How to Find, Join and Vote in Your L.A. Neighborhood Council

Anyone who lives, works or owns property inside a council's lines can vote at 16 and run at 18, and citizenship isn't required.

You're wondering which of Los Angeles' 99 neighborhood councils is yours. Type your address into the search bar at neighborhoodinfo.lacity.org to find out. EmpowerLA, the city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, links to a council finder, too.

That council is the grassroots level of city government. Each one covers about 40,000 people, according to the department, and is run by an elected volunteer board of 7 to 35 members who count as public officials. Boards get about $32,000 a year in public money and vote on letters called Community Impact Statements, which go into the City Council's file on an issue.

Here's the fact that matters most: you probably qualify. Anyone who lives, works or owns property or a business inside a council's boundaries counts, the department says. So do "community interest stakeholders," like students at a local school or members of a local church.

You don't have to be a U.S. citizen or a legal resident, and people who were formerly incarcerated can take part. The voting age is 16. Most seats require candidates to be 18, though youth seats are open to 14- to 17-year-olds, the City Clerk's elections FAQ says.

1. Find the meeting. Open the department's directory at EmpowerLA.org/councils and click your council's name. The monthly board meeting's details are in the top right corner of its page, next to a link to the council's own website, which posts committee meetings. All of them are open to the public.
2. Get the agenda first. Sign up at tiny.cc/NCagendas to get agendas by email, or browse every council's meetings by date on the city's neighborhood council meeting calendar at LAcity.org.
3. Join a committee. Committees meet monthly on land use, public safety, transportation, homelessness and similar topics, and you don't need a board seat to sit on one. The department points out that City Councilmember Nithya Raman and former City Controller Ron Galperin both got started on a neighborhood council board or committee.
4. Ask about an open seat. Board members sometimes leave before their terms end, and someone else serves out the rest of the term. The form on 99NCs.com lets you ask about current vacancies or get an alert when one opens.
5. Vote or run in the next election. The City Clerk runs these elections. Dates vary by region. A notice on the Mission Hills Neighborhood Council's website lists a May 1, 2027, Clerk-run election for the Neighborhood Council Valley Village, with candidate filing from Dec. 17 to Feb. 15 and voting in person or by mail.

One rule from last time is worth knowing. In the 2024-25 round, 87 of the 99 councils had elections scheduled on 12 regional dates, and every election was by mail. Ballots had prepaid postage, but they only went to people who requested one.

If you missed that cutoff, you didn't vote. Most board seats carry two-year terms, so the next regular chance comes two years later. When your region's dates are posted, request your ballot the day that window opens.

For questions about a candidate application or a ballot, call the Clerk's Neighborhood Council Election Section at (213) 978-0444 or email Clerk.ElectionsNC@lacity.org. For everything else, from which council you're in to when it meets, call EmpowerLA at (213) 978-1551.

Source: City of Los Angeles, retrieved November 5, 2026. Other sources: empowerla.org, 99ncs.com, clerk.lacity.gov (FAQ), mhnconline.org, City of Los Angeles (2).