Results tagged “neighborhoodcouncil”

Either way, it's feeling like the Los Angeles Department of Transportation is heading back to the days of General Manager Gloria Jeff when employee morale was low and the traffic engineers with real skills were caught up in a bureaucracy that dictated they serve cars, not people. Current General Manager Rita Robinson ran a tight and responsible ship at the Bureau of Sanitation before being appointed to LADOT, so why can't she control her own bikeways and district offices?

It's been a trying few days for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation as strong emotions from bicyclists and other complete streets activists rallied to save the elimination of bicycle lanes on Reseda Blvd. to make room for peak hour traffic. A Northridge Neighborhood Council had it as an agenda item earlier this week, prompting a huge turnout by the public to fight the measure.

In order to increase road capacity on Reseda Boulevard in Northridge, the city is proposing the removal of bicycle lands and street parking. Complete streets activists quickly caught wind of this and showed force at a meeting last night, ultimately succeeding in getting the neighborhood council, who is only advisory to city councilmembers, to vote down support for the measure. "We have taken the first step to build a strong coalition with Reseda Boulevard homeowners, residents, apartment building managers, business owners, and other stakeholders. This effort has just begun, and it won't be easy. Fighting City Hall never is. But that will make our ultimate victory that much more significant," Glenn Bailey, the city's Bike Advisory Committee Chair, wrote in an e-mail. Damien Newton at LA Streetsblog disagrees: "the LADOT only considers community support essential until it's proven that they don't have it. Then the "silent majority" of car commuters that use the road are the people's who's theoretical concerns take precedence."

Although the big event has come and gone, the Encino Neighborhood Council is meeting tonight to discuss with city officials about crowds and media that are expected to still visit the Jackson Family compound on Hayvenhurst Avenue, just south of Ventura Boulevard. "As a result of the tragic death of Michael Jackson, the LAPD has exercised considerable restraint in accommodating worldwide media and mourners with access to the Jackson family residence on Hayvenhurst Avenue," according to a statement from the council that the Daily News printed. "At the same time, Hayvenhurst is a vital community access roadway, especially for evacuation and emergency response." The police said strict enforcement would begin last week. The meeting, open to all to attend, will be held at the Encino Women's Club, 4924 Paso Robles Ave.

As mentioned yesterday, the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council has a motion before them tonight about making the Sunset Junction Street Festival free for all those who live in the three surrounding zip codes. LAist inquired with the post office on how many deliveries are made in the zips and here's what they told us:

Unless Sunset Junction Festival organizers address local resident concerns and businesses, the festival is unlikely to be permitted by the city. So far, the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, who represents the area at a grassroots neighborhood level, has voted against the festival in its entirety. For their meeting tomorrow, the agenda (.pdf) lists has a motion for consideration that seeks to alleviate some of those concerns:

A motion that is likely to pass in the City Council will take a chunk of Van Nuys and plop it within Sherman Oaks' boundaries. This will be the second time that Van Nuys has lost parts of its neighborhood--Valley Glen and Lake Balboa are also post-Van Nuys 'hoods.

A special Silver Lake Neighborhood Council meeting scheduled for tomorrow night will focus on the controversial Sunset Junction Festival. A board member from the non profit festival's producer, the Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance, will make a presentation addressing changes for this year's fete, set for the weekend of August 22nd. Among other nitty gritty detail that community members have concerns about, they will discuss parking problems and the wristband/handstamp policy that in the past has sometimes left employees at local businesses paying to get into the festival to access their jobs. The meeting is at 7 p.m. at Micheltorena School Auditorium and the council hopes the public will join them. The meeting's full agenda is embedded below:

The Venice Neighborhood Council, a group of elected volunteers under the auspices of the city, is becoming one of the more well known groups within the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. Recently, they've taken on overnight parking drawing the attention of mainstream media and blogs. Via their e-mail newsletter, here's what the progressive group is doing next week:

At a meeting last night of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, the board voted to "oppose the Sunset Junction Street Festival in its current format [i.e., fees, street closure location, etc]," reports the LA Weekly. Of concern is that festival organizers are not working with the community and businesses affected by the popular and well-attended event, which is scheduled for August 22 and 23 this year.

Sherman Oaks isn't exactly a haven for crime, but that didn't stop business owners, who were constantly plagued with break ins and graffiti, to band together and pony up money to the LAPD for surveillance cameras like those on Hollywood Boulevard.

In 2006 and 2007, 400 school children in the City of Los Angeles were injured in traffic collisions while being picked up or dropped off at school.

The Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council’s “Panel Of Visionaries” led over 300 community leaders in Saturday’s “The Destiny of the West Valley” forum, challenging the community to demand walkable streets, complete and effective mass transit, park-once concepts, circulators and people movers, sustainable infrastructure, green streets, improved property values, reduced utility bills and, quite simply, greatness!

Apparently one step closer to becoming a sovereign nation, the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council discovered that the Bureau of Street Services has officially recognized the intersection of Hollywood/Sunset/Hillhurst/Virgil as an East Hollywood Neighborhood Council border.

