Northridge Community Council 9-6-01 Update |
We are sending you this E-mail as you have requested to be notified concerning Northridge Community Council events and projects affecting Northridge.
;Please notify your organization members and all interested parties. AS we have NO funding, E-mail and the internet is our primary contact. If you can make a few copies of this E-mail and hand it out to your neighbors, it would be very appreciated. Please ask them to add their names to our E-mail list. We will keep your names private.
The agenda will be posted on the website on ; 9-9-01 and will be E-mailed ; to everyone on our E-mail list. It will also be posted at the Northridge Library, Porter Ranch Library and Northridge Park.
At this meeting will have ; a vote on each of the proposed bylaws, along with amendments to these bylaws. All Northridge stakeholders are invited to submit amendments or comments on the proposed amendments. See all of the proposed changes and comments on our proposed bylaws and changes page. ;
We must have your proposed changes and comments in electronic form by E-mail by 9-9-01 5 pm so we can post them and send them as part of the Agenda. We want everyone to know and read the changes before the meeting. This is why we follow the Brown Act, We will not allow last minutes surprise to be acted on without broad public dissemination in ample time before the meeting.
Here a are few new stories about Violent Crime against CSUN Students and LA's Plans to add 1/2 million new residents without any traffic mitigation. ;
LA routinely grants master plan changes to stuff the new residents. In Sherwood Forest, LA changed the use of a 4 home lot and stuck 10 homes in the same space. They have postage stamp yards and a street so narrow they had to ban parking on one side . And the SFHOA felt it was a good deal instead of 40 units of condos or worse. ; Take a look for yourself at the Northwest corner of Parthenia and Balboa.
;Crime: A man is robbed and his female companion is sexually assaulted. Both are
Japanese living in U.S. to study English.
By KARIMA A. HAYNES, TIMES STAFF WRITER
;NORTHRIDGE -- A gunman assaulted a pair of Japanese students Wednesday night, robbing a man of $30 and sexually assaulting his female companion after ordering her into his car, police said.
The 20-year-old man and 18-year-old woman, who are in the United States learning English, were walking in the 18200 block of Plummer [between Yolanda and Reseda] Street at 9:40 p.m., when a man approached them and threatened them with a handgun, said Officer La Donna Cissell, an LAPD spokeswoman.
The gunman directed the two students to a nearby parking lot, where he robbed the man and told him to lie down on the pavement, Cissell said. The attacker then ordered the woman to get into his car parked in the same lot, covered her face and drove off, Cissell said. The male victim ran after the vehicle, lost sight of it and then called police from a pay phone.
The assailant drove the woman for about 20 minutes to an unknown location, took her inside a building and sexually assaulted her, Cissell said. After the assault, Cissell said the man ordered the woman back in the car with her eyes still covered and told her to lie down in the back seat. He drove to the 11300 block of Riverside Drive in North Hollywood and dropped her off.
The two students are attending English First, a private, four-week language school held at Cal State Northridge. The language school is not affiliated with the university, school officials said. "Any time a crime occurs, particularly close to the university, we are concerned," said Carmen Ramos Chandler, a CSUN spokeswoman. "We regret any time anyone is hurt."
CSUN Police Chief Ron Seacrist said all university students--as well as those enrolled in guest programs--attend a public safety orientation. "We tell them what to do to protect themselves on and off campus, such as walking in groups, how to contact campus police and local police, and about the escort service we provide," Seacrist said.
"The sad thing is that they were doing all the right things," he said. "It was a crime of opportunity that could have happened to anyone." Seacrist said there have been no other reports of attacks on foreign students in recent years.
The suspect is described as a light-complexioned black man, between 5 feet 9 and 6 feet tall, weighing 200-220 pounds and about 30 years old, LAPD spokesman Don Cox said.
;By Sue Nelson ;
The 1996 general plan framework came up again before the Los Angeles City Council this past week.
Having abandoned the centers concept, which called for down-zoning much of the city and concentrating additional population in major centers, the general plan framework adds 500,000 people along boulevards in mixed-use structures.
Claiming that it is encouraging pedestrians, but depending upon an unfunded subway [and never completed], the framework has no way to deal with traffic impacts ordered by the increased density.
A Superior Court judge agreed last year with activists who sued over the original framework's transportation element that the document was inconsistent and ordered the city to reconsider its general plan, now a decade in the making.
But on Wednesday, the City Council brushed the matter under the table, choosing not to amend the general plan framework in favor of regular reports to the council on the progress of this plan that no one wants.
The city report on the Superior Court ruling, ordered by then-City Attorney James Hahn and Planning Director Con Howe is a step backward in time, not, however, to the more compelling 1970s centers plan but to a gross overall spread of density, especially in the community plans in the older districts that are presently residential.
Claiming overriding consideration, the City Council used the city report to dodge its obligation to produce a new general plan with generous citizen input.
Most new members of the Los Angeles City Council (there are five) and some of the old members do not understand how important the general plan is to the future of the city. This was abundantly clear during the discussion that preceded the vote. None mentioned the projected growth in the framework or the Superior Court decision. It then passed unanimously with a few innocuous amendments.
The framework forces growth in all sectors of Los Angeles where, because of low property values, there are opportunities for massive profit taking. Because the inner city has been degraded by lack of services causing minority districts like East Los Angeles and South Central to have lower values does not mean that there aren't viable low-income neighborhoods that need protection.
Some environmental groups such as the Sierra Club promote in-fill in order to contain sprawl on the periphery.
I do not agree with this simplistic analysis. The public wants low-income residential areas protected from clearing and traffic, and the hillsides from cutting, traffic and mansions. A well-thought-out traffic and transportation plan might just do it.
There is no will by the city to create such a master plan. In-filling the inner city means tearing down residential units in largely minority districts replacing them with expensive condominiums. Low-income housing becomes new large block apartments, replacing existing neighborhoods -- subsidized with public taxpayer dollars and with construction bonds.
This is the way that speculators make off with the big profits and the public pays. There is no real master plan with related schools, parks, open space, clinics and work places to the new commercial and housing blocks.
There is no rent control. Affordable housing becomes a political football in which the public loses. The city continues to pander to the big construction unions and big real estate interests.
The mitigated traffic plan is to add buses and one Blue Line to divert traffic, when congestion levels cannot be supported now. The open space that will be left after building out of existing zoning in most community plans will occur under power lines and in a few pocket parks, while today most of Eastside, South Central and Mid-Wilshire districts and much of the Valley abound in trees and open space. These will be gone. The land will be covered with eight-story and up buildings.
A centers plan needs to be integrated with all of its elements, including public facilities and transportation. The Los Angeles City Council should take back the framework plan and draw up a layered and overlapping contemporary centers plan that is balanced and works.
Why, we ask, did Planning Director Con Howe demand a fast track through the Los Angeles City Council at this time, if it was not to take advantage of the fact that there were five new council persons and one vacancy?
By declaring overriding considerations, without evidence, the general plan framework was approved without proper evaluation. Howe needs to be replaced.
Sue Nelson is a writer and a retired planner. She is a member of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations.
AOL version 6.0 now properly reads HTML mail . I would recommend it all AOL users ( to get the free update from AOL. It will make all your HTML mail work so you can see the formatting and highlights and use the jumps to see referenced documents.
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