11-7-01 The Northridge Community Council is a council organized under the Los Angeles City Charter to represent the community. We are in the process of applying for certification as a community council. To date, no councils have been certified. The Northridge Community Council is somewhat unique as it operates as a town hall forum with no deliberative body. All stakeholders in the community, as defined by the L.A. City Charter, may vote on each and every decision.

The Northridge Community Council met in an open public meeting on November 1st to discuss the proposed New Valley High School. The council heard a report from an Ad hoc committee that met earlier that had studied the few copies of the DEIR and the single copy of the PEA that was made available to the community.

LAUSD initially refused to provide a copy in electronic format and belatedly posted an unusable 45 MB PDF file on their website on 10-22-01. This file was converted from a usable word file that could have been posted and would have been useful for the community to read and comment on. Further, the tables could have been extracted and used in an analytical analysis of the project from the word file.

In the PDF format file none the tables, text or graphics can be extracted for use as quotations in submissions. Further, the huge (45Mb) files prohibit anyone without broadband internet access from even downloading the file.

The Northridge Community Council spent sizable time converting the unusable PDF, version of the DEIR into a partly usable internet file (HTM), which was placed on our Website for the community to read and study. See  The PEA was never made available in electronic format and its exposure to the community is limited.

In addition, the community expressed a wish to see a number of documents that are either involved in the mitigation or support conclusions that are made in the DEIR before a full response to the DEIR can be written.

Comments on PEA

1. The PEA was rejected by the California EPA as inadequate in its claim that no hazards exist. The California EPA, in a letter which was not made part of the documents, but only referenced, stated in part that there was an environmental danger to the students from pesticides. These pesticides had to be removed and a removal action and work plan (RAW) had to be generated.

The community cannot comment on adequacy of this mitigation in the DEIR until it can study the RAW.

Comments on “Local” Schools The DEIR claims that the community does not need local elementary and junior high schools. While providing no supporting data, it simultaneously claims that the community needs a local high school.

The DEIR sites a LAUSD report, which states in part, that there is a chronic shortage of seats at all levels. We see nothing supporting the conclusion that no local elementary and junior high schools are needed, and which allows tearing down and destruction of the existing school, but simultaneously claims the need for a local high school.

CSUN MOU One of the prime assumptions made is that this New High School will co-use various athletic fields at CSUN. In fact, the entire justification of this site versus another is the planned co-use of the athletic fields. We have been verbally told by CSUN this agreement does not exist. Without the agreement, most of the assumptions in the DEIR are unsupported.

Additional Impacts The proposed re-use of the Prairie Street site as a parking lot for hundreds of cars is not included in the analysis of the traffic impact in the DEIR. The level of service at the adjacent intersection of Zelzah and Nordhoff is at LOS F. The traffic study claims that this is unmitigatable even without the analysis of this additional traffic from a parking lot.

We've been told that the University intends to enlarge the Faculty Center (which needed the additional parking lot) as a banquet facility, but this project, among others, is not included in the potential projects listed in the DEIR.

Requested Action During this meeting the Northridge Community Council voted unanimously to request a continuation of the public hearing allowing adequate time for the community to read the DEIR and the PEA. (See our attached minutes of that meeting, including reports submitted by Stakeholders, which are made part of this letter).

It is the Northridge Community Council's position that without the information requested, it is impossible to submit full and complete comments relative to the adequacy of the DEIR.

It is the official council position that the public has not been allowed sufficient time or data to make an informed response to the DEIR. We demand that this hearing be continued until 60 days after the documents referred to in this letter are made available.

Added Documents needed As the public record has been changed to require documents to be made available in electronic form, we are requesting that all documents be provided in word and the tables in Excel. Other formats such as WordPerfect and other spread sheet forms are OK.

1. The Full RAW

2. The PEA

3. All enrollment data and projections for the next 20 years on attendance versus capacity of all schools both private and public within a 5 mi. radius.

4. . The MOU, which allows the use of CSUN property by LAUSD students for this proposed school.

4. The zip code of each the Monroe High School students Charles Brink, Jim Parker, Anita SantoSpirito, and Andy Anderson NCC CSUN Ad Hoc committee.

Attachments

Minutes 11-1-01 meeting

Jim Parker EIS Report at that meeting 

Anita SantoSpirito Report at that Meeting

Jim Parker Report at that meeting Release to community 

Charles Brink Letter to Juile Kornstein 2-8-01 

Letter to LAUSD Facilities Committee 1-25-01 Letter to CSUN and LAUSD about 12-12-00 Letter to CSU trustees

CSUN Academy School page