Last night bike enthusiasts from throughout the county met downtown for the LACBC’s annual member meeting. The big topic on the agenda was hearing from candidates for the LACBC Board. Other topics for the evening included updates on fund raising, membership, and the LA River Ride.

The Board candidates are a diverse group of bike advocates that includes current board members running for reelection, a past LACBC staffer, a "super volunteer" from Santa Clarita Chapter and an instructor at UCLA just to name a few.

The candidates present all gave short speeches followed by a question and answer session. The theme of the statements reflected a reality faced by all nonprofit boards and especially those for transportation reform groups in Los Angeles: How best to grow an organization and use its limited resources to maximum effect. Every candidates solution was based on one of two themes: the LACBC needs to increase its budget and total membership while finding more ways to get the existing membership involved in bike issues and the Coalition.

The ideas to increase LACBC’s profile and treasury ranged from the practical (creating more partnerships with business, identifying more potential opportunities to compete for grants) to the more creative (introducing a "Mr. Bikewell" to comment on transportation projects throughout the city. Think Mr. Blackwell, but for bikes.)

While it is too late to run for the board unless you’re already a candidate, you can always help out by joining LACBCor volunteering your time.

Because there are more candidates (11) than open board positions (9), there will be a formal election. Ballots will be e-mailed to all members on March 5 and must be returned by March 25th.