We are sending you this E-mail as you have requested to be notified concerning Northridge Community Council events and projects affecting it.

If your friends want to be added to our E-mail list to be notified about meetings and issues please send an E-mail with Northridge Council as the subject. We have added links to data referred to in the stories [Our comments are in green] ; If you want to have your name removed from the list just reply with remove as subject.

The Northridge Community Council has called a special meeting to discuss the proposed Academy High School at CSUN. This includes tearing down the Prairie Street Elementary School. We will be meeting at the Northridge Hospital. Map.

http://www.northridgecouncil.org/images/Northhospital.gif

on Thursday November 1st at 7:00 p.m.

Community members have taken portions of the EIR to Study and will present a 3 to 5 minute summary of the issues. The tentative line up is:

Jim Parker on traffic and parking.

Anita Santosprito on the loss of community schools.

Charles Brink on lack of notice and toxic pollution on the site.

We are trying to add a speaker on impact to CSUN’s own programs.

The rest of the meeting will be entirely devoted to letting people from the community present their feelings on the issues and the effects on the community.

LAUSD has done their best to make sure the public is uninformed about the issues as they only provided, on 10-18-01, a few copies of the EIR to individuals within the community and a copy to the Darby Street Library and CSUN Library. The Hearing is set for 11-7-01 allowing only 20 days to prepare for our only public input.

The toxic contamination report was initially provided to libraries only. After sufficient threats they provided one copy for the council's  use.

After demanding LAUSD place the EIR on-line, LAUSD did place it online in an unusable 48 MB PDF format, which is impossible for anybody with a dial up modem to download. LAUSD has ignored the Public Records Act, which requires the data to be available in all electronic formats available. The PDF file shows that it started as a smaller and more usable word file, which was then converted to the unusable PDF format.

The PDF format has been converted into standard Internet format and loaded on our web site. see

http://www.northridgecouncil.org/education/index.htm

 While it is more readable, the tables did not survive the conversion and what you're looking at involves some 70 man-hours just because LAUSD wants to keep it secret.

Unless everyone feels they have all the information, which is highly unlikely, we're proposing a motion to ask for a 60-day delay in the hearing so that the community may study and provide effective comment about the project.

It’s a common government trick to have hearings during the holidays on the theory that the public will not participate and they will get their own way. Let's show them that our community cares.

We have created a special page concerning the school. There will be pieces of information added and opinions about the project for you read for the meeting. Please check back regularly when you're online to see what has been added. The best summary was done by Jim Parker which is on our site.

Anyone wishing to submit comments and opinions, E-mail them

Here is a story on what LA says verses what LA does. They did NOT fund the gang unit for 2 million but instead spent 3.5 million dollars on the security system at City Hall. 

We thought you would find this story from  the 9-20-01 Daily News interesting. Click here for the full original

Delgadillo: 'Attack crime at its roots' 

By Rick Orlov Staff Writer 

As the world turns its attention to dealing with the threat of international terrorism, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said Wednesday the city needs to deal with its own internal threats from gangs, unsafe neighborhoods and poor education.

Delgadillo, in his first major address since becoming city attorney in July, told University of Southern California law students that the city needs to take an active approach in dealing with the challenges facing the city. "We can no longer sit back and wait for crimes to happen before we act," Delgadillo said. "By then, we have already failed. We must attack crime at its root and emancipate Angelenos from this endless cycle of violence."

Last week's terrorist attacks should serve as a wake-up call to local leaders and residents, he said. "Each of us -- not just leaders, not just government -- but each of us has a moral obligation to do everything possible to protect us from this unspeakable cowardice."

He said the city must take steps to reduce crime -- primarily gang violence which increased 23 percent last year. "These gang members tear at the fabric of our society," Delgadillo said, adding he planned to continue the gang injunction efforts started by Mayor James Hahn when he was city attorney.

He also said he will push for diversion programs through schools and work with businesses to provide jobs to serve as alternatives to gangs, crime and jail.

Delgadillo said he also is placing a high priority on enforcement of quality-of-life issues to make for safer and cleaner neighborhoods. "In the coming months, we will launch our neighborhood prosecutor program by assigning a deputy city attorney to every neighborhood in Los Angeles."

The attorneys will work with neighborhood councils and community groups to prosecute the crimes that draw the highest complaints -- from graffiti and vandalism to illegal dumping.

Delgadillo said he is committed to enact the federal consent decree over the Los Angeles Police Department -- an effort he said is needed to restore public confidence as a result of the Rampart Division case.

"Our best course of action is to implement the consent decree -- not just by meeting deadlines -- but by making it work," Delgadillo said.

Peter Repovich of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents Los Angeles police officers and has been dealing with the City Attorney's Office on a variety of matters including the consent decree, said he generally agreed with Delgadillo's comments.

"It sounds like he's on target," Repovich said. `'We will do the best we can to support him in these endeavors. Our top priority is to keep the community safe in all areas possible to best serve the people of Los Angeles."

COPYRIGHT© 2001 Daily News Los Angeles

We thought you would find this editorial  from  the 10-29-01 Daily News interesting. Click here for the full original

Good and bad government 

The governments of the county and the city of Los Angeles make for an interesting study in contrast. While county officials have worked on beefing up security for all, city officials have been more concerned with protecting themselves.

Consider the latest security-related appropriations of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and the L.A. City Council. Last week, the supervisors approved $10 million in security measures for a wide variety of purposes.

Of the funds, $3.1 million will be used for equipment and 18 new employees to analyze intelligence information. An additional $1.5 million is earmarked for training and hiring eight emergency workers and installing decontamination facilities at four county hospitals.

All in all, these are resources that will contribute to the safety and well-being of everyone in L.A. County. It's only the beginning, of course, but the supervisors realize that. They view it as the first installment of a $100 million package for improving security and the county's crisis-response capabilities.

It's a much better effort than we've seen from the city.

On the same day that the supervisors approved their $10 million package, the L.A. City Council passed a measure providing for $3.5 million in security upgrades -- for the Civic Center area around City Hall.

So while the county supervisors were seeing to it that cops would be able to pursue terrorists and hospitals would be able to treat victims, City Council members were working to protect themselves and their bureaucracy. Their program includes funds for 40 security guards for downtown city buildings, key-card access and video monitoring in City Hall -- and nothing for the general public.

While there is a need to protect public officials, it's been mostly average citizens who have been under attack over the last six weeks, people who sort the mail, open the mail, work in their offices and travel by plane.

Now that they've successfully created what Councilwoman City Miscikowski derisively calls "fortress City Hall," it would be nice to see the council members follow the supervisors' lead and start considering the safety of average Angelenos.

Those of us who elect city leaders, pay their salaries and finance their high-tech security systems could use some protection, too.

COPYRIGHT© 2001 Daily News Los Angeles