The North Westwood Neighborhood Council is set to return to in-person meetings April 19 after three years of online meetings.

California reinforced the Ralph M. Brown Act – which requires all public commissions, councils and governmental bodies conducting business to meet in person – on Feb. 28 after Governor Gavin Newsom ended the statewide COVID-19 pandemic emergency, which temporarily allowed remote meetings.

The NWWNC was able to delay its in-person return until April, holding its March meeting over Zoom after the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment’s Board of Neighborhood Commissioners voted to extend the emergency order for 30 days. This extension allowed neighborhood councils across Los Angeles to figure out the logistics of returning to in-person meetings, including locations and funding.

The council confirmed its decision to meet in person at its March 1 meeting, voting unanimously to approve a motion to sign a contract with UCLA to use its Weyburn Terrace property. The council will pay $500 plus taxes and fees per month to use the third-floor “Skyview” room.

NWWNC Vice President Andrew Lewis said he thinks a return to in-person meetings will increase public engagement with the council.

“It does bring in a segment of the public that just would not log on to Zoom because they’re not interested in being online,” Lewis said. “They prefer to be in person and be able to share public comment in person or give their ideas in person.”

But in-person meetings also raise an accessibility issue, he said, adding that the change may make attendance challenging for members of the council who can not leave their homes or those who are students and may be on campus or in classes at the time of the meetings.

President of the NWWNC Josh Trifunovic said he was not sure if the change will mean that some members of the council will not be able to attend, which could delay the council’s business since a quorum must be met to vote on agenda items.

However, Senate Bill 411, proposed by Sen. Anthony Portantino, who represents District 25, would grant neighborhood councils the power to decide whether they would instead meet virtually or in a hybrid format. On March 1, the council voted to endorse the legislation, signing a community impact statement to urge the state to act on the bill. The council’s decision followed the approval of a similar motion by the LA City Council in January.

“We should show our stakeholders that we’re committed to taking the time out of our day to meet in person,” Trifunovic said. “But again, I am for the proposal to have hybrid meetings because people do have reasons why they need to be virtually.”

Eric Coestad, the NWWNC’s secretary, said although he supports a return to in-person meetings, he believes virtual meetings allowed for more community members to engage through remote comments. Coestad, a second-year political science student, said he will miss the next few meetings because he is studying in Washington, DC, with the UCLA Quarter in Washington Program.

Coestad added that while his situation is unique, by July, the council’s membership will include multiple undergraduate students who may be studying abroad or on summer vacation, which means the council may have a quorum problem unless SB 411 is signed into law before then.

“That sort of thing does pose some really significant quorum and attendance issues that are really specific to our council,” Coestad said. “We have a very unique situation.”

Meeting online had also created a disconnect between members of the council and the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment that did not exist before the pandemic, Trifunovic said. At in-person meetings, a DONE representative could guide the council, and it is valuable for the council to have that relationship with DONE, he added.

For a period of three months in 2021, DONE placed the council in exhaustive efforts – the first steps to decertifying a neighborhood council – for not posting agendas on the council’s website on time. During this period, meeting times and agendas were set by a caretaker assigned by DONE, and council members said they were abruptly stopped from carrying out their normal duties, including the handling of neighborhood purpose grants and impact statements.

“A lot of issues that we could have had were mitigated because the DONE representative was there to guide us to kind of advise what we can and can’t do,” Trifunovic said.

However, Lewis added that it is up to himself and the council members to hold themselves accountable and work for the 60,000-plus stakeholders of North Westwood they represent.

The council’s meeting on April 19, which was delayed two weeks from Wednesday because of the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Passover, will be the first time the council has met in person since before the COVID-19 pandemic closed many public spaces in 2020. Lewis said that the meeting will be the first time he sees many of the council members face to face.

“We’re going to meet, we’re going to get to know each other, (and) we’re going to build relationship and camaraderie and hopefully accountability in a new way that is just beyond a Zoom meeting,” Lewis said.