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Just a reminder to come to our May 21st meeting, 7:30 pm, at our  new location at Holmes Middle School, 9351 Paso Robles Ave. map We meet in the library.

Go to our website for a map and full agenda

We look forward to seeing you Wednesday when our agenda will include:

All Northridge stakeholders are invited to submit agenda items, bylaw amendments or comments.

For the first time we are going to have a door prize. It is a dinner for two at the Outback restaurant.. We will have refreshments sponsored by Alta Dena Dairy at this meeting.

Hahn budget E-mail | Hahn's plan for more cops voted down | Liberating schools

This is an E-mail I received from Mayor Hahn on Fri 5/16/2003 4:58 PM

The City Council's Budget and Finance Committee voted 4-1 on Wednesday to oppose my proposed hiring plan for the LAPD, and to essentially tie the hands of Police Chief Bill Bratton by taking the hiring decision out of his hands and putting it with the City Council. This action is a direct attack on every neighborhood in this City that we are trying to free from the grip of violence. The Budget Committee has also delayed funding for counterterrorism and delayed funding for Fire Department resources that can literally save lives. 

Let me give you some facts: · In the four years before I took office the LAPD shrank by more than 900 officers; · Crime went up during that same period; · This year the Department will grow by 325 officers, the first increase in 5 years.

· Every Police Academy hiring class is full; · Homicides are down by 27% over last year, and Chief Bratton has set ambitious goals to keep bringing it down; · And this Proposed Budget adds 320 more officers to the force. 

With this type of momentum, and with so many communities still burdened under the weight of gangs and violent crime * we cannot walk away now. But that is what the Budget Committee did on Wednesday. By taking this money out of the Department's Budget and putting it in what they neatly call a "joint checking account" they have tied the hands of the top law enforcement official in the nation. What kind of message are we sending to potential recruits if we cannot assure them that we plan to hire police officers every month? We are sending the wrong message. In order to make this a safer city, I am asking the members of the City Council to reject the Budget Committee's report and fund both the Police Department and the Fire Department as I have proposed. The neighborhoods of this City deserve nothing less. I urge you to call your councilmember and tell them to support the LAPD and put more officers on the street.

Note the City Council voted 11 to 4 to block hiring of new police but to increase the trash fee 65% on each residential property in the community.

http://dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200%257E20954%257E1402255,00.html

Hahn's plan for more cops voted down

5-20-03 By Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer

Defying Mayor James Hahn, the Los Angeles City Council tentatively approved a budget Monday that postpones plans to hire more police officers because of concerns about the city's long-term financial health.

The 11-4 vote would be enough to beat a threatened mayoral veto, and forced Hahn to shift ground and look for a compromise that would mean cuts elsewhere in the budget to pay for 320 extra cops and to reorganize the LAPD.

Despite intense pressure and fiery rhetoric from Hahn and Police Chief William Bratton, council members said they were worried about driving the city into a fiscal crisis like that now experienced by the state government. Hahn's $5.1 billion budget is balanced for 2003-04 but could lead to deficits of $170 million to $300 million in 2004-05. 

"I don't want you to be in a position six months from now deciding which library, which park (has to be closed) and which staffers have to get laid off because we've overhired or because we've gone too far," said Councilman Nick Pacheco, chairman of the budget committee, which recommended the plan. "I just want to make sure we're doing a balanced approach in this whole picture."

The council plan sets aside about $69 million from Hahn's budget in a reserve that could be used by the Los Angeles Police Department later if the city's long-term financial picture improves.

The mayor needs six votes to prevent a veto override, meaning he has to recruit two more council members to his side if the four negative votes remain steadfast.

"We're disappointed," said Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook. "But there was clearly some interest in trying to work out a compromise. So the mayor wants to spend the next few days talking to council members to see if there's some middle ground, to see if we can still get some resources to the Police Department as he's proposed."

Among those who could be open to negotiations with Hahn are Councilwomen Jan Perry and Wendy Greuel, who jointly offered a compromise motion to keep $25 million in the budget out of the $69 million in cuts -- preserving most of the mayor's public safety plans except for $8 million for new police cars.

Their motion was sent to committee -- essentially killing it in a polite way -- by a 9-6 vote. Hahn's four supporters -- Hal Bernson, Tom LaBonge, Janice Hahn and Dennis Zine -- backed the Greuel-Perry proposal.

Monday's vote was not the council's final word on the budget.

City officials have to draw up in formal terms the council's multiple actions and amendments approved Monday and bring them back in final form for an official vote, expected either Friday or May 27. Then Hahn has a right to line-item veto any changes the council made from his proposal. The new fiscal year begins July 1.

The rhetoric from the mayor and council members Monday was turned down a notch from last week when the two sides engaged in sharp name calling.

