Arleta Aims to Put Out a Welcome Sign--Once It Gets $10,000 in Donations

The Osmonds lived there. Tom Mix boarded horses there.

But if the community of Arleta in the northeast San Fernando Valley is known for anything at all, it’s probably as the place where an overwrought mail carrier pulled a .22-caliber pistol out of his pouch and shot a dog he found annoying.

However, Arleta’s fuzzy image is about to snap into sharper focus, the local chamber of commerce hopes.

Aware that it’s tough to instill community pride when so few even know where “there” is, the chamber wants to erect a sign welcoming people to Arleta, a two-mile-long, half-mile-wide area sandwiched between Pacoima, Mission Hills, Panorama City and Sun Valley.

But in an indication of how far it has to go, the group put up a sign last week asking for donations for the “Welcome to Arleta” sign.

On the corner of Branford Street and Woodman stands the flimsy plywood sign with blue lettering that local boosters hope will do more than alter the physical landscape: “Future Home of Arleta Welcome Sign. Donations Needed. 893-2993.”

Councilman Joel Wachs donated $500 and a local real estate company $100, but the group needs $9,400 more, said Jose Bonilla, president of the Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Residents Assn.

“Most people don’t know where Arleta is, or that it even exists,” Bonilla said. “We want people to know exactly where we’re at.”

Arleta is bounded roughly by the Golden State Freeway and Laurel Canyon Boulevard on the east, the Tujunga Wash on the south, Woodman Avenue on the west and Filmore Street on the north, Bonilla said.

It was good enough for the Osmonds, the singing family of the 1970s that gave the world Donny and Marie, and Mix, the popular cowboy movie star of the 1920s.

Today, even within its borders, participation in civic activities is low. Only about 30 of the area’s 100 businesses and 70 of its 28,322 residents belong to the chamber and residents association, Bonilla said.

To add insult to injury, many of those who know that Arleta broke away 23 years ago from Pacoima refuse to recognize its independence because they believe the secession movement was fueled by a desire to dissociate from Pacoima’s minorities.

“I refer to it as ‘West Pacoima,’ ” said Jose De Sosa, a Pacoima resident and president of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

“It’s maddening,” said Bonilla, who argues that racism had nothing to do with it.

Whatever the motivation was in 1969, Anglos now make up only 30% of Arleta’s population and Latinos 54%, according to the 1990 U.S. census.

The stone-and-brick “Welcome” sign will “make Arleta shine,” according to the chamber’s fund-raising letter.

And donors who give $50 or more will also be remembered for posterity. Along with the welcoming inscription, the sign will list those who contribute.