QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE VALLEY : THE TIMES POLL : Residents Fret Over Meaner, Busier Streets

San Fernando Valley residents feel the quality of their lives has grown worse and they tend to hold local elected officials responsible for the decline, a Los Angeles Times Poll has found.

The grim results showed 63% of those surveyed said living conditions in the Valley are worse today than when they moved here. Fifty-six percent said they disapprove of the way local officials are handling quality-of-life issues.

The poll also found that nearly two-thirds said they are considering moving from the Valley within the next five years, but nearly half of that group said they would remain if elected officials were able to improve conditions in the Valley.

The poll, conducted Aug. 11 and 12, asked Valley residents to assess factors affecting the quality of their lives, to rate the performance of public officials on those issues and to look ahead at possible solutions.

Overall, the greatest concerns were crime and traffic congestion, followed by drugs, affordable housing, excessive growth, the environment and education.

“I grew up in this valley, I went to school here and everything, and I’ve seen it deteriorate,” said Colleen Radtke, 28, of Sylmar, a secretary and single parent whose responses were typical of those who answered the survey.

“Politicians don’t care,” Radtke said. “They just allocate money to please certain people--businesses and whoever backs them financially. They’re not doing anything to stop it.”

Local government officials were blamed for the problems by 36% of the respondents, followed by state government officials and businesses at 14% each. In fact, respondents gave local elected officials relatively high marks only in two areas: providing parks and attracting cultural events to the Valley.

Despite the increasing racial and socioeconomic diversity in the Valley, the findings indicate a strong meeting of minds, crossing boundaries of age, race, sex, income, family situation, profession and political persuasion.

Asked for proposed solutions to the problems, residents favored hiring more police to deal with crime, dividing the Los Angeles Unified School District so the Valley could govern its own public schools and increasing penalties for polluters.

Perhaps most surprising was the response to options for dealing with traffic problems. Asked to choose from a list that included building a cross-Valley rail line and expanding the freeways, residents preferred rail by a 3-to-1 margin.

Despite the overwhelming sentiment that quality of life was worse in the Valley, respondents generally were satisfied with their immediate neighborhoods.

“I live my life and I’m still kind of far from the problems,” said Candida Saltos, 31, who moved from Ecuador to an apartment in Burbank 11 years ago. “Where I live is quiet, but if I go one block from here it’s different. There are more people on the streets, without anything to do.”

Those who recently moved to the Valley were more likely to say their quality of life had not changed much while those here longer than five years were more likely to say their lives had changed for the worse.

“People who have been here the longest are very displeased . . . they know what they had and what they’re getting now,” said Susan Pinkus, assistant director of the Times Poll. “The people who are newer don’t know the contrast between then and now.”

Crime

A look at responses on crime shows that just a third of those polled said they believed local elected officials are doing all they can to deal with the problem. Responding to a separate question, 70% said crime had made their lives worse.

Linda Layton, 51, a medical transcriber in Pacoima who works at home, said she has been confronted with more and more police activity in her neighborhood over the years.

“We have fences around our park which we didn’t have before; they’ve found bodies in our park,” Layton said. “You walk down to the end of the street and there’s police on top of people’s houses, there are helicopters flying around.”

A geographical breakdown of responses showed residents in the generally less wealthy, more populous northeast Valley--including Lake View Terrace, Sylmar, Pacoima, Arleta and most of North Hollywood and Van Nuys--considered crime the worst problem and traffic second. Residents of the West Valley and of the more affluent neighborhoods south of the Ventura Freeway rated traffic as the greatest problem and crime second.

Drugs, which ranked third overall, was judged a greater problem in the northeast than in communities to the west and south.

Law enforcement experts said the slight discrepancy between east and west concerning crime is largely a misconception. Los Angeles Police Department crime statistics show that during the past three years, the East Valley has witnessed only slightly more crimes per capita than the West Valley. There has, however, been a greater tendency toward violent crimes in the poorer areas of the Valley.

“There’s a little bit more gang activity in the East Valley than in the West Valley,” said Deputy Chief Ron Frankle, commander of the Valley Bureau of the Police Department. “But in terms of the volume of crime, there really isn’t that much difference.”

As solutions, the poll found the widest support for adding more police officers, followed by establishing a separate department to deal only with gangs and spending more money on drug-intervention programs.

