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Friday / March 29.

The BIG: LEAP

Sadly our community was among the hardest hit as a result of the pandemic. Angelenos may be eligible to receive $1,000 a month for a year. The BIG: LEAP program will provide $1,000 a month for 12 months to approximately 3,000 eligible Angelenos. The application opens from Friday, October 29th to Sunday, November 7th.

For more information visit BIGLEAP.LACity.org.
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The BIG: LEAP

Lamentablemente, nuestra comunidad estuvo entre las más afectadas como resultado de la pandemia. Residentes de Los Angeles pueden ser elegibles para recibir $1,000 al mes durante un año. El programa BIG: LEAP proporcionará $1,000 al mes durante 12 meses a aproximadamente 3,000 angelinos elegibles. La aplicación abre del viernes 29 de octubre al domingo 7 de noviembre.

Para obtener más información, visite BIGLEAP.LACity.org.

Sadly our community was among the hardest

Eliminating Blight in Our Neighborhood

Eliminating blight in our neighborhood is a team effort, and we need your help to report these items when you see them. In our recent community drive, my team identified a location with bulky items and coordinated its removal with Los Angeles Sanitation & Environment.

If you see a similar situation in your neighborhood, don’t wait for it to become a nuisance, report it to our city crews via 3-1-1. For additional services, please call my Sylmar District Office at (818) 756-8409, Pacoima District Office at (818) 485-0600, or Sunland-Tujunga District Office at (818) 352-3287.

Eliminating blight in our neighborhood is a

Dia de los Muertos Festival was a HUGE Success

This year’s Dia de los Muertos festival was a HUGE success! 1000s of people joined us on Van Nuys Boulevard for this celebration. The event featured live music, food trucks, local vendors, and plenty of fun for the whole family. I am very proud to represent the 7th Council District and host events like this for our families to enjoy.
Thank you to our vendors, artists, dancers, bands, and community members who all helped make the day possible. See you next year!

This year's Dia de los Muertos festival

National Authors Day

In honor of #NationalAuthorsDay, I would like to highlight Luis J. Rodriguez from #AD39, an award-winning multi-genre writer of 16 books!

Luis J. Rodriguez’s bibliography includes the bestselling memoir, “Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.” and the sequel “It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions & Healing.” He served as Los Angeles Poet Laureate from 2014 to 2016. He is also founding editor of Tia Chucha Press, known for cross-cultural poetry collections and anthologies, and co-founder with his wife Trini Rodriguez of Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore in #Sylmar.

Thank you, Luis, for your critical work to transform communities in the Northeast #SanFernandoValley and beyond through ancestral knowledge, the arts, literacy, and creative engagement.

In honor of #NationalAuthorsDay, I would like

Southbound Freeway San Fernando Mission Blvd

After months of coordination with Caltrans District 7, CHP, and Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, I am happy to announce that the 405 Southbound Freeway San Fernando Mission Blvd off maintenance and clean-up has begun! LAHSA conducted outreach during the weekend in order to ensure that individuals experiencing homelessness at this location received the access to services that they need.

Our states homelessness crisis has been a great concern to me, which is why I worked on allocating $2 billion in the state budget for ongoing funding to local governments and organizations to combat the state’s homelessness crisis to address encampments like the one on the 405 San Fernando Mission Blvd. off-ramp.
I would like to thank Caltrans District 7 and our neighborhood stakeholders for working with our office on this project.

After months of coordination with Caltrans District

Dia de los Muertos Cultural FestivalDia de los Muertos Cultural Festival

In observance of Dia De Los Muertos, my team hosted a mobile District Office and facilitated a Sugar Skull STEM Project with youth in order to help them celebrate Dia de Los Muertos and to teach them about how to create a simple circuit.

Thank you to the City of San Fernando, Government for hosting an amazing Dia de los Muertos Cultural Festival for the community!

This celebration is about coming together to celebrate and embrace the culture that our loved ones left behind through their music, traditions, and history.

In observance of Dia De Los Muertos,

Catch up on Neighborhood Watch: Sharing Board Member Jon von Gunten’s Meeting Report for October 2021.

