April 2009 Archives

I'd like to put in a plug to day for CityWatch, which provides news about Los Angeles with a focus on the city's neighborhood councils. Thus far I find it to be the best way I know of finding out what's going on with the NCs as a whole and how the neighborhood-council system is faring in regard to the larger city government under which they serve.

Reading the history of CityWatch, I learned:

CityWatch exists to monitor the political business of City Hall, and other government agencies, to monitor the progress of the empowerment of LA's neighborhoods and to encourage grass roots civic engagement.

CityWatch is an electronic journal of observations, analysis and perspectives ... complimented by ideas and information all viewed and presented from the POV of LA's myriad grass roots neighborhoods engaged in the ongoing struggle for empowerment.

We hope you find it useful, informative and provocative.

For those of you who have been with us for the two years past, we thank you for your support and your input. Without which we could not have grown from the 256 email addresses of two years ago to the better than 60,000 subscribers of today.

I do, and I do. And I do get the site's news by e-mail. Aside from its regular news stories, there are links to every neighborhood-council Web site. The "Super Planner" for community events is currently empty, and an initiative to bring video and audio to the site hasn't quite gotten off the ground, but just the provision of all those links and the regular news stories is, in my mind, more than enough to make CityWatch a valuable site.

I've heard from at least two Van Nuys residents in the southeastern portion of the community whose homes have been burglarized in the past couple of weeks.

The MO is the same in both: Intruders appear to be watching the home and make entry through the pet door, steal items that include flat-screen TVs, laptop computers and jewelry, and then they slip out, seemingly unnoticed.

It's unclear whether or not this is a single individual or someone working alone. In any event, I'm calling this person or persons the Doggy-Door Burglar.

Residents should be on the lookout for strange cars with people in them that are parked on the street for long periods of time for apparently no reason.

If you have a big dog door and not a big, mean dog, you could be at greater risk. Secure the door if you can when you're away from home. If you have an alarm system, use it.

And if you see any suspicious activity, report it to 911 immediately.

Note:The picture above is intended to illustrate what a pet door looks like. The Doggy Door Burglar is most definitely NOT a dog, but a person or persons. Dogs don't generally haul away TVs. There's my disclaimer.