Welcome
Welcome to the Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council website!

The Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council is officially certified by the City of Los Angeles to serve as a forum for stakeholders to address issues in Granada Hills and to communicate with the City of Los Angeles.

Our next Regular Board Meeting is Monday, September 27, 2010 at 6:30 pm.

Rinaldi Adult Center - Auditorium
17450 Rinaldi Street
Granada Hills, CA 91344

Parking on the corner of Andasol and Rinaldi.

Click here for the meeting agenda(s).

GHNNC invites all stakeholders to bring a can of food with them to our meetings to donate to local food banks.

Sidewalk Grinding

At our last board meeting of Aug. 30, 2010, an ad hoc committee was formed to assist the Bureau of Street Services (BSS) in identifying sidewalks in Granada Hills (only) in need of repair. Money has been allocated for a one-year program for a two-person crew to use a walk-behind sidewalk grinder to level abrupt sidewalk elevation changes in our community where the maximum vertical height difference is 3/4 of an inch or less. We will be responsible for the area within our Neighborhood Council boundary (see map). Granada Hills South NC will likewise be responsible for their area.

We have been requested to note where there are separations greater than 3/4" (and other problems), but those will require additional work and will be dealt with at an unknown future time and are not part of this grinding operation.

If you would like to help with this project, please contact us right away via email at sidewalk@ghnnc.org.
Be sure to include your contact info and nearby cross streets. We expect to have grid maps available very soon so we can divide up the work to be sure we check all sidewalks within our boundary.

Additional information will be provided via email. We want to get started checking our sidewalks within the next week, so sign up today!

Bill Hopkins and Wayde Hunter
GHNNC Public Safety Committee

Photos of grind-eligible sidewalks:

Non-grind eligible sidewalks:

Recap of Our July Meeting with the Guest DWP Representatives

In July 2010, GHNNC welcomed Jim Yannotta and Evelyn Cortez-Davies from the L.A. Department of Water and Power to give a presentation to our stakeholders and efforts to recycle water in Los Angeles.

Here's is a video of their presentation.

Click here for the powerpoint slideshow they presented (available to you in PDF form).

Click here for the most recent LADWP Annual Water Quality Report.

New Watering Schedule Now in Effect for LADWP Customers
Watering Days Expanded, Schedule Based on Customer Street Address

Changes to the City of Los Angeles' Water Conservation Ordinance went into effect today (August 25, 2010) for Los Angeles City residents and businesses, allowing LADWP customers to water with sprinklers up to three days per week. Customers whose street addresses end with an odd number – 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 – are permitted to use their sprinkler systems on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Customers whose addresses end in even numbers – 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 are permitted to do so on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.  Addresses ending in fractions are treated as whole numbers and observe the same day restrictions as others on their same side of the street, (ie: 4321 ½ is regarded as 4321, an odd-numbered address.)

Sprinkler time limits are based on the type of nozzle used.  Spray head sprinklers and bubblers, which are non-conserving models and are common in most landscapes, are allowed up to 8 minutes per watering station per day. Rotors and multi-stream rotary heads are allowed 15 minutes per cycle and up to two cycles per day per watering station. Watering with sprinklers is restricted to hours before 9:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m., regardless of the watering day.

All other prohibited uses of water, which include prohibiting hosing down driveways and sidewalks and water runoff, requiring all leaks be fixed and only using hoses fitted with shut-off nozzles, remain in effect.   Hand-watering using garden hoses fitted with shut-off nozzle devices is permissible any day of the week before 9:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m.

To read the rest of this LADWP news release, go to: http://www.ladwpnews.com/go/doc/1475/881355/

Back-to-School Movie Night

Aircraft Noise Pollution? Find out exactly where it's coming from.

A few GHNNC stakeholders have expressed concern recently due to noise they claim is coming from aircraft travelling to and from the Van Nuys Airport.

If you hear loud aircraft in the sky above you, and you want to know more about the aircraft's destination, trajectory, type, or even altitude, we recommend the following webpage:

http://www331.webtrak-lochard.com/webtrak/vny4

The webpage shows aircraft from Van Nuys Airport (VNY), as well as Burbank "Bob Hope" Airport (BUR), Whiteman Airport (WHP) in Pacoima, and the LAPD trainng facility in Granada Hills.

