A Reminder...

I'm in the bay Area today, making a much-needed living, but I wanted to remind all that it's time to get those parking petitions out. We're still looking at Monday and/or Tuesday (26,27th), so reply here or contact Maritza to volunteer.

What about the landscaping? Any ideas? I've got the beer on ice, so let's get it done.

News!!! (finally)

Maritza Beaudine has the parking petitions in hand, though she will need help to circulate them. She has next Monday and Tuesday in the early evening (June 26 and/or 27) in mind. Mrs. Encinoblogger had originally planned to help out with this, but she has a foot injury that may preclude this amount of walking. She may indeed be healed by then, but, in any case, we could use volunteers. We will need to cover all the houses that back up to Louise. This is a moderately big job, but it's something that can be easily done with a few people.

Please email the encinoblogger or reply in the comment space here to sign up. And please tell your neighbors to open their doors for us when we come around. Let's get this done.

Also, is anyone interested in a planting program for the parkway on the east side of Louise? Ideas and connections for getting cheap - uh, free - plants are needed. A few of us can do the labor (I'll bring the beer), but it would be great to get the stock donated. There may be help from the city available; in fact I'm hoping the councilman's office is reading this space and will step up on this. Email or comments below.

New Comment policy: Anyone's welcome!

I've decided to throw open the Comments section to anyone from now on. You no longer have to register with Blogger to post a comment, although you might want to register anyway, just so you can start your own blog. I know that some people were uncomfortable with the whole registration routine, so now you can comment to your heart's content.

Mi blog es su blog.

Disaster Preparedness meeting : The Summary

There was a fair turnout for tonight's meeting, probably around 150 people. The main points: you need lots of practical food, lots of water, lots of supplies. Flashlights, batteries, fie extinguishers, radios, blankets, pet food, kitty litter, plastic bags for the kitty litter (hint: it's not just for kitties anymore...). Aside from the Mr. Rogers-like approach ("Who can tell me how many policemen are in Los Angeles?") the main message delivered by experts from the city's Disaster Preparedness board, the LAFD and a particularly dour FBI agent was - you're on your own if it comes down. You need to be able to take care of yourself for at least a week.

We all saw after Katrina that you can't count on government help any time soon, so you'd better be able to survive until things settle down. We all know this, of course, but we act like it's not so. We nod sagely and vow to get to it, but do we? I don't know about you, but I've had kits in my house, cars and office for a long time, and I'm going to see this weekend that everything is fresh and functioning. When was the last tme you checked the batteries in your radio (you do have a battery-powered radio, don't you?) and rotated out the old Cliff bars for some fresh stock? Now's the time.

Disaster Preparedness meeting on Thursday night...

There will be a Disaster Preparedness Community Meeting on Thursday, June 1st at
Encino Community Center, 4935 Balboa from 7:00 - 9:00 pm. Free emergency preparedness starter kit per family plus QuakeHold Museum Putty. This is part of a citywide effort to prepare every community for any disaster. Speakers from the FBI, L.A. Fire and Police Departments will offer survival techniques to help you and your family prepare for earthquakes, fires, and terrorist attacks. We need to be prepared to survive on our own, as outside help might not be available. Please plan to attend and please tell your neighbors.

Thank you for your help.

Show of hands...

...if you knew about the Neighborhood Watch meeting tonight (Tuesday 6/30). Yeah; that's what I thought.

I found out at literally the last possible minute, thanks to an email from Barbara Hand. She works tirelessly to promote community action and safety, but it takes more than one person if we're going to organize anything. At any rate, I decided to change my plans for the evening and got right to the meeting. Officer Trulick, who is obviously serious about being available and involved, discussed recent crime activity in the area, and gave tips on how to secure our houses and cars. Various questions were asked and answered, some quite relevant, and some kinda...uh, puzzling.

That's OK; I think the main value of these meetings (don't we know that we need to lock our doors, and not let the mail pile up while we're away?) is that we look around and see that others are interested in getting involved with the neighborhood. When we see that we're part of something, that in itself justifies the effort. If I know that you're going to show up, it's more likely that I'll show up the next time.

I'm hoping that it won't be too long before we hit the streets with the parking petition. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't even come the door these days for various reasons, so I'll try to email or do leaflets a few days before to remind people that we'll be coming over. Please open your doors when we knock. That's a good start.

