Nancy Reagan Drug Center Site Draws Protest

Community leaders and homeowners gathered Saturday in Pacoima with elected local officials to reiterate their opposition to the proposed Nancy Reagan Center for drug treatment in Lake View Terrace.

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represent the Pacoima and Lake View Terrace areas, said the center should not be located at the former Lake View Terrace Medical Center as planned.

Antonovich, who faces a re-election challenge in November, said a blue-ribbon committee should be formed between proponents and opponents of the center to find an alternate site for the center.

“Placing a treatment center like this in a residential community is an inappropriate decision,” Antonovich said at a meeting sponsored by the Ministers Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley. The meeting, attended by about 30 people at the Greater Community Baptist Church in Pacoima, was the latest in a series of community meetings on the center.

The proposed site is near a residential area with an elementary school and a convalescent home nearby. The center would treat 150 adolescents and 60 adults.

Other activists attending the meeting said they were against the center. Jose DeSosa, the state chairman of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said putting the facility at the proposed site would be like putting a “prison in the neighborhood.”

Representatives of Phoenix House attended the meeting to defend the nonprofit drug abuse service agency’s proposal for the center. Phoenix House has until mid-December to buy the former medical center and receive needed city approval of zoning changes.

Lorraine Mohr, vice president of Phoenix House, said the facility would benefit the community and would not pose a danger to residents.

“The people in our program no longer want to be associated or involved with drugs,” Mohr said.