Opinions Are Divided as Name Change Reunites Area : Communities: As the remainder of Sepulveda joins North Hills, those who had the name first are angry. A standard policy for such actions is urged.

The ghost of Sepulveda loomed large over the San Fernando Valley on Friday.

A day after what remained of Sepulveda was renamed North Hills, a Los Angeles city councilman and some residents called for new procedures to handle the kinds of name changes that have altered Valley maps this year.

“There needs to be a more standardized way for the city to handle this,” said Greig Smith, chief deputy for Councilman Hal Bernson. “Currently, we have no rules, no guidelines, no minimum standards.”

Bernson plans to introduce a motion calling for the creation of such standards, Smith said. Without an established process, he said, “There’s going to be more of this.”

Eight months after Bernson agreed to let the western half of Sepulveda change its name to North Hills, Councilman Joel Wachs made a surprise announcement Thursday night, declaring that the eastern half of Sepulveda would become North Hills too--the sixth such name change in the Valley this year.

News of the name change was not well-received by Bernson, whose office received numerous phone calls Friday from angry constituents in the original North Hills.

“We’re very unhappy about it,” Smith said. “We’re quite perplexed ourselves.”

Prior to the announcement, Bernson and Wachs met and briefly discussed the issue, and Bernson informed Wachs of his displeasure, Smith said. “We understand the position he’s in,” he said. “But that doesn’t make it right.”

“He’s representing his constituency and I’m representing mine,” Wachs responded Friday. “And they have different opinions. My constituency felt the community should stay together and I agree with them. . . . I responded to them” just as Bernson responded to his constituents.

Michael Ribons, who led the effort to create North Hills earlier this year, is looking into the possibility of a lawsuit against the city. It was not clear, however, if there is a legal basis for such a suit.

“It would be based on the fact of fairness,” he said. “The same standards should be applied to everyone.”

Ribons argued that the latest name change is unfair because the Sepulveda residents east of the San Diego Freeway in Wachs’ district were not required to follow the same guidelines as the North Hills residents in Bernson’s district.

“We were given very rigid guidelines,” Ribons said.

Ribons and other name-change proponents were required by Bernson to collect signatures from homeowners only. The wording on the petition, approved by Bernson’s office before the drive started, simply stated that residents wanted to adopt a new name for their community.

The petitions circulated in the eastern portion of Sepulveda, however, brought up property values when asking residents whether to adopt a new name, which was a misleading tactic, Ribons said.

“Just because they’re unhappy, it doesn’t mean it’s unfair,” Wachs said. The lack of a standard “didn’t seem to bother them when they were doing what they wanted to do.”

Unlike Bernson, Wachs allowed petition gatherers to accept the signatures of apartment dwellers and businessmen for their petitions, not just homeowners. Wachs’ office also sought out the comment of homeowners groups and other organizations.

He expressed hope that both sides would put their energy into working to improve the community.

Name changes have become commonplace in the San Fernando Valley. Many have been fueled by residents’ desire to distance themselves from high crime areas and to increase property values or lower insurance rates. Others argued that the name changes were needed to clear up confusion over the identity of neighborhoods.

Each council member has the power to change a community name without taking the issue before the full council. There is no standardized procedure for determining when a change should be approved. Typically, residents were required to collect signatures from residents in the areas.

Ribons’ talk of a lawsuit against the city took officials in the city attorney’s office by surprise. “We have not researched the issue,” said one official when asked about the possibility of a lawsuit.

Ribons, meanwhile, defended the motives that prompted the the creation of North Hills. “The idea of the name change was to try to get people to group together to take back the community,” he said. “The whole purpose of these names is to give a community identity.”

Ribons and others argue that Sepulveda was really two communities anyway, the west composed of single-family residences and the east of high-density apartment buildings.

Bernson initially approved the original name-change request because “they have a legitimate request to be a separate community,” Smith said. In August, a small portion of Granada Hills was allowed to join North Hills, again with the approval of Bernson.

Residents in eastern Sepulveda then started their campaign to join North Hills because they wanted “to keep our community united,” said Brigitte Siatos, who helped organize the latest Sepulveda name change.

Besides looking into a lawsuit, Ribons is exploring other options, such as naming the original North Hills something else. “We would just like to have a different name, whatever it is,” he said.

Ribons plans to meet with Bernson and other residents of the original North Hills to determine what their next move will be.

But Smith doubted another name change would win approval. “I don’t see spending the taxpayers’ money playing a game of tag,” he said. “It’s getting a little ridiculous.”

What the Residents Say Some San Fernando Valley businesses and churches have included Sepulveda in their names for years. Many doubted Friday that they would add North Hills to their letterheads, some saying their names come from Sepulveda Boulevard. Even so, some scoffed at the shift to North Hills.

* Jouko Ranta, owner of Sepulveda Saab, an auto dealership for 20 years on Sepulveda Boulevard, accused others of trying to “fix things by camouflaging the problem, which unfortunately is crime.”

“If it really would do some good to change the name to ‘God’s Place,’ I would do it, but it wouldn’t help to do that. What right have they to make a name change without notifying me and others? They should be ashamed of themselves.”

* Herb Motkin, owner of Sepulveda Escrow Corp., located for 32 years on Sepulveda Boulevard, likewise said he would keep the “historic” name in his business.

“Some unfortunate things have happened in this area, but they happen everywhere. People think that a name change will change anything. Crimes occur in Northridge, too, but we don’t hear of Northridge changing their name.”

* The Rev. Charlotte Shivvers, pastor of Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society, said she hopes that the congregation retains its name to say something “about our awareness of the connection with the entire human community, which includes minorities, the poor, prostitutes, the addicted and the criminal.”

The renaming of western Sepulveda to North Hills last spring, however understandable in terms of property values, “also was a racist and ‘classist’ kind of move. It was a serious division of what needs to be a community,” said Shivvers.

“In that context, I am delighted that the entire area is now North Hills because that is a statement that we are one. It will be a pain in the neck to change my home address, but it will be worthwhile as a reminder that people can’t separate themselves from problems that affect us all.”

A Pioneer’s Legacy Sepulveda probably was named after Fernando Sepulveda, a pioneer rancher and settler of the San Fernando Valley.

* In 1873: The name was applied to a railroad station--east of where the modern community came into being--when a railroad from Los Angeles to San Fernando was built.

* About 1915: Real estate developers gave the name Mission Acres to what became known as the Sepulveda area at a time when their one-acre lots were just as likely to feature chicken or rabbit ranches as homes.

* In the 1920s: “The sale of rabbit skins was a particularly lucrative occupation” in the five-square-mile area, according to the book “The San Fernando Valley--Then and Now.”

* In 1927: Residents voted to change the name to Sepulveda in honor of Sepulveda, the early rancher-settler of Los Angeles who served as the city’s acting mayor in 1825.

* Through the years: The Sepulveda name has also been affixed to a dam, a flood basin, a school and to Sepulveda Boulevard, one of the prominent north-south routes through the Valley.