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH MEETING REPORT, 20 OCTOBER 2021
Hello to all who understand and value our LAPD, Sheriff deputies, LA school police, and City Park Rangers!!
►►MEETING NOTES:
► 26 attendees in and out.
► Most local crime is DOWN. There’s one awful exception. And several excellent stats!
► A surprise address and Q&A by Foothill LAPD Captain Johnny Smith!
☼ Foothill has the lowest number of homicides in San Fernando Valley, about half of Devonshire et al. ☼
►►LOCAL crime stats:

► Sunland’s overall crime is DOWN double digits from last year, Senior Lead Officer (SLO) Cesar Contreras reported! That translates to 35 fewer Sunland crimes. However, a month ago levels rose, so it’s only 7.5% down. COVID-19 probably decreased some crime, as people were at home who would normally have been at work or school.
The highest and most regrettable increase for the month was a 400% jump in sexual assaults; they rose from just 1 up to 5. Time for extra alertness!

► Tujunga SLO Gloria Caloca related that Tujunga crime was down 17%. All types of crime are well down, but burglaries from vehicle are only down 5%. (Hide it. Lock it. Keep it!) She visits Tujunga’s long-term encampments at 6500 Foothill and on Valaho nearly every day on duty. LAPD can cite for actual crimes, but not for camping out or being unsightly. Plan your reports and proof accordingly.
If you know people who “don’t bother” to report crimes, please advise them they falsely suppress our real crime stats. No call to LAPD = no LAPD report = no crime is visible…or reported. “If a tree falls in the woods…”

►►Foothill Station Capt. Johnny Smith arrived at 9:08! He knows and empathizes with us because he grew up in La Crescenta, went to CVHS, is fluently bilingual English-Spanish, and lives nearby! He walked into some pointed questions and issues. His answers reassured us.

Q: Does the City Council vaccination mandate apply to police stations? Can unvaxxed people get service at Foothill?
A: No one will be denied services, but Foothill Station will enforce masks. He and his team concentrate on more serious crimes.

Q: Will you enforce any mandates against the public just because they’re unvaccinated?
A: We won’t deal with trespassing issues of this nature because more serious crimes must occupy our officers’ time and resources.

Capt. Smith continued…
► Other COVID-19 updates: Foothill has lost one officer to a COVID-19 death.
Citywide, 3,183 LAPD have recovered from COVID-19, so have natural immunities. About 2/3 of sworn officers have been vaccinated. 2,000 have filed religious exemption and he will work to honor those and medical exemptions. He will follow new rules and work to keep all possible officers on duty.

►Foothill officers’ arrests have taken 320 handguns off the street this year!
Foothill Div. took more guns off the street than last year, AND more than all the rest of the Valley divisions. Guns are recovered every night. One house yielded 60! Many arrested are youngsters. One 14-year-old had a .45 in his waistband.

Regardless of the carnage his outlook and that weapon were capable of committing, LAPD can’t question minors absent parents. Crims are out of jail sooner and more often than ever before, especially juveniles.
BUT they don’t get their illegal firearms back!

Some 4-hour arrests can be very beneficial! Many are “ghost guns,” meaning they’re bought in pieces and have no serial numbers. They’re purchased 80% complete and require minimal drilling and assembly to home-manufacturer a working firearm.

New policies in law-enforcement: Los Angeles DA is looking for stakeholders as part of a new “COVER” program, to re-envision alternative ways to enforce law. I couldn’t find more info.
LAPD doesn’t invent these policies but must live within and implement them. Law enforcement’s job is to arrest and report accurately, and then DA’s and judges work out punishments. Accordingly, one three-car thief was re-arrested for the same crime—on the same three cars!—while the arresting officer finished paperwork on the first arrest.
A “defendant” is now termed “the accused.” Shall we await the next step in court nomenclature? Will perps soon be addressed as “PNG (probably-not-guilty) Jones”?
►►Capt. Smith repeatedly emphasized that Foothill’s #1 priority is every residents’ public safety. At Police Commission meetings, he hears only anti-police POVs; no supporters attend and speak up.

