A Community in Search of a Reputation

Perhaps you’ve heard about the latest effort to redraw the map of the San Fernando Valley. Map making is, of course, the favorite pastime in the land where West Hills broke away from Canoga Park, where Sepulveda was reborn as North Hills, where Sherman Oaks expands and Van Nuys shrinks. To quote the philosopher Andre Agassi: “Image is everything.”

This latest map is a work of whimsy getting circulated by fax. “The San Fragmented Valley” features such towns as “Reseded,” “Calabashedus,” and “Slightly Further North Hollywood.” It offers as landmarks the “Northridge Crashin’ Center,” the “Faultbrook Mauled” and the “Rockendyne” plant. Its roadways include “Interquake 5,” “Devonsheared Boulevard” and “I Need a Plumber Street.”

And a new name for Winnetka is nowhere to be found.

Poor Winnetka. You are just so obscure, so anonymous. Even the San Fragmented Valley snubs you. And in the latest serious example of the Valley’s chronic identity crisis, you’re being abused by your own people. A group of southside Winnetkans who live in an area often confused with Canoga Park want their neighborhood to be annexed to Woodland Hills.

Got that?

Here’s a neighborhood that is dissing Winnetka and Canoga Park at the same time. These Woodland Hills wanna-bes can be found in a Neighborhood Watch area of 348 homes, bordered by Vanowen Street, Mason Avenue, Victory Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue (which is much better known than the community for which it was named.) This is a small portion of Winnetka as a whole, as defined by city planners and the 91306 ZIP code, roughly bounded by Victory on the south, DeSoto on the west, Nordhoff on the north and Corbin on the east.

It’s easy to understand why these southside Winnetkans often confused for Canoga Parkers desire to be nouveau Woodland Hillbillies. To quote the philosopher Fred Sands: “Location, location, location.”

Everybody knows what’s going on here. When that southern sliver of Van Nuys suddenly became the northern bank of Sherman Oaks, it helped property values. Similarly, a Woodland Hills address is more valuable than a Winnetka address. Or, given the confusion, a Canoga Park address. “Sure,” Melanie Teeter acknowledged to my colleague Jill Leovy. “You’d be stupid to say property values don’t play a role.”

Teeter is a leader of what might be called the “Winnetka, Ferget Ya” movement. Property values aren’t the only concern. A Woodland Hills moniker, they insist, will give them political muscle as well. Indeed, many of these south Winnetkans have joined the Woodland Hills Homeowners Assn., which is happy to expand its membership and sphere of influence.

Joining a homeowner group is one thing. But when these constituents approached Councilwoman Laura Chick with their petitions, she did not tell them what they wanted to hear.

The way Chick explains it, the Winnetka, Ferget Ya movement has its roots in the traffic, parking and trash headaches created by the annual July 4 celebration across the border in Woodland Hills. Winnetka homeowners sensed that Woodland Hills had solved similar problems because of its pull with the city.

Chick says she promised to help the neighborhood with the problems. But she opposes name changes.

“I understand the causes,” Chick says. “People are very frustrated that serious problems in neighborhoods aren’t being addressed.” Crime and graffiti are eroding the quality of life, Chick says.

“They seem to feel if they can disassociate their neighborhood with the negatives associated with the name, things will be better. But crime and graffiti and things like that don’t change by changing the name . . . Concentrating on that gets in the way of concentrating on the real work that needs to be done.”

She’s right, of course.

But the funny thing about Winnetka isn’t that it has a bad reputation. It’s more like it has no reputation at all. This community, originally subdivided and marketed in acre plots for poultry farmers, is a betwixt and between kind of place sandwiched by better known communities. Another problem is the name: “Winnetka . . . Isn’t that some town out in the Midwest?” Last summer, I dialed 411 and asked for the number for the Winnetka Chamber of Commerce. “There really isn’t a town called Winnetka,” the voice confidently insisted. “It’s just a street in Canoga Park.”

It took some doing, but I did track down the Winnetka Chamber, and spoke to some proud Winnetkans. Not to be patronizing, but some of the nicest people I’ve met in the past year live in Winnetka. Well, come to think of it, they live in north Winnetka.

In a recent letter to the South Winnetka Neighborhood Watch, Chick took care to praise the group for its good civic-minded deeds, such as the efforts to beautify the railroad right of way along Victory Boulevard. “Your group has undertaken tremendous efforts on behalf of the Winnetka community,” she pointed out. “I take great pride in the Winnetka name and Winnetka residents and I want to enhance Winnetka’s identity in the community, not chisel away at its borders.”

Enhancing Winnetka’s identity--now there’s a challenge.

Across the Valley in Arleta, homeowners erected a handsome “Welcome to Arleta” sign and have campaigned to get their old ZIP code back. Winnetkans, however, don’t seem the type to tout their community. They seem content with the town’s anonymity. Would anybody really put a “Where the heck is Winnetka?” bumper sticker on their car?

It almost makes you wonder whether Winnetka is obscure by design . . . as if they have something to hide . . . as if the FBI created an entire town for participants in the federal witness protection program.

Whatever happened to Al Capone’s accountant, anyway? You think maybe he became a chicken rancher in the Valley?