LAKE VIEW TERRACE : Proposals for the L.A. River Are Discussed

A score of San Fernando Valley residents got their first chance Monday night to talk with public officials about ways to transform the Los Angeles River into something more than a cement trench and the butt of nighttime comedy routines.

Proposals bandied about during the two-hour session at Lake View Terrace Recreation Center ranged from extending the few areas where the river supports lush natural vegetation to “walk-in theaters” showing videos on the flood-channel walls.

Although plenty of ideas got warm support, the videos didn’t fare well.

“I don’t like the walk-in theater idea,” said Jerry Rodiger, a 36-year-old Tujunga resident who dropped by out of curiosity. “If you go to enjoy nature, you don’t want to watch TV. You go to escape technology.”

Residents divided into groups to discuss aesthetics, economic development, environmental quality, flood management and water conservation, and recreation. Suggestions about restoring the river’s natural state in areas where it still has a sandy bottom, as it does in Sepulveda Basin, garnered enthusiasm, as did proposals to create more hiking and bicycling trails along flood channels’ rights of way, including the Tujunga Wash, which runs from Hansen Dam to Studio City.

None of the ideas has anything more than tentative status, and the master plan for the river isn’t expected to be completed until 1995.

“There are no specific proposals yet,” said Peg Henderson, a recreation planner with the National Park Service. “They are just the very beginning, pie in the sky.”

Made into a channel for flood control from the late 1930s through the 1960s, the Los Angeles River is a dry cement trench for most of its 58-mile course from the western San Fernando Valley to Long Beach, except during the rainy season, when it can become a white-water storm sluice.

“In places like Tujunga Wash and Sepulveda Basin, where there’s room to play, there’s a huge potential,” Henderson said of the river. “The key is the flood plain is all developed, so you have to keep it in the channel. But there are a lot of opportunities to enhance it.”

Planners might start with the name, said Denis Schure, a graphic designer and board member of the Friends of the Los Angeles River.

“It’s a consciousness change,” Schure told a handful of residents during one of the work sessions. “To change the name from flood control channel to river--people will realize it’s actually a river.”