At long last an official body of the city government — the Human Relations Commission — has promised to mediate the dispute over the boundary between the Mar Vista and Palms neighborhood councils.

What should we ask for in an eventual settlement?

Here is the minimum:

1. We seek an outreach and information campaign, sponsored and paid for by the Human Relations Commission, which will reach into every house, office and apartment in Westside Village.

This, of course, would involve a direct-mail endeavor that would leap over those apartment gates which are seldom breached in any other way.

2. We expect the HRC to identify the key people who could speak and craft the arguments for and against changing the status of Westside Village.

3. We expect the HRC, along with the people on each side, to cooperatively schedule and hold community information outreach at such places as:

• Charnock, Clover and Palms Middle PTSA meetings.
• A student assembly at Palms Middle School (nothing builds democracy better than instilling it in our young people).
• A debate in government classes at Hamilton High School.
• Our churches and synagogue on National Blvd.
• The annual meeting of the Westside Village Civic Assn.
• Board or annual meetings of the cooperative apartment assns. on Sepulveda Blvd.
• Representative assns. of UCLA family housing, also on Sepulveda Blvd.

4. We expect the HRC to work with the Palms Neighborhood Council to craft the necessary amendments to the Palms bylaws allowing the forming of a new Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council, including the number of Assembly representatives and where district boundary lines might be drawn.

5. The controversy should be resolved by a vote of the stakeholders of Westside Village. It might be held in conjunction with the election of the Mar Vista Community Council in March 2006, but it must be held in Westside Village and not in Mar Vista.

These are just a few ideas, and if you have more to advance the cause of a free and fair democratic decision-making process, please send them to the Human Relations Commission.