Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council

Please join us at our next Board Meeting

We meet on the first Wednesday of each month.

Newly elected Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council Board members officially take their seats at the next Council meeting on August 4, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. Once the new members are sworn in by Councilperson Tony Cardenas (Council District 6) they will be able to vote on nominations and make appointments to fill vacant board seats and elect new board officers. The August agenda includes many other items of interest to the community, including a motion for reconsideration of the Board’s support for the proposed conditional use permit relating to hours of operation for a gas station Ralphs Grocery Company is considering building at the northwest corner of Saticoy and Louise in Lake Balboa.

Please join the communities of Lake Balboa, Reseda, Encino, and Tarzana for a 27th Annual National Night Out Celebration at Randall D. Simmons Park located at the Southwest corner of Vanowen St. and Wilbur Ave., on August 3, 2010 from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Special guests will be Erik Estrada and for the kids, Ronald McDonald.

This community event is FREE for all to enjoy. FREE hot dogs and chili dogs, information booths, Kid's Zone, balloon makers, face painting, child fingerprinting, bouncers, slides, popcorn, cotton candy, prizes and Race Cars from Irwindale Speedway. In addition there will be displays of specialized equipment from the LAPD, Fire Engines and more.

Picnic with your family and neighbors and learn how to fight crime.

Parking is available behind the Reseda NC Office at 19040 Vanowen St.

Board of Water and Power Commissioners Approve Revised Changes to City Water Conservation Ordinance
Watering Days to be Based on Street Address, Rebates Increased, and Phases of Ordinance Simplified

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Board of Water and Power Commissioners today approved a revised proposal to change the City of Los Angeles’ Water Conservation Ordinance. The proposed changes, which were approved by the Board and will now be forwarded to the City Council for review, will simplify the law’s water conservation phases and change the schedules for permissible outdoor watering with sprinklers.

The proposed changes will consolidate two phases in the current Ordinance, bringing the total number of phases down from six to five. Phases of the Ordinance correspond with severity of water shortage, with each increase in phase containing stricter conservation measures.

The proposed changes will also shift the days on which watering with sprinklers is allowed for odd and even-numbered addresses under Phases I, II and III of the proposed new ordinance.

"These changes respond to a direct request from the City Council and are intended to provide greater flexibility to our customers while they continue saving water," said Lee Kanon Alpert, President of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners. "The Commission has requested and staff has agreed to keep us regularly informed on how the changes are being implemented and whether our conservation targets are being met."

Presently, Los Angeles is in Phase III of the current Ordinance, restricting LADWP customers to outdoor watering with sprinklers twice-weekly. The proposed new Ordinance would allow watering three times per week on specific days based on street address, and with specific time limits based on type of watering nozzle.

Under the proposed new Phase II restrictions, customers whose street addresses end with an odd number – 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 – will be permitted to use their sprinkler systems on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, before 9 a.m.and after 4 p.m. Customers whose addresses end in even numbers – 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 – will be permitted to do so on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Addresses ending in fractions will be treated as whole numbers and observe the same day restrictions as others on their same side of the street, (ie: 4321 ½ would be regarded as 4321, an odd-numbered address.)

Sprinkler time limits under the new Phase II restrictions will be based on the type of nozzle used in the system. Spray head sprinklers and bubblers, which are non-conserving models, will be limited to 8 minutes per cycle and one cycle per day per watering station. Standard rotors and multi-stream rotary heads will be limited to 15 minutes per cycle and up to two cycles per day per watering station. The typical single-family home has non-conserving spray head sprinklers.

In an effort to better assist our customers, LADWP will increase the rebate on water-conserving sprinkler nozzles to $8/nozzle, which covers the purchase price. Please visit www.LADWP.com/rwr for more details.

All other components of the Ordinance, including the prohibited uses of water, will remain the same. Watering with sprinklers will continue to be restricted to hours before 9:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m., regardless of the watering day. Hand-watering, using garden hoses fitted with shut-off nozzle devices, remains permissible any day of the week before 9:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m.

