300 Rally Against Including More Neighborhoods : Residents Fight West Hills Growth

An overflow crowd of more than 300 West Hills residents rallied Wednesday night against including more neighborhoods in their new community.

The meeting at Pomelo Drive Elementary School demonstrated the intensity of concern among West Hills residents who fear that the status of their community will be diminished if more Canoga Park neighborhoods are permitted to join West Hills.

“We certainly want to influence the outcome of any process that’s going to affect our boundaries,” said Joel Schiffman, president of the West Hills Property Owners Assn., the meeting’s sponsor. “We want to demonstrate to Joy Picus how the residents of West Hills feel.” Picus is a Los Angeles city councilwoman.

Since West Hills was created from a western portion of Canoga Park in January, neighborhoods to the east have sought to be included in the name change.

In an attempt to settle the controversy, Picus is surveying Canoga Park residents who live between West Hills and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

When Schiffman said his organization is mailing its members stamped postcards addressed to Picus, asking to keep the boundaries intact, he was applauded.

West Hills residents were not allowed to participate in the survey because their stance on the issue is already clear, Picus has said.

Canoga Park residents seeking inclusion in West Hills want the name change in the hopes that their property values will increase.

Picus’ ballots ask whether West Hills boundaries should be extended to Fallbrook Avenue, Shoup Avenue or Topanga Canyon Boulevard. She has agreed to allow residents to join West Hills if two-thirds vote for inclusion.

The results of the ballots are expected by the end of October.

But confusion has emerged over how the ballots are to be counted.

Some residents wondered, for example, whether a vote to extend the boundary to Shoup by someone west of Fallbrook could also be counted as a vote to extend the boundary merely to Fallbrook, said Lil Younger, founder of the West Hills Open Zone Victims. Members of that group live west of Fallbrook and want to join West Hills, contending that Picus said in February they could be included, but reneged.

Votes to include areas to the east will be put in some perspective by taking into account the neighborhood in which the ballot was cast, Susan Pasternak, a Picus aide, said.