Seven years after they first began, Los Angeles' neighborhood councils have failed to significantly shape overall city policy or politics.

Yet they have been effective on the local level.

That's the opinion of those who should know — the city staffers who act as liaisons with the local councils.

One big problem is the fact that neighborhood board members don't reflect the ethnic, educational or income breakdown of the areas they are supposed to represent.

Tracy Weber of the L.A. Times and Kerry Cavanaugh of the Los Angeles Daily News came to the same conclusion after they examined a report on the neighborhood-council movement released Dec. 16 at a conference at USC.

Weber wrote in the Times:

"The councils also do not reflect the ethnic and economic diversity of city residents, and have, in fact, become less diverse over time, researchers from the school's Civic Engagement Initiative found.

"These shortcomings have hindered the ability of the city's 86 neighborhood councils to significantly influence city policy, the report found."

Professor Terry Cooper (right), director of the initiative, told the Daily News: "To the extent that neighborhood councils do not reflect the composition of their own neighborhoods, they don't have legitimacy."

Board members are more likely to be white and

highly educated than the average person in Los Angeles. The study found that the number of board members with postgraduate degrees grew from 35% in 2003 to 40% in 2006, the Times report said.

Juliet Musso (right), a USC associate professor of public policy and a lead researcher on the report, told the Times that city department administrators cited a lack of diversity as one reason they don't consider the councils important.

"They perceive that [the councils] . . . didn't necessarily represent the diversity of interests in their neighborhoods," she said.

That does hurts the perception of neighborhood councils, said Tsilah Burman, a member of the city's Board of Neighborhood Commissioners (left; photo from the Silver Lake News).

"I think that by not having diverse leadership the neighborhood councils are not looked upon by some legislators as truly representative, so in actuality they don't have as much sway," Burman told the Daily News.

Many neighborhood councils also report declining participation and more internal conflict, the report found.

Joe Vitti, with the Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council and a member of as city commission which is making a study of the neighborhood-council movement, told the Daily News:

"To get people to come to meetings and participate and volunteer their time is difficult to achieve. It's going to take time."

Two write-in candidates were elected to business seats in the Dec. 7 election for the Westside Neighborhood Council north of the 10 Freeway.

Jerry Asher, executive vice president at CB Richard Ellis, won a seat on the Westside council as a write-in candidate in the election at the Westside Pavilion. He and Leticia (Letty) Bugarin will share the two business seats in the area within the boundaries of Century Park West, Santa Monica Blvd., Pico Blvd. and the Beverly Hills border.

The votes were Asher, 32; Bugarin, 21, David Horowitz, 17; and Bess Hochman, also a write-in, 0.

Don M. Parker, also a write-in, won a seat along with Douglas Butler in the business district south of Pico Blvd. They each received two votes.

The highest vote-getter in any one residential district was incumbent Barbara Broide in the area within the boundaries of the 405 San Diego Freeway and Beverly Glen, Santa Monica and Pico Blvds. She had 176 votes over Arturo Martinez, who had 122.

There was one other contested seat: The residential area within the boundaries of Midvale Avenue, Overland Avenue (excluding homes which are both on the east side of the street and north of Northvale Road), Pico Boulevard and National Boulevard or residing on Dunleer Place or Coventry Place east of Overland Avenue. In that district, Gerry Del Sol was elected with 55 votes, over Alan Levine, with 26 votes and Karina Wisenthal, with one vote.

Other winners and their votes were:

Business: Renato Romano, 6, and Steve Spector, 2.

Residential: David T. Vahedt (at large), 250; Mary Kusnic, 62; Terri Tippit, 30; Richard S. Harrmetz, 12, and Stacy Antler, 10.

Robert E. Guerin was a candidate in a residential district but received no votes.

The votes were certified by Jerry Kvasnicka, the independent election administrator. Almost 50,000 people live within the neighborhood council boundaries.