NORTHRIDGE : Councilman Helps Demolish Dangerous Wall

Usually, neighbors in the San Fernando Valley love their back yard walls--those psychological barriers of concrete that erect a sense of privacy in urbanites living nearly cheek to cheek.

But on Monday, Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson took a sledgehammer to a wall dividing two Northridge neighbors.

Geyser Street neighbors Elaine Messerman and Anne McLean celebrated the destruction. The six-foot-wall had kept them on edge since the Northridge earthquake tilted it, endangering McLean’s brain-injured patients, who live on one side of the wall at Project Headway.

“They have been shut in, unable to go in the back yard,” said McLean of her six patients, adults who have suffered brain injuries.

“It’s so good that people can do something like this.”

McLean, director of Project Headway, said her nonprofit organization’s Northridge house sustained about $45,000 dollars in damage. Three other homes operated by Project Headway were damaged as well.

Because Project Headway is a nonprofit agency, McLean said she was unable to get any federal aid to repair the damage.

Messerman, a retired widow with a disability, was able to get about $10,000 in Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance but not enough to cover the $25,000 in damage to her home.

“I wrote a letter on my appeal to FEMA,” said Messerman. “They said I should send it to Channel 2.”

But Bernson didn’t need to see it on the television news to react to the neighbors’ problem.

“It’s a situation where these people really had no other place to go,” said Bernson, who was alerted to the dilemma when Messerman called his office.

Nevertheless, there were plenty of news media representatives buzzing about when Bernson, several members of his staff and a few members of the Los Angeles Church of Christ tore down the wall with sledgehammers in less than an hour, then carted the pieces away in wheelbarrows.

Bernson hopes to promote similar efforts in the future. He has submitted a motion to the Los Angeles City Council to authorize the California Conservation Corps to remove earthquake debris and perform other chores paid for by the federal government.

After all, Bernson said, he can’t do it all by himself.

“After about five swings, I’m ready for disability