Visitors can also make complaints directly from the webpage listed above.

Community Cheers “Very Major” Council Vote to Improve Neighborhood Empowerment

From the CD2 website

That big sigh of relief you heard this morning was from the city’s 91 neighborhood councils, who cheered a vote by the City Council Wednesday on a motion to they say will strengthen community empowerment.

The motion, by Councilmember Paul Krekorian, chair of the Education and Neighborhoods Committee, restored five positions to the embattled Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) and transfered $1.3 million to it from the Community Development Department (CDD).

“This is a budget-neutral action that does not cost taxpayers a dime, but still allows the department to function in support of neighborhood councils,” Krekorian said. “DONE’s budget and staffing have been decimated of late, so this fiscally prudent move was an important step to strengthen community participation in governance.”

In fact, DONE itself was close to decimation after the mayor proposed rolling the department into CDD during this year’s budget negotiations. Neighborhood councils railed against that proposal, fearing it would be the death knell for the community empowerment department after its funding – and staff positions – had been steadily siphoned off.

Community empowerment: Alive and well in L.A.

As late as 2008, DONE operated with 72 staff members to help the city’s neighborhood councils flourish. Earlier this year, as the city’s fiscal situation worsened, the department’s budget was greatly reduced as its staff was cut to 36 people. Later, that figure was slashed in half again, to 18, where it stood before Wednesday’s action.

“Today’s vote was very major,” said Barbara Monaghan-Burke, chair of the Studio City Neighborhood Council’s Government Affairs Committee. “This is just the beginning of restructuring [DONE] as an independent system so we can operate most effectively.”

The 2010-11 adopted city budget provides $1.34 million to the CDD for functions that had been performed by DONE. Pursuant to the reccomendation of Krekorian’s committee, that amount of funding was transfered out of CDD and into DONE. The additional positions are to be paid for out of that existing funding.

“We’ve never wavered in our support for this,” said Nina Royal, a member of the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council and chair of the public safety committee. “This is great. It will strengthen DONE and give us better service.”

While many of DONE’s staff fan out across the city, helping the city’s neighborhood councils solve a plethora of problems, the five new positions will work internally to help the department function and maintain a high level of accountability.

While Krekorian cheered Wednesday’s action, he added that it was one step on the road to ensuring greater neighborhood empowerment.

“Today, we sent an important message to Los Angeles that we value the importance of neighborhood councils, and  my office will always stand with those who care passionately about community empowerment,” he said. “However, this is not an end, but another important step as we continue to reorganize and improve one of our city’s most important movements.”

Interested in Participating on the GHNNC Board?

1. Small Business and Worker
   
2. Resident Associations
   
3. District 2

New Technology to Fight Graffiti

It's now even easier to report graffiti to the City so it can cleaned up fast.

In addition to calling 311, you can now report graffiti directly using the City's online 311 function at http://anti-graffiti.lacity.org/welcome.cfm.

Just enter the exact address and a report and clean-up order are automatically generated.

The City also is making efforts to explore today's rapidly evolving technology to make it faster and easier for citizens to report graffiti and other non-emergency problems. The City now has its own iPhone application to report problems. The application was created by Citysourced in a public-private partnership and can downloaded for free on iTunes. It allows iPhone users to take snapshots of graffiti, potholes, illegal dumping and other issues. Using the iPhone's GPS system, the photo and the exact location are automatically sent directly to the City's 311 system. It even notifies the user when the problem is resolved.

To download the app or see pictures of how it works, visit this link at iTunes.

The application should be available for Blackberry, Android, Palm, & Windows Mobile 7 platforms this year.

Graffiti Watch Program

The Beautification Committee is launching a Graffiti Watch program. Your help is needed to stop graffiti now. When you see graffiti, contact Your Local "Graffiti Watchers" and have graffiti removed in 48 Hours:

• Call (818) 885-8885 (West Valley Alliance Graffiti Removal). Please program that number into your cell phone. A call to West Valley alliance (paid by the GHNNC to clean graffiti) results in cleanup about one week quicker than by calling 311.

Graffiti Watch Flyer

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