighborhoods.

During our April 19 certification hearing, one of the members of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, impressed with our outreach efforts, asked us, "Can you take your show on the road?" So I guess this was the first stop on our tour! It was exciting and an honor as well to have our NC - and diverse community - be recognized.

Congress of Neighborhoods

So this is what it's like to be certified...

Today, just 40 hours after being certified, the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council returned to DONE's bi-annual Congress of Neighborhoods event, this time at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Elson Trinidad, Israel Stepanian and Lucy Varpetian represented the EHNC at the event.

The Congress of Neighborhoods is organized by DONE as an informational conference for and about neighborhood councils, which features training and topical discussion sessions as well as a chance to network with elected officials, city departments, community groups and other neighborhood councils.

Thas been attending the Congress since its first installment in Fall 2001 but decided to stop attending after the Spring 2004 event to concentrate on completing its certification -- little did we know it would take three more years to do just that!

We were greeted by friends and supporters such as our former DONE project coordinator Christine Jerian (now with SCAG), Central Hollywood NC's Debbie Wehbe, Hollywood United NC's Erik Sanjurjo, Rampart Village NC's Tara Brown, as well as BONC Commissioners Linda Lucks, Tsilah Burman and Michele Siqueiros (they all just love us now...).

But perhaps our coolest moment was when our councilman, Council President Eric Garcetti, gave us props in front of the 1,000 attendees (Play YouTube clip above).

EHNC - Certified At Last!

The East Hollywood Neighborhood Council became the 89th certified neighborhood council in the City of Los Angeles on Thursday, April 19 at a packed Faculty & Staff Center on the L.A. City College campus. The Board of Neighborhood Commissioners voted unanimously 4-0 to certify the EHNC, after a public hearing marked with enthusiasm, emotion and some Hollywood style -- the premiere of the short film, "This is East Hollywood," which made a very strong impression on the commissioners. About a dozen residents, businessowners and representatives of local elected officials, nonprofit groups, churches and neighboring neighborhood councils, spoke up in not only their enthusiastic support for the EHNC's certification, but shared their honest and unique experiences in or with the community. The certification vote, met with loud cheers and applause, was the culmination of five long years of hard work by the EHNC.

More than five years ago I embarked on a journey: to form the EHNC, which was originally supposed to be a separate-but-related entity to the East Hollywood Community Association, which I started in 1996. But I discovered that the people involved in the EHNC were more involved, diverse, proactive and energetic and knew we were onto something special here.

Why did it take so damn long? Many reason -- a high transient renter population, a large immigrant population, many of whom have a long-standing fear or mistrust of anything related to government and also long periods of having a shortage of core formation committee members to get the work done - especially getting those petition signatures. But even after overcoming all of that, and not having a set deadline, I decided to take my time and learn from other NC's mistakes (and successes as well), to immerse myself in the knowledge of the NC system though events like the Congress of Neighborhoods or the Citywide Alliance of Nieighborhood Councils. East Hollywood was a special community - arguably the most diverse in the City - and the people involved were a special group as well -- most of us are under age 40, or not that much beyond it, and a diverse bunch as well. So when our Certification Hearing came, I wanted to us do it right.

And I guess we did.