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These draft minutes will be on the agenda of our 8-20-03 meeting for approval
Directors present were Willie Langley, Don Faber, John Ramadan, Jane Lowenthal, Charles Brink, Neil Bethke, and Sandra Kardos
Regular Monthly Meeting 7-16-2003 at Holmes Middle School Guests did not sign in: 17 attended
The meeting was called to order at 7:49PM by Jane Lowenthal. She reviewed the publicity we received from the Daily News and the LA Times after our certification meeting. One item, a cartoon in the Daily News, had the NNC selling lemonade for 5 cents a glass and competing with a big box store (the city of LA). This inspired Sandra Kardos to bring in lemonade and cookies and set up our own lemonade stand for our stakeholders and guests.
Many people came as a result of the articles in the newspapers. Jane asked if anyone in the audience wanted to introduce themselves, and the following people did: Troy Boswell, a Wildlife Officer with the LA Dept of Animal Services, Jim Alger and his son Jimmy Dowder age 10, Sam Rotner from the Northridge BID (Business Improvement District), Sandy Zwick a 38 year resident, Mary Lou Brotherton a longtime Northridge resident, Glen Bailey from CSUN and his friend Sharon from Reseda, Gloria Bradford and her husband f 54 years are Northridge residents since 1977, Donna and Wm Wolf are Northridge residents for 4 years and previously in Granada Hills for 2 years, and Tom DeSimone from UC Berkeley who is doing research on neighborhood councils (an undergraduate project).
Jane called for New Business:
Our first speaker: Sam Rotner, Chairman of the Northridge BID. He was asked to get involved in the BID by Walter Prince, one of our board members and our past president. Their board has eleven members to avoid a tie vote on an issue. They are a group of property owners who have banned together to try to improve their business area. The property owners are assessed $15 per frontage foot of their property on Reseda Blvd. Their Budget is $200,000 per year, and the have to keep accurate records of how the spend their funds in order to report to the city of LA.
Mr. Rotner gave a brief history of Northridge. For instance, the Oasis Street Fair is name after an underground spring (located at Reseda and Parthenia under the auto parts store and the Gabrieleno Indians called their oasis Zelzah.
The BID had put in shade trees along Reseda Blvd. And are planning a 3 level water fall/fountain in the middle of Reseda Blvd, north of Parthenia, near the muffler shop. This is still in the planning stages. This idea came from a woman who works with several other BIDs.
Some of their members are: the CEO of the Matadors Credit Union, Elizabeth Waldo, who owns the corner at Wilber & Nordhoff, Sam Damon from the Falafel Palace.
The BID is planning to move the Oasis Street Fair to the area north of Nordhoff next year and is scheduled for May 8th, so as not to interfere with Mother’s Day. They still need to get the approval of the Northridge Chamber of Commerce.
The BID is also planning an Art Walk every Friday night next fall on Reseda Blvd starting in September or October.
BID has gotten paint companies to donate paint and the City of LA will provide volunteer labor, so property owners can get a paint job for the cost of paying for a supervisor for the job. This was a great deal to help improve the appearance of the area.
The BID is also working with CSUN on a campus walk through for Prairie and Vincenz (?)
Charles asked if their trees were real shade trees of lollipop trees. Sam said they are slow growth shade trees. Charles also asked if he was aware that several buildings have roll-up steel doors which give the area a bad vibe. Sam was not aware of this but was willing to check it out.
The BID does not have any power to regulate the appearance of the area and signs, etc, except by agreement of the property owners.
Neil asked if they were planning to put the utility lines underground and Sam said they tried to join Reseda in a project to do that, but it didn’t work out.
I asked how long the group had been organized and what area it covered. It has been organized for 2 years and covers Reseda Blvd from Roscoe Blvd north to Lassen.
Sam said he used to own the local bicycle shop and never had any problem with the residents of Northridge with checks and he worked with many celebrities to get them the equipment they need without over pricing it.
Our next speaker was Troy Boswell, Wildlife Officer with the LA Dept of Animal Services. He lives in Chatsworth, and just graduated with a degree in Resource Management.
