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: