Thursday, April 27, 2006

Update

As of this morning, suspected dumpster divers on Babbitt Ave. were in custody, along with their truck brimming with our recycling. Nice work by LAPD.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Dumpster divers

I spoke today with our SLO, Officer Trulik. His captain is very concerned about the trash pickers working our recycling containers on Thursday. In fact, there is concern at higher levels: in 2003 this pilfering cost the city of Los Angeles over $12 million, and action on this has become a priority issue. Who knew?

The SLO will be working on this in a major way. He has asked us to call him (818 731.2572) if we see illegal activity around the recycling bins on trash day, and he will be on the street looking to make arrests.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Parking, part 2

I was going to post a reply to jpink's comment below, but I thought it deserved a full post. Two ideas:
  • Here's the thing: we need to put something in motion now or the whole idea of neighborhood action will wither away for us. Let's get this going and then see if there's enough political will to go farther. It's important to act while we feel united. Even if we only achieve an imperfect solution, we've proved that we can act in concert.
  • Or - Here's the thing: this solution resolves the problem but not well; no one's needs are ultimately met by a short-term compromise. We need to have another community meeting on this issue only. We need to decide if we want to fight city hall and insist on different parking restriction on either side of Louise.
Any ideas?


Parking News

The petition for getting parking restrictions on Louise is, finally, in hand. The city will require signatures from the majority of property owners on both sides of the street -i.e. people who live on LaSaine and on Babbitt- so we will need to reach a consensus on what we want to put in place.

The city requires the same restriction on both sides of the street. Since the LaSaine (west side of Louise) residents have access to their homes from Louise, they have, understandably, different needs.
At the March meeting, several Babbitt residents brought up the issue of poolside and backyard privacy during the day, mentioning the prying eyes of truckers and city workers in their high-cabbed vehicles

A "No Parking" zone between, say, 7PM and 7AM would seem a likely compromise: this lets residents on LaSaine use their side of Louise to park during the day when they might be using their garage for other projects or need vehicle access to their backyards, and also advances privacy, security and a measure (at least) of quiet for both Babbitt and LaSaine residents during nightime hours. This soulution, does not address, unfortunately, the daytime privacy issue.

Let's see some chatter in the "comments" section below about this. Shall we take what we can get most easily, or is there another possible solution? I suppose we might be able to wrestle the city into approving separate restrictions on each side, but this seems like both a long shot and a guarantee that nothing would happen for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooong time.

Please speak up.


Monday, April 24, 2006

Has anyone noticed...

...a sure indicator of economic uncertainty: along with no-money-down real estate scams, there are, once again, men going through the recycling on trash day as there were in the late 'eighties/early 'nineties. The difference now is the added spector of identitiy theft. I'll be talking to the SLO about this tomorrow though I don't know if it's really a law-enforcement problem. Personally, I don't begrudge the trashpickers whatever recycling they can find to sell, though it's a little creepy, but I really don't want them reading my mail, or getting my bank info. I shred - what do you do?

Friday, April 14, 2006

Hit the roads

Here's a link to the Daily News' story about councilman Smith's (our council rep) plan to get streets repaired sooner, and, presumably, better. Estimates are that it would cost about $100/year for every homeowner.

I'd pay twice that amount.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Who's Out There?

Back from a short road trip, the encinoblogger got one suportive email. We'd like to see more of those, not for the strokes (though those are nice) but just to know that someone's reading this. More than that, we'd like to see others on this site. You can - you should - email me for the deets as to how to do this. It's not hard to do; you don't have to be a super geek, and it's fun. And, as Arthur said, isn't fun the best thing to have? (I love this film.)

Get the mailer from the Encino Neighborhood Council? I did. It seems that there's an election approaching for seats on said council. Seems like someone from Encino Village should be part of this, though the seats are structured (I think) oddly - represenatives from various interest groups, not residential districts. I've added a link to their site in the links table below, or simply go here: www.encinocouncil.org.

I hope to have progress report tomorrow re: the parking situation on Louise. Meanwhile, the car alarm from hell appears to have stopped. Props to SLO Trulick for this one. The encinoblogger requires his sleep and his quiet Sunday mornings for MTP.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Update

The last I heard (last week) was that the parking petition was on the way from the council office. There are volunteers to take it around, but we could always use more. Email me or use the "comments" tab below to speak up.

I haven't heard the truck alarm in several days. It would be great if that was over for good.

Please speak up if you're reading this.