Wild animals in the area include red and grey foxes, coyotes, squirrels, possum, and raccoons. They used to trap and kill the coyotes. After a 1994 commission asked him to look into the coyote problem things changed. The coyote and other animals are attracted to the city because it is like a smorgasboard to them: food (from trash cans and fruit from trees, and compost piles with food scraps), water, shelter (including wood piles), cool grass and shade in the summer heat and for some animals, swimming pools.
Diseases to be alerted to in the valley include:
West Nile Virus spread by mosquitoes and affecting people and birds, and
Newcastle Disease which affect birds and is bird specific to J birds and crows. Any dead birds should be reported to animal control.
Lyme Disease can also be a problem because of the tick problem in spring and summer in the hills around the Valley.
Troy said that the coyote use the LA River channel like a freeway to travel around the city. Balboa and Superior is a problem area.
Other wild animals include bear (last seen at Tampa & Rinaldi six years ago a the site of the drive-thru, mountain lions, wild parrots, possum and raccoon.
Troy can be reached for questions at (tel) 818-756-9325 or (fax) 818-756-9111 or e-mail: tboswell@ani.lacity.org Their web site is: LAAnimalServices.com
Jane next discussed the Northridge Pool. She explained that Prop K allocated funds equally over 28 years throughout LA. In 1999 $133,000 was allocated to the Northridge pool as a plumbing retro-fit. After starting work on the pool it was determined that additional major work needed to be done, but not funds were made available. Today, the pool had to be removed and is to be replaced by a new pool and bath house at a cost of $5,000,000. We discussed how the Pool Committee, set up by our (?) councilman had every area around Northridge represented on the committee except Northridge. At best it appears the city will only allocate $1.5 million to the pool in the next couple of years, so we may need to find other sources to fund the cost.
Neil asked how the city could spend several millions of dollars on an advertising campaign promoting city pools when they can’t find any money to replace the Northridge pool. In 1999 when the pool was last open it had over 16,000 users, mostly children. Jane thought they may have gotten some kind of grant for the advertising, but was not sure.
Today, the Northridge Park has arranged to bus 3,000 children to the Granada Hills pool weekly. Jane said they are starting talks with CSUN about using their pools for the kids during the summer, but wasn’t certain they will respond to the community. We need to remind them of all the city money they also received from Prop K.
Again it was questioned why $960,000 of Prop K money went to the Porter Ranch YMCA, and in all approximately $7 million to other YMCAs, to LAUSD, and even CSUN when the city parks are in such financial need, and these private groups and agencies that are not a part of the city do not provide the citizens the services they need.
Don Faber suggested that we question the city and our Councilman regarding this. We can put together a report for LA City and our Councilman. Don agreed to head a committee to include Jane Lowenthal and Jim Alger.
Jim Alger asked why we didn’t have those 16,000 people or their parents complaining to the city and coming to our meetings. Jane said there was no record of who they were, and we don’t know they don’t come out except that they may not be ware that they can make a difference.
Ton DeSimone (Berkeley student) asked why we weren’t on the pool committee and why our councilman wasn’t working with us.
We were told that CSUN used to allow use of their pools, so Glen offered to get us some phone numbers of people we can contact from the CSUN Directory.
Jane spoke about a new Northridge business called Helping Hands for Seniors. They had to cancel coming because of an emergency, but will come next month. They provide non-medical services to seniors.
Someone asked if DONE wasn’t required to give us a memorandum of what is required for our group to be certified. We don’t know. Maybe they should ask DONE. Jim asked that since he was told we have a leadership problem that maybe everyone should resign. We told him our former president did resign because he thought his activism may be working against us. Nothing changed.
Tom said DONE gave him information that there were several assaults against DONE people and the police had to come out 3 times to settle the issue. We tried to see what information he had since none of those purported events ever took place.
Steve Slutzah was also there but said little.
Jane reported that our appeal had been filed with the LA City Council.
I gave the treasurer’s report since Andy Anderson was not here. We had $212 and disbursed it all to Jane to pay toward her printing costs for flyers of $324.75. The hat was passed and we received $23. which was also given to Jane. The balance due to Jane is now $89.00.
A drawing was held for door prizes. Sandy Zwick won a car maintenance package, but refused to accept it after the meeting was adjourned. Don and Char Faber won a dinner for 2 at the Outback Restaurant.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:55PM (as the school requires us to leave by 10PM) and discussions continued in the parking lot.
Submitted by Sandra Eve Kardos Secretary