Overflow Crowd Exhorted to Join West Hills

Meeting in two shifts because of an unexpectedly large turnout, residents Monday were urged to vote to abandon the name Canoga Park in favor of the ritzier sounding West Hills.

“We expected a turnout of 100. We were worried that we might have an empty room,” Jim Fedalen said as he surveyed a crowd of about 400 people who packed the community room at Fallbrook Mall for the first meeting of a group formed to fight for inclusion into West Hills.

Another meeting was held later to accommodate about 300 more people forced to wait outside.

The group, which calls itself the East of Fallbrook Residents Committee, represents Canoga Park residents living east of Fallbrook Avenue and west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard between Victory and Roscoe boulevards who want to become part of West Hills, created by City Councilwoman Joy Picus in January.

Picus last month agreed to let Canoga Park residents living in a four-mile area just east of West Hills join the new community if two-thirds of the residents in the area vote to do so.

Picus said she would set the boundary at Fallbrook Avenue, Shoup Avenue or Topanga Canyon Boulevard, depending on how residents vote.

Fedalen, a leader of the new group, urged homeowners to vote to extend the boundaries of West Hills to Topanga Canyon Boulevard, which would also include Shoup and Fallbrook avenues.

Another group leader, Randy Cohen, accused a second group of residents living east of Woodlake and Platt avenues and west of Fallbrook Avenue of a “selfish” attempt to extend the boundary to include their neighborhood while keeping out other would-be West Hills residents.

The other group, calling itself the West Hills Open Zone Victims, is mounting a separate campaign.

“Let’s not be as selfish as them,” said Cohen.

Cohen received enthusiastic applause when she said, “I don’t think any of us are here because we don’t like Canoga Park.” But she said the current West Hills residents degraded Canoga Park by having “decided that Canoga Park wasn’t good enough to live in.”

Picus agreed in January to let residents of the hilly western flank of Canoga Park adopt the name West Hills, prompting a stampede of other Canoga Park neighborhoods eager to join.