August 2008 Archives

Elections for the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council will be held from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Chatsworth Train Depot, 10040 Old Depot Plaza Road.

Stakeholders in the community may run for open spots on the council. A candidate filing form must be completed and received by the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council's election committee by 5 p.m. Sept. 26.

To obtain a candidate filing form, visit www.chatsworthcouncil.org and click on candidate filing form.

Beginning with its Sept. 17 meeting, the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association will meet at a new location - Notre Dame High School, 13645 Riverside Drive, at Woodman.

The meeting will start at 7:15 p.m.

The meeting will feature Los Angeles city department officials who want to know how they can improve your neighborhood, solve any problems and answer your questions

For more information, visit www.sohainfo.com.

From the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighbood Council's Web site -

The Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council held its "Panel of Visionaries" recently and challenged a full house crowd to partner in establishing a "Great Streets!" vision.

Joyce Pearson, chair of the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council, opened the session by defining "Great Streets!" as "streets that connect us, that get us where we need to go and that are destinations, places that bring us together and create a Great Community."

Paula Daniels, Public Works Commissioner, presented the city's Green Streets program and challenged the community to partner with the City in applying new technologies and skills to the opportunities that face us in improving the quality of life through street design.

Doug Failing, Director of Caltrans District 7, spoke enthusiastically of the Caltrans commitment to local issues and his commitment to addressing the whole system, not simply the streets. "Anything you do, do comprehensively. Nothing happens in a vacuum," he said.

Mott Smith, a self-proclaimed "greedy developer," offered examples from Pasadena to Eagle Rock to Atwater Village on how communities have worked with developers to bring in the "good" partners by addressing parking code, the planning process and the rules regarding parcels.

Members of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association's Concerned Neighbors of Buckley School Committee have filed a lawsuit against the Buckley School and the city of Los Angeles, according to the most recent SOHA newsletter.

Ellen Vukovich, who oversees the organization's land-use committees, said this is not the route the neighborhood wanted to take. However, since Councilman Jack Weiss "would not protect the neighborhood and completely sided with the school, there was no other choice," the newsletter stated.

The school made an offer that did not address most of the issues discussed for the past two years, such as shorter construction time and no working on Saturdays, according to the newsletter.

In addition, the neighbors filed an appeal concerning the terms of the city's conditional-use permit, which was approved by the City Council. The appeal is scheduled to be heard Sept. 9.

"We unite with the neighbors in being very disappointed by Jack Weiss' lack of support for the residents of Sherman Oaks," the SOHA newsletter states.

L.A. Councilman Dennis Zine and former Assemblymember Cindy Montanez will be the featured speakers at the next Valley VOTE meeting at 6:45 p.m. Sept. 15 in the second-floor meeting room at Galpin Ford, 15555 Roscoe Blvd., Van Nuys.

Valley VOTE (which stands for Voters Organized Toward Empowerment) led an effort a few years ago to separate the San Fernando Valley from the city of Los Angeles, but the measure did not receive enough voter support.

The organization's goal today is to be "commited to exploring and fostering implementation of programs that empower the people of the San Fernando Valley and the city of Los Angeles (and) to improve local governance, education and public participation on policy matters."

After being down for a little while, the North Hills West Neighborhood Council Web site is back with a whole new set of ways to contact its members.

You may use any of the domain names below to reach the council on the Web:

nhwnc.org
northhillswestnc.com
northhillswestnc.biz
northhillswestnc.info
northhillswestnc.net
northhillswestnc.us

You can also reach the council via e-mail at board@nhwnc.org.

At its July meeting, the West Hills Neighborhood Council's budget committee approved three items for full council consideration:

* - $3,000 for the Valley Circle traffic study - $500 for a look-over and $2,500 for a full review.

* - $4,000 for wrestling mats at El Camino High School. The school will secure the remainder of the $8,000 cost.

* - There was also a request for $10,000 from the West Valley Playhouse. Although the budget committee is recommending the expenditure, because it was not on the agenda, it was not voted on in July.

It was also brought up in the budget committee meeting the possibility of allocating a maximum of $4,000 a year to local schools ($500 for each elementary school) in West Hills. This would be part of the neighborhood council's outreach. It will be discussed further at the council's August meeting, the minutes for which will be finalized at the September meeting.

L.A. Ethnics Commission President Helen E. Zukin called on Monday for the City Council's Education and Neighborhoods Committee to adopt narrow financial reporting requirements for members of the city's neighborhood councils that are tied to action on neighborhood council files only.

She also asked the committee to reject moves to establish broader requirements modeled after state law using statement-of-economic-interests forms.

Zukin wrote in a letter to the Education and Neighborhood Committee that members of the Ethics Commission concluded that broad, state-like financial disclosure requirements for neighborhood council boards should not be adopted at this time because of concern that those requirements could chill participation on neighborhood council boards.

The City Council adopted a two-year pilot project last January that authorized neighborhood councils to place buisness before the City Council by creating up to three neighborhood council files a year.

As part of that project, the City Council adopted a motion to require board members of neighborhood councils to file the state's statement-of-economic-interests form.

Following the adoption of that motion, Councilmembers Richard Alarcon, Wendy Greuel and Janice Hahn asked the Ethics Commission for input regarding the use of statement-of-economic-interests forms.

After five years in operation, the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council is updating its board rules and by-laws, according to the council's Web site.

The review and comment period is open until Sept. 1.

On Sept. 3, the CHC board will discuss and vote on the updates.

To read the proposed by-law and board rule changes, visit www.chatsworthcouncil.org and click on the links.

You can send your comments to info@chatsworthcouncil.org or attend the Sept. 3 meeting at 7 p.m. at Lawrence Middle School, 10100 Variel Ave., Chatsworth.

Learn how to get up to $10,000 for a community project at one of four upcoming community beautification grant workshops.

Neighborhood councils, in particular, may take interest in this event.

At the free workshops, participants will learn about the funding process and how to submit a competitive proposal for a project.

Deadline for applications for the 2008/09 beautification grants is Oct. 22.

All workshops are 90 minutes and begin promptly at 8 p.m.

No reservations are needed.

Workshops will be held on Thursday, Aug. 7, at the Mid-Valley Regional Library, 16244 Nordhoff St., North Hills; on Tuesday, Aug. 12, at the Studio City Branch Library, 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City; on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at the Encino-Tarzana Branch Library, 18231 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana; and on Wednesday, Aug. 20, at the Marvin Braude Building, Room 1B, 6262 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys.

For more information, call 213-978-0225 or visit www.laocb.org.

There will be 10 seats open on the 21-seat Chatsworth Neighborhood Council during its Nov. 1 election.

To make sure there are enough candidates to cover all those open seats, the council will hold a meeting where stakeholders can learn about how to become a candidate at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday (Aug. 6) at Lawrence Middle School, 10100 Variel Ave.

The candidate meeting will be held before the regular neighborhood council meeting.

For more information about the meeting, call 818-464-3511. To learn more about the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council, visit www.chatsworthcouncil.org.

Work on the traffic signals at the 118 Freeway and Topanga Canyon Boulevard is complete, according to an item in the latest newsletter from the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council.

Millie Jones, senior deputy to L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, said two more directional signs have yet to be installed, but that work will be done at night.

The engineer expects the work to be completed by the end of this month.

For more information about the Chatsworth Neighborhood Council, visit www.chatsworthcouncil.org.