"We're a family," James Hahn said at an event earlier in the day. "Families have squabbles from time to time. The key thing, I think, is that everyone cares about this city and wants to move this city forward. I look at it just as any other family -- once in a while harsh words are spoken, and the next day though we've all got to work together and live together."

Still, Hahn did not personally appear before the council, despite his staff originally saying he planned to address the council directly.

Middlebrook said Council President Alex Padilla "disinvited" the mayor to appear, telling him it was the council's chance to talk about the budget. Padilla denied it, saying he never spoke with the mayor.

Middlebrook showed the Daily News a text-pager message from a Padilla staffer to a Hahn staffer Friday afternoon stating: "With regard to the mayor coming into budget committee on Monday -- this is the council's opportunity to debate. The mayor has had ample time to speak on the budget."

But Padilla dismissed what he called a "staff-to-staff" communication, saying he never personally heard from Hahn. "My door's always open for the mayor," Padilla said.

In the end, Hahn's chief of staff, Tim McOsker, did appear before the council to answer questions and indicated that the mayor supported the Perry-Greuel compromise.

Hahn's budget also includes a plan to raise the monthly trash collection equipment fee to $10, from $6, an increase the council supports as well. The charge is paid by homeowners and small apartment units that are part of the city's trash collection and recycling program. Businesses and larger apartment buildings, which are exempt from the program, don't have to pay the fee.

City officials estimate that it costs the city about $35 a month per household to provide trash collection, leaving the rest to be paid from the general fund as it has in the past.

Other fee hikes include raising the cost of zoo admission by 75 cents and golf fees by $5, roughly 20 percent.

The council debate came after dozens of residents urged the council to support Hahn's plan.

"We have hired a great new chief. He's put forward a plan that seems to answer a great many needs, and to hobble him at this point by budget cutting would seem to be very counterproductive," said Todd Martin of North Hollywood, a member of the mayor's volunteer corps.

Council members said their plan allows the LAPD to hire 400 officers next year -- enough to stay even with attrition or even add officers.

The department has grown by 500 officers because of a slowdown in retirements and unexpected growth in hiring. Plus it is adding an additional 200 officers to the street who were part of a recently canceled contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Copyright © 2003 Los Angeles Daily News Los Angeles Newspaper Group

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20951~1391344,00.html

Liberating schools The school board backs real reform by committing to charters

The Los Angeles school board did away Tuesday with its old practice of making excuses. Instead, it made a commitment, and in the process, it made history.

After much controversy and debate, the board settled on a compromise plan for granting a one-year charter to Granada Hills High School.

With that, the 3,800-student campus will become the largest conversion charter in the country, and the Los Angeles Unified School District will move forward with the most valuable educational reform in decades.

Charter schools are public schools, in the sense that they are free, open to all and publicly funded. But unlike traditional public schools, they aren't weighed down by onerous regulations and meddling bureaucrats. In charter schools, local communities and the faculty -- not bureaucrats and politicians -- make curricular, budgetary and administrative decisions. It's that independence that makes charter schools so promising. 

And in the LAUSD, charter schools are the wave of the future.

The one-year compromise plan for Granada Hills falls short of the five-year charter that students, teachers and parents had hoped for, but it's enough to show what they can do.

Having given the community a taste of independence, the district will be hard-pressed to take it away next year, especially if -- as is expected -- Granada Hills High thrives because of its newfound autonomy.

In approving the school's charter, the school board had to look past some legitimate concerns, as well as some illegitimate opposition on the part of special interests. The teacher and administrator unions that dominate public education in Los Angeles have long viewed charters as competition, and they've made little secret of their wish for the whole charter movement to crumble or disappear.

But by giving its approval to Granada Hills High, the board has cast the special interests aside in the interest of all LAUSD students. That alone marks a milestone in district history.

The LAUSD has made a commitment, not only with Granada Hills, but with all its communities: If you can do better on your own, you may. The bureaucracy and the unions will no longer hold you back.

In addition to approving Granada Hills' charter, the school board passed charters for Palisades High School and Pacoima Elementary School. It also gave five-year renewals to two highly successful San Fernando Valley charters, Fenton Avenue Elementary in Lake View Terrace, and the the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima.

The fate of the charter school movement in L.A. never was so hopeful. District bureaucrats were reluctant to support the schools, and it looked like the board might postpone all charter-related votes until new, union-backed members took office.

Thankfully, it didn't turn out that way. And now that the reform genie is out of the bottle, the special interests will have a hard time putting it back in, no matter who serves on future boards.

There will surely be more charter fights ahead, but they won't be a in vacuum. The school board has made its commitment to charter schooling, and in the months and years ahead, the public must demand that that commitment is honored.

Copyright © 2003 Los Angeles Daily News Los Angeles Newspaper Group