      

Oh, you've got to love rumors, especially those that both anger and please people, depending on who you're speaking with. This rumor comes via a report during the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council* meeting last Monday night. During a Land Use Committee report, someone asked what the status was on the old Ventura Club building at Colbath and Ventura (just East of Hazeltine). Originally it was slated as a Walgreens, but after that got scrapped, the building sat abandoned. But now there a lot of construction going on inside as well as substantial parking lot additions. One member said he heard it was supposed to be "that English grocery store chain." Right then, the room was abuzz with "Tesco" and "Fresh & Easy," and how the Van Nuys location is not working out. No one could confirm any of this and calls to corporate late yesterday afternoon were not immediately returned, but upon a site visit, whatever's being built at the location is looking to be rather large in size (photos below)

After releasing a transportation vision on YouTube last week, the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council took yet another step in becoming a more transit friendly neighborhood, specifically in regards to bicyclists. The Bike Writers' Collective, a coalition of top bicycle bloggers in Los Angeles (which includes an LAist contributor) presented the "Cyclists' Bill of Rights" to the council, who unanimously passed a motion to endorse it.

This past Saturday, the Boardmembers, stakeholders and guests of the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council met at the WH Marriott for an all-day Retreat and Board Workshop.

This week Zach Behrens became the sixth editor of LAist. Behrens is no stranger to LAist staff or readers -- he was Co-Editor for nearly a year before taking the reins from Tony Pierce and contributed more than 1100 posts since 2005.

The white smoke flowed from the chimney, doves were released, and virgins scattered to deliver the Good News that the newest Editor of LAist is Zach Behrens. Valley boy Zach has been a contributer to this fine blog since 2005, he's an outdoorsman, he sits on the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council, he's a vegetarian, he volunteers selflessly, and yes ladies, he's single. Softspoken, strong-willed, and determined to get you to ride public transportation, Zach...

Sherman Oaks has a lot going for it. From movie and TV stars to community activism, from dingy Valley corner strip malls to high-end boutiques, this neighborhood of nearly 52,000 residents is never a bore (come on, Desperate Housewives films a bunch here). It is named after General Moses Hazeltine Sherman, a well known real estate developer who bought a good amount of land in the area and sold it off. The community was...

Today's Daily News discusses yesterday morning's Congress of Neighborhoods where city's 89 neighborhood councils met in a convention style environment to learn skills such as media relations and working with city departments. Throughout the day, one major focus of chatter surrounded how to "wield their increasing influence." The Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council recently succeeded in a community effort in halting a Home Depot from coming to their neighborhood. The Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council is...

Two explosions ripped through a convoy carrying former Pakistani premier and maybe the country's best hope for Democracy, Benazir Bhutto, following her triumphant return after an eight-year exile. She was not hurt, but hundreds were killed and injured. How did the White House respond? By tying it back to the war on terrah, of course, saying, "Those responsible seek only to foster fear and limit freedom." A dump truck is in a "precarious spot"...

For 36 years, The Wiener Factory has been serving hot dogs out of their Sherman Oaks stand to loyal and new customers alike. Good for hot dog lovers, bad for residents craving Pinkberry:Officials with Pinkberry, a nonfat frozen-yogurt chain, were expected to tell a Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council panel Monday night that they wanted to raze the small hot-dog restaurant and build another Pinkberry store. "Historically, many things come and go. But we have...

Brady Westwater at the blog, LA Cowboy, asked some fair questions on his blog yesterday about the former head of the city’s transportation department, who was fired last week: “Why Did The Press TOTALLY Fail Us On The Gloria Jeff Disaster?” After some research, he found that “not a word was ever printed about her past” – if that’s true, Gloria Jeff is in the wrong business. Get this woman to a PR firm...

The West Hollywood Transportation Commission meets tonight at 7pm to grapple with the challenge of encouraging cycling as a positive transportation choice while figuring out where the cyclists are supposed to ride. The streets are dangerous, the sidewalks are crowded and the bike lanes are few and far between. Where exactly should a cyclist ride? Motorists who want cyclists to ride on the sidewalk, pedestrians who want cyclists to ride on the street and cyclists...

spotted in Hollywood on Gower at Franklin ... before someone calls 311 and gets it abated. I'm a big fan of graffiti art. But I'm also a big fan of getting rid of it. How can I contradict myself like that? To me it is like a game and I'm always going to win. I enjoy some of graffiti, but it's still illegal. Artist enjoy making it and partly because of the lure of...

The Venice Neighborhood Council is announcing an interesting way to read and/or listen to a classic American tale.

Read the complete Moby Dick on the Beach with The Venice Oceanarium. Come to the breakwater rocks at the end of Windward.

Continue reading "Read All of Moby Dick over Two Days in Venice"

Since 2004, Chow Bella have been implicated in the deaths of three dogs, been the focus of numerous complaints from community activists and on the wrong end of scorn from those whose pets sustained injuries while staying at Chow Bella.

The first in a series of interviews with members of the Los Angeles political scene, politicians, political connectors and the politically connected, I had a short chat with Brady Westwater, downtown advocate, one of the busiest men in LA politics and the LA Cowboy.