►News media smear LA Municipal Code 41.18 as “anti-homeless,” but it’s all about sidewalk clearances that allow people to walk, wheelchairs to pass, vehicles to enter driveways, and customers to enter businesses.
Those factors are in the basic 41.18 and are enforceable today, but to get prohibitions on additional sensitive in any community, each Council member must specify every specific location they want 41.18 to apply to! Many locations or a stretch of addresses can be included in one motion.
We have fewer tents and more RVs…sorta. Sanitation has now begun taking some things, but LAPD cannot impound any vehicle housing people except when it’s a hazard. Homeless have been given exemptions from tickets.
SOME RV residents move when asked, some don’t. But anti-law-enforcement people and law firms watch and video LAPD interactions, ogling for an oversight, so they can sue.

► LAPD/Schools Involvement!
Our SLOs and their Sgt. Ojeda met with principals of local schools. Before that, only residents had reported school zone traffic problems. Principals added their voices, saying that some parents have become antagonistic when principals tried to enforce courtesy during pick-up and drop-off. Surveillance at school intersections will increase.

► Homeless Patrick was discussed, but has since come and gone, moved around, resettled, rearranged and rebranded, so there’s no point covering his migrations. When released from the hospital (reportedly a drug overdose), he was given free motel housing in Sylmar. He left next morning to return to his position of greater popularity at Vons. Some people offered to retrieve his junk from “police storage” (no such thing) and return it to him at Vons so he could again pile it up around him.

► Street vendors seem benign, but some of them parasite on public and private parking, dumpsters, and cleaning services. They garbage up our streets, block traffic, and trespass.
It’s a very touchy issue. LA County Health formerly contacted and enforced laws on street vendors. Now only LA Street Services may do “education and outreach” only. During meetings with such vendors, Street Services sometimes requests an on-site LAPD officer.
Some unlicensed vendors have received $5,000 in grants. LAPD can only do something about vendors who break laws…that haven’t been repealed.

► Officer Caloca reported that, contrary to reports, there are no children in the RVs on Valaho. Some are empty during the day, as one RV is deserted and one resident has a job. Occasionally, an RV resident cooperatively relocates, but they just move from place to place. Reportedly, new “No Overnight Parking” signs are coming.

► BECAUSE LAUSD Police have been hugely DE-funded, LAPD must pick up the slack, thus diluting LAPD street coverage. LAPD is in a similar situation with LA City Park Rangers, who aren’t allowed to carry firearms on duty.
City Council passed a measure nearly two years ago allowing Rangers to carry, but Park Ranger Sean Kleckner has advised STNC that the motion remains buried in a committee run by Councilwoman Monica Rodríguez.

► Capt. Smith concluded by emphasizing that all of us can help them with “the little victories,” which compound and add up to big gains. Your vigilance and calls to LAPD have helped Foothill Station—and our communities—reduce crime stats!

Useful Contacts: In any emergency, always call 9-1-1!

► TUJUNGA Senior Lead Officer Gloria Caloca:
Cell: 818-634-0754 | Off.: 818-756-8866 | 35755@lapd.online

► SUNLAND Senior Lead Officer Cesar Contreras:
Cell: 818-634-0705 | Off.: 818-756-8866 | 36373@lapd.online

► LAPD VOLUNTEER MATTERS: Officer Milton Ramírez: 41625@lapd.online

► EMAILS are best way to contact them. Send photos if possible, or come into Foothill Station at 12760 Osborne St., Pacoima, 818-756-8861.

► Eve Sinclair, Monica Rodriguez’ Deputy: 818-352-3287, eve.sinclair@lacity.org
# # #
Stay alert! Don’t go inert!
Jon von Gunten
Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council
Region 3 Rep

Catch up on Neighborhood Watch: Sharing

CALTRANS Maintenance

The 405 Southbound freeway’s San Fernando Mission Blvd off-ramp has been a growing concern for residents of #AD39. Earlier this year, I met with Caltrans leadership to discuss priority concerns in #AD39 and pushed to secure funding for clean-up efforts on our highways.

After months of coordination with Caltrans, CHP, and LAHSA, I am happy to announce that extended Caltrans maintenance and clean-up will begin on Monday, November 1st, 2021.

LAHSA conducted multiple rounds of outreach in order to ensure that individuals experiencing homelessness at this location received the access to services that they need.

There is more work to be done but I would like to thank Caltrans District 7 and our neighborhood stakeholders for working with our office on this project.

The 405 Southbound freeway's San Fernando Mission