On May 18, the Board approved proposed changes to the Ordinance that recommended shifting watering days based on street address as a means of minimizing pressure fluctuations in the water distribution system. On July 6, the Los Angeles City Council referred the matter back to the Department with motions to merge Phases II and III of the current Ordinance and include three designated watering days per week for even- and odd-numbered street addresses under a revised Phase II in the new Ordinance. The policy changes approved by the Board today respond to the City Council's requests.

The proposed changes will go into effect upon approval by City Council and concurrence by the Mayor.

Free Health Screenings

Encino Chamber of Commerce and West-Val Pharmacy invite you to receive free health screenings, diabetes education, and gift bags West-Val Pharmacy. Diabetes afflicts more than 23.6 million Americans and another 57 million people are likely to get the disease if they don't alter their living habits.

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.

The City of Los Angeles Stormwater Program is conducting a customer satisfaction survey and they need your input!

VISIT www.LAstormwater.org/survey
TAKE the five minute survey and give us your thoughts about the program – what they are doing well and where they need to improve.
Get FREE Stuff! Every person who takes the survey will receive an organic cotton tote bag.

Stop Trailer Billboards

Bob Blumenfield

State legislation authored by Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield (D – San Fernando Valley) and Assemblymember Mike Feuer (D – Los Angeles) was approved by the full Assembly on a vote of 46 – 14. The bill now moves to the state Senate for consideration.

“I’m tired of seeing these unsightly billboards on unhitched trailers all over our neighborhoods. They are nothing more than road spam. I know many others are sick of them too. Literally hundreds of people in our community have complained to me about these eyesores. It’s time to get rid of them once and for all,” Blumenfield said.

“These signs are a distracting safety hazard for drivers, a source of blight in neighborhoods, and a drain on scarce parking spaces intended for business patrons. They should be prohibited unless a city or county affirmatively wants to allow them,” said joint author Assemblymember Mike Feuer.

For years, the City of Los Angeles and other local governments have attempted to control the proliferation of mobile billboards locally, but their efforts have been hampered by litigation, and requirements that signs prohibiting them must be posted at every entrance to the city. In Los Angeles, a city with thousands of such access points, the signage requirements are not financially or physically feasible. Now, the City of Los Angeles is in strong support of AB 2756, which as a state statute will be enforceable without the onerous requirements. AB 2756 also would not preempt local communities, such as West Hollywood, that have adopted ordinances that seem to be achieving the goal of controlling the signs.

Many of us have fruit trees and use or distribute only a small portion of the fruit to our friends and families. Here's an idea that will help you and many others at the same time:

FOOD FORWARD is an all-volunteer grassroots group of Los Angeles residents who care about reconnecting to our food system and making change around urban hunger and food waste. Food Forward volunteers convene at private properties they have been invited to and glean the excess fruit on their trees, donating 100% of it to local food pantries. In just 10 months, they have harvested nearly 65,000 pounds of fresh, free fruit. Food Forward supplies the volunteers, equipment and coordination to pull off picks both large and small, creating an atmosphere of community that encourages its volunteers to reconnect and pass along the abundance of food already present in our daily lives. All property owners receive a tax deduction for every pound they harvest.

We encourage you to volunteer your property to be gleaned, or to be part of a pick. Call them at (818) 530-4125 or visit their website: www.foodforward.org

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Lake Balboa Neighborhood Boundaries
Click HERE for L.A. City approved motion and street-by-street boundaries

Map Key:
The black line represents the city of Lake Balboa.
The blue overlay shows the Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council boundaries.
The green overlay shows the area that the Lake Balboa NC shares with Encino NC.
The yellow push pin is where Lake Balboa NC holds Board Meetings.
The red push pin is where the Emergency Preparedness Committee and Communications Committee meetings are held.

View Lake Balboa in a larger map