Uneasy Alliance of Town, Gown : Residents Swap Trash for Cash to Aid Pierce College

Woodland Hills homeowners who have clashed with Pierce College administrators over campus development have decided to side with the college over academic development.

On Thursday night, residents turned over $729 in proceeds from the first day of an innovative, private curb-side trash-recycling program to the Foundation for Pierce College for use in funding classrooms.

Then they endorsed a weekend campus swap meet planned by the foundation as a yearlong fund-raising effort.

But leaders of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization made it clear that they remain skeptical of college officials’ stance on development of Pierce’s long-established agriculture-classroom farmland.

Residents pitched in 15,080 pounds of aluminum, plastic, glass and paper last Saturday as neighborhood leaders launched what they hope will become a weekly rubbish-recycling program. All profits from the recycling have been pledged to the foundation.

$2,000-a-Month Goal

Officials of the homeowner group told Paul Ratzi, the foundation’s president, that their goal is to raise up to $2,000 a month from the curb-side pickups.

Although Los Angeles city sanitation officials are experimenting with recycling in several areas, the Woodland Hills effort is the first independent curb-side project undertaken in the San Fernando Valley.

Robert Gross, association vice president, said about 10% of the eligible families along the first day’s pickup route participated. He predicted a heavier participation March 19, when the next pickup is scheduled.

Gross said homeowners hope to begin weekly Saturday pickups in selected neighborhoods by the end of April. He said the group also hopes to establish six fixed-location dropoff points in the community and in the Warner Center area.

The homeowner group endorsed the swap meet proposal after Ratzi explained that the foundation wants to begin weekend meets at a Pierce College parking lot in mid-March.

20% of Fees, Concessions

A private contractor who stages similar swap meets at several other community colleges will run it, he said. The foundation will receive 20% of the booth-rental fees and concessions, and could raise about $35,000 a year if the swap meet has 100 stalls.

Gross said the homeowner group will support the swap meets as long as they are quietly and cleanly operated and booths are removed each Sunday.

But a note of skepticism was sounded by Gordon Murley, the association’s president.

In a prepared message to members, Murley cautioned that his group is still unhappy with college officials’ stance on development of campus open space.

“The Pierce College administration is not listening to the community and what residents want,” Murley said. “That land is our land, not theirs to give away. Let’s tell them that it is to remain open land for the purpose for which it was established in the first place.”