Respondents who volunteered solutions other than those listed in the poll frequently mentioned stronger penalties for gang and drug offenses. There were a variety of suggestions for improving police effectiveness, including raising salaries, increasing frequency of patrols, streamlining the force to make it more efficient and preventing police corruption.

Traffic

Although traffic ranked second to crime overall in a list of factors affecting their lives, 80% of those interviewed said (in response to a separate question) their lives had been made worse by the task of getting around on Valley streets and freeways. Just 31% said officials are doing all they can to deal with traffic problems.

When asked about possible solutions, developing a cross-Valley rail system was favored by nearly 40% of those polled, followed by encouraging business leaders to stagger work hours, selected by 19%, and expanding the freeway system, chosen by 12%.

With an estimated 60,000 cars traveling Ventura Boulevard during the afternoon rush hour, none of the transportation experts interviewed about the poll were surprised that residents are upset with the traffic situation and were eager for relief.

Neil Peterson, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, said the poll’s findings “debunk the long-held view by many that the Valley is anti-rail or at best doesn’t know what it wants . . . the silent majority in effect is beginning to be heard.”

Some vocal Valley homeowner groups have been stridently fighting various proposed rail routes, especially those for an above-ground system.

Gerald Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino, said the poll and the responses were skewed.

“Clearly, people want solutions, but they’re not informed, they haven’t been given the full range of alternatives, they haven’t been told the costs that are involved,” Silver said. “If they knew the true costs--that rail is expensive, inefficient and inflexible--they might take a dim view of rail.”

Volunteered responses to improve traffic included several calls for restricting development and for a monorail system, such as that advocated by county Supervisor Mike Antonovich and approved by Valley voters by referendum in the June primary election.

Earlier in the spring, however, the County Transportation Commission had voted instead to extend the underground Metro Rail system to the Valley, and commissioners continue to insist it is the only politically feasible option.

Rail received a similarly high ranking in a Times transportation poll conducted in November, 1988. More than a third of those contacted then said if a subway or light-rail system extended into the Valley, they would ride it often, and nearly another 40% said they would ride it occasionally.

Leisure activities

Almost two-thirds of the Valley residents surveyed said they believe officials are doing all they can to provide parks and recreational areas, and 41% said they approved of efforts by officials to bring cultural events and entertainment to the Valley.

As further evidence that people are largely satisfied with the availability of leisure-time pursuits, about a third said parks and cultural activities had improved their lives and half said they had no effect. Only a handful said their lives were adversely affected.

Interestingly, residents of the northeast Valley, where community activists often complain about park inequity relative to the West Valley, were even more likely to say officials are doing their best to provide parks.

The reasons for the response, however, differed widely.

Mayra Carias, who has lived in Arleta for four years, said she takes her 2-year-old child to Branford Park nearly every day.

“We don’t need any more, really. We have a couple of parks nearby and they’re fairly clean,” she said.

But Radtke, the single mother from Sylmar, presented another possible interpretation. She said parks are an attractive nuisance in many northeast Valley neighborhoods.

“We have parks, but they’re hangouts for gangbangers,” she said. “What good is building new parks, if you don’t have anyone to patrol and enforce them?”

Those who did not approve of the job public officials are doing with parks, cultural activities and entertainment suggested that their representatives encourage construction of more performing arts theaters, create more parks and provide more government-sponsored parks and recreation programs.

Of those who volunteered their own responses, several said officials should improve existing park facilities. A few said park security should be improved and gang activities in parks should be addressed.

Growth and Housing

Growth has become a key issue in conversations about the Valley’s future, provoking heated discussions in forums ranging from homeowner associations and business groups to the City Council and the state Legislature.

More than 40% favored slowing or stopping commercial or residential construction, with nearly half of those calling for the most extreme measure listed in the poll: an end to growth through an outright ceiling on new housing developments and apartment buildings.

Yet, a third of those questioned said commercial development such as office space and shopping centers had improved their quality of life, and 13% felt the same about residential development. Many more said development had had no effect on their lives.

Those who lived in the northeast Valley were slightly more likely to say commercial development had improved their lives, while those south of the Ventura Freeway tended to say it had made their lives worse.

Pinkus said the trend has been found in many Times polls.

“When you ask about growth, generally we find the affluent don’t want it and the poor do,” she said. “They feel it can help them get out of whatever situation they’re in.”

