SUN VALLEY : $250,000 Expected for Neighborhood

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon has pulled together a wide range of Sun Valley community leaders to run a neighborhood program that will use federal dollars to try to turn the community around.

The group is the last of eight similar committees that have been formed in neighborhoods across Los Angeles as part of a new neighborhood initiative program. The idea behind the program is to direct money from a variety of federal agencies into a small section of a neighborhood, hoping to make enough of an impact to affect the rest of the community.

“We’re talking about the potential of bringing a lot of money into Sun Valley,” said Alarcon, who admitted that he was at first skeptical of the program after seeing other attempts to organize communities that then did not get the financial backing they needed.

But Alarcon and other city officials are now enthusiastic about the project.

The city created the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative at the invitation of the federal government as a two-year demonstration project. The city applied for up to $80 million from four federal agencies in March, and the City Council allocated $115,000 to start a Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative organization.

The first federal funds--$2.3 million in transportation aid--are due in July. Of that, about $250,000 will be spent in Sun Valley for street improvements, tree planting, sidewalk upgrading, lighting and adding more visually appealing items such as kiosks.

The Sun Valley neighborhood committee of about 14 members will determine exactly what improvements will be made and how to spend the rest of the funds. They have been encouraged to get as much community input as possible.

In the first meeting of the Sun Valley group Wednesday night, new committee members and the public quizzed Alarcon and representatives of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative organization about how the project will work. One person asked if they will have to compete with the other seven neighborhoods for funding.

No, was the answer from Alarcon, explaining, “The only thing you have to do is spend the money.”

Eventually, Sun Valley is expected to receive as much as $10 million in federal funds, which will be spent in a small area near Sun Valley Park for programs such as home improvements, shuttle service and transportation, the retention of new business, the creation of new jobs and graffiti removal.

Although the neighborhood is small, “LANI (Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative) is the hub of the wheel and we are hoping the impact will spread out.”

“This has to be the best turnout, the best attended meeting,” said Jessica Stepner, coordinator of special projects in Mayor Richard Riordan’s office.