A Tale of Two Communities

As a household of four registered voters, we oppose partitioning of Canoga Park with the creation of the community known as West Hills. We feel this move to secede from Canoga Park is prompted by the worst kind of elitist attitudes which are based on either anti-democratic and/or ethnic prejudices.

The thin excuse given of improving property values and the subsequent reduction of insurance premiums not only is a pathetic excuse but a very bad joke. This household has always been especially proud of our Canoga Park address and community which represents the best of the American ideals and traditions.

We are wonderfully represented by the large and small industrial businesses as well as major and small shopping areas.

We are also blessed with a wonderful mixture of additional new ethnic influences from the Orient, the Mideast and other parts of the world in addition to our long-time Latino neighbors, the Jewish community and the Anglo community. What a combination! What a wonderful, interesting community Canoga Park has become.

By separating us from the best parts of Canoga Park, you will leave us as just another sterile Anglo/Jewish upper-middle class bedroom community. How boring. This not only insults our intelligence but also adds injury to the spirit of the U.S. Constitution--the living document that we are saluting this month. All people should enjoy the fruits of a good life under a system called “democracy”--together.

We urge you not to further extend the boundaries and further contaminate a vital thriving community but also to rescind partially the former actions taken in February. We are in the area already called the West Hills community and, being in the flatlands, would like to stay with Canoga Park. Let the Hill be West Hills if they insist . . . but leave us with our Canoga Park zip code.

SUSAN GRIMSON, ERNEST GRIMSON, JULIET GRIMSON, JERRY GRIMSON