Feinstein, FEMA Director to Tour ‘Ghost Town’ Apartments : Recovery: Ravaged neighborhoods in Sherman Oaks and Sylmar targeted. City wants agency to pay for fencing and security measures at vacant buildings.

Hoping to secure additional financial relief, Los Angeles city officials will give Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Federal Emergency Management Agency Director James Lee Witt a first-hand look Sunday at quake-damaged “ghost towns” in the San Fernando Valley.

The tour of ravaged neighborhoods in Sherman Oaks and Sylmar is the latest effort by city officials to prod FEMA into paying for fencing, private guards and other security measures to keep squatters, vandals, scavengers and drug users out of vacant quake-damaged buildings.

A task force of city department heads has identified 13 so-called “ghost towns” in the Valley, Hollywood and the Mid-City areas where empty apartment buildings and condominiums have become a source of crime and blight.

Although Feinstein representatives and city officials say they have approached FEMA about providing the funding needed to provide security for the ghost towns, FEMA spokesman Morrie Goodman said Friday that no formal request has been made.

But he added that FEMA would consider paying such costs once such a request is made. “We will proceed with due diligence on any request,” Goodman said.

Feinstein representatives were optimistic that Witt’s visit will result in the approval of funding for the ghost towns.

“It’s the senator’s hope that this visit will provide an opportunity to come to an agreement between FEMA and the city on a solution to these ghost towns,” said Feinstein spokesman Bill Chandler. “FEMA wants to help.”

At the behest of Councilman Richard Alarcon, whose northeast Valley district includes two ghost towns, Witt agreed to investigate the problem while he is in town meeting with local FEMA officials about the earthquake recovery effort.

“The public safety of the community is at stake,” said Alarcon.

Witt and Feinstein will also visit quake-devastated San Fernando Elementary School to offer a way school officials can more quickly obtain funding to pay for quake repairs.

The emergence of ghost towns prompted city officials Tuesday to authorize police sweeps of vacant quake-damaged buildings. The buildings will be boarded up and patrolled by private security guards after the sweeps.

To pay for the effort, the task force identified about $240 million in local and federal money that was set aside for other uses, such as housing and community development. Some of the money will be used for loans to property owners who want to rebuild.

But city officials plan to ultimately pass the cost of the security measures on to the landowners unless FEMA is willing to step in and pay for such costs.

Witt is likely to make that decision after he drives through a cluster of vacant quake-damaged buildings on Hubbard Street in Sylmar and tours a ghost town on Colbath Avenue in Sherman Oaks.

But not everyone is happy with the locale of the visit. An aide for Councilwoman Laura Chick, whose West Valley district includes a ghost town in Reseda, was piqued that Witt and Feinstein will not visit that area.

“I’m perplexed that they would not come to visit a ghost town in the west San Fernando Valley, the epicenter of the quake,” said Chick field deputy Eric Rose.

An aide to Councilman Hal Bernson, whose northwest Valley district suffered most of the quake damage, echoed those sentiments.

“It’s very unfortunate that they don’t have the time to visit council district 12,” said Bernson aide Francine Oschin. “We have a lot of problems.”

But she added: “If something good comes from this, it will be good for all of us.”