Carla Jenkins, 64, who has lived in Lake View Terrace for 22 years and in Pacoima for 12 years before that, agreed. She said she told the pollsters that commercial development was “about the only positive thing they’ve had so far out here.”

“There are more people working,” she said.

In terms of housing costs, those living in the more affluent areas, who tend to own their housing, generally believed escalating housing costs had not affected their lives, while those in the poorer areas, many of whom are renters, said their lives had been hurt by housing costs.

Environment

Residents ranked environment toward the bottom of the list of factors affecting their lives, yet in response to another question, three-quarters said air pollution had made their lives worse. The South Coast Air Quality Management District was mildly surprised, because its scientists believe smog conditions are improving.

“Maybe people are just hearing about it a lot more so their impression is that it’s worse,” said Claudia Keith, spokeswoman for the SCAQMD. “Some years are cleaner than others, but comparatively speaking in the last decade we’ve been getting much cleaner and this year has been especially clean.”

Keith attributed the improvement to stricter air-pollution standards. About two-thirds of smog is produced by cars, she said, another 20% to 25% comes from businesses and industry, and consumer products, such as aerosols, cause about 13%.

Only a quarter of the respondents said local elected officials are doing all they can to address smog problems.

Also, despite the SCAQMD statistics blaming commuters for the bulk of air pollution, 43% favored dealing with the problem by imposing harsher penalties on businesses found to be violating environmental laws, followed by 34% who wanted officials to impose programs that force commuters to use mass transit.

Many people also volunteered alternatives for reducing air pollution, with the greatest number--29--mentioning a need for better mass transit.

Public Schools

Fewer than a quarter of those interviewed said public officials are doing all they can to address problems in the public schools. Yet more than half also said education had not affected their quality of life.

Nearly a third favored breaking up the nearly 600,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District into more manageable chunks, although this sentiment was much stronger in the West Valley, at 40%, than in the northeast Valley, at 22%.

“I’m a teacher’s aide and I know teachers can’t do any more than what they’re doing,” said Evangeline Rivas, 62, who has lived in Sylmar most of her life. With respect to dividing the district, Rivas said she opposes it because she fears control of a Valley district would lean toward the west, with resulting inequities.

“If there was a division, there could be favoritism on one side more than the other,” she said.

Solving the schools’ ills left respondents evenly split between hiring more teachers and ending busing to the Valley, where classroom space is available, by building more schools in the rest of Los Angeles. Of those who volunteered responses, many said the district should find better-quality teachers or pay them more, and a few said more money should be provided for schools in general.

In May, the state Board of Education approved spending $250,000 to study the feasibility of breaking up the 708-square-mile district.

THE TIMES POLL The survey, conducted by telephone on Aug. 11 and 12, asked Valley residents to assess factors affecting the quality of their lives, to rate the performance of public officials on those issues and to look ahead at possible solutions. Results were based on interviews of 1,113 people who were chosen at random by computer to represent a cross-section of Valley residents. It was directed by I.A. Lewis. The margin of error is four percentage points in either direction. BETTER OR WORSE Since you moved here, do you think the quality of life in the San Fernando Valley has gotten better, worse or has it remained about the same? Better: 8% Same: 27 Worse: 63 Don’t know: 2 Would you say you are satisfied or dissatisfied these days with the community in which you live? Satisfied: 65% Neutral: 2 Dissatisfied: 32 Don’t know: 1 Source: L.A. Times Poll RANKING OF PROBLEMS What is the biggest problem facing the San Fernando Valley today? (Total adds up to more than 100% due to multiple responses.) Crime: 41% Traffic congestion: 33 Drugs: 27 Affordable housing: 22 Too much growth: 19 Environment: 14 Education: 10 Overall quality of life: 6 Other: 6 Don’t know: 2 RECENT ARRIVALS VERSUS LONGTIME RESIDENTS Since you moved here, do you think the quality of life in the San Fernando Valley has gotten better, worse or has it remained about the same?

LENGTH OF RESIDENCY IN VALLEY Less than More than 2 yrs 2-5 yrs 6-10 yrs 11-15 yrs 16-20 yrs 20 yrs Better 3% 9% 11% 10% 7% 9% Same 52 55 40 26 20 13 Worse 26 34 49 59 73 77

Valley Vignettes: Personal stories of nine residents. B8-9