If you want to be added to the email list, please leave a comment in the "Comments" space below. And tell your neighbors.

Important meeting this Thursday night...

There will be a Disaster Preparedness Community Meeting on Thursday, June 1st at
Encino Community Center, 4935 Balboa from 7:00 - 9:00 pm. Free emergency preparedness starter kit per family plus QuakeHold Museum Putty. This is part of a citywide effort to prepare every community for any disaster.
Speakers from the FBI, L.A. Fire and Police Departments will offer survival techniques to help you and your family prepare for earthquakes, fires, and terrorist attacks. We need to be prepared to survive on our own, as outside help might not be available. Please plan to attend and please tell your neighbors.

Yo!

Resident jpink brings up an interesting point in his comment below...this is not just about parking, it's about how we view our neighborhood. No one is going to do this, or anything else, for us. (As you see, we've heard sweet nothing from the councilman's office for almost two months.) This is really about compromise, and the very essense of democracy. If we all agree that we want to make a change, let's not let the details get in the way.

I will be emailing and posting when we walk the parking petition. Please open your doors, and let's get behind this. And let's hear about other ideas for the neighborhood while we're at it.

More on parking (moron parking?)

Here's the new info: We must get 50% of residents on both sides of the street (Louise) to sign the petition in order to get it considered. Maritza, who has done all of the real work on this so far, has already gotten a flat turndown from one homeowner on the west side of Louise. He doesn't want to lose his parking privilege, no matter what. This is certainly a defensable position, but we all have to be willing to give something up in order to get something better.

Once again, if there is to be no compromise, this is a total waste of time for all concerned, so please think about this carefully. This blog is a great place to vent and raise questions, which hardly anyone is doing. Please participte; this is how changes get made.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

From Councilman Smith's office...

I got this email from John Bwarie...

I hope this email finds you well. I just wanted to let you know that
there are 2 big projects that I'm working on that are coming up next
week in the 12th District; both are unique to the City of Los Angeles.

Councilman Smith is working with community groups and individuals to
host these events in order to improve the quality of life in for the
people of not just the 12th District, but all of Los Angeles.

I hope you'll be able to participate in one or both, regardless of
where you live or work. I think this is especially true for the
Instrument Drive (1A below)

1. MusicLA! Day
No matter where you live, you can make a difference with this event.
Councilman Smith, in conjunction with the Department Cultural Affairs,
is hosting MusicLA! Day in the northwest Valley on Saturday, April 8th
from 11am to 3pm in Northridge. This FREE event has two components:
A. Musical Instrument Drive: if you have an old guitar, flute, violin,
keyboards, Cellos, etc. (no pianos, though!), drop them off at the event
as a tax deductible donation. (Please contact me if you'd like to donate
an instrument but cannot make the event.)
B. Music Education Festival: Musicals, Workshops, Festival Drums by
Remo, performances, food, free giveaways & prizes, and more! This
family festival is not to miss!

For more information, exact location, & other details, click or paste
into your browser the following link:
http://cd12.org/cd12homepage/cd12cd12homepage256536459_03212006.pdf

Who we are

After looking over the sign-in sheets from the meeting at Emeilita St. School, some conclusions about who we are:

• A lot of us live on Lasaine; maybe "Encino Village" is too specific a term for this blog.
  
• Of twenty people that signed in, eight did not leave, or do not have, an email address.
• Nine people didn't leave a phone number.
• Two people came from Louise Ave on the 4200 and 4300 blocks. Welcome.

There were certainly more, a lot more, than twenty people (even allowing for couples) at the meeting. Presumably, some didn't see the sheet; some didn't have time in the rush to be seated; some forgot on the way out; and some probably don't care or realize that they don't have the time in their lives to get involved in community action. It's OK not to care, of course, but we're trying to build a community of people who do care. If you're reading this, you probably care. I'm just saying...

I've emailed all who left their email address. Let's see some comments, at least, and especially let's see someone else posting. Just email me and I'll tell you how.

Could it be?

I was out of town most of yesterday, but I didn't hear the alarm in the morning, and not so far this morning. This is the first time in months that it's been silent for a whole day. Could it be that our long nightmare is over? If so, I thanks to everyone who has called the SLO and the WV Division about this.
See what happens when we get together?