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The neighborhood association, which works with residents and businesses and the city to make improvements, has been consumed with a contentious, bitter internal fight for more than a year. This episode, filled with accusations and allegations, ended with a public meeting Thursday when the association voted to change its bylaws to restrict voting to residents and exclude neighborhood businesses.

While the disagreement, at the surface, appears inconsequential, the spat opened up deep festering issues centering on personalities, new and old guards, ethnicity, gentrification and outsiders versus insiders.

The bickering is likely to persist and could hurt ongoing efforts to improve the quality of life for the barrio, bounded by Speedway, the Santa Cruz River, and Silverbell and St. Mary’s roads.

“It’s become a stage for bigger issues,� said Joseph Cates, first vice president of the Barrio Hollywood Neighborhood Association, a resident since 1998 and a member of the new guard. “There’s a bigger battle going on, politically.�

But longtime association member and one of its founders, Scott Egan, framed the dispute as one of self-determination for residents in the face of outside interference from city hall and the wider business community.

“We think the residents should be in control,� said Egan, who has lived in the barrio for 35 years.

The dispute over the bylaws began after the January 2014 election when Margart McKenna, the association’s president since its founding in the late 1980s, was voted out. Kacey Carleton, an architect and 27-year barrio resident, was elected.

Carleton said her election marked a change for a new direction and the manner in which her predecessor lead the association.

She said the association was too focused on its annual Fiesta Grande and had lost sight of other commitments to residents, such as alleyway cleanups, street maintenance and improvements, and had reduced reliable communication to barrio residents.

“You have to have an organization to be ready to take on issues and projects,� she said, adding that there was a renewed interest among residents and business owners who felt alienated by McKenna.

But Carleton’s critics said that one of her first actions was to propose a bylaw change limiting voting privileges to one vote per household.

Opponents feared the change would dilute the voting power of residents and strengthen the hand of barrio business owners who had become increasingly involved in the association after Carleton’s election.

McKenna said while businesses are appreciated and supported by Hollywood residents, their interests are not the same as residents’.

She added that residents would not only lose control of the association but the lose the largely Chicano barrio to gentrification.

To counter Carleton’s proposal, her opponents began a move to exclude businesses as voting members.

The worry about greater business influence in the association is linked to the failed 2013 effort by the city to convert nearby El Rio Golf Course into a campus for the for-profit and private Grand Canyon College.

Residents accused city officials and the business community of ramrodding the idea without public say to the barrio’s detriment.

Egan, a former assistant to County Supervisor Ray Carroll, said the city added to the dispute when it told the association that if it denied voting privileges to businesses, the city would cease support of the association and the neighborhood.

But the city changed its position before the vote and said it would allow resident-only voting, said Rebecca Ruopp of the city’s Office of Integrated Planning, which assists ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s neighborhood associations.

Despite highly charged emotions that surged through the barrio, the various players hope for some positive outcomes.

While Carleton fears that lingering strong feelings will keep Hollywood residents from participating, she welcomes city mediation of the lingering divisions.

Ruopp said this was one of most divisive association issues she has seen. She expects her office will recommend to the City Council that it establish clearer guidelines for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s more than 135 neighborhood associations.

And McKenna predicted the dispute will result in a growing interest and participation among younger residents and will not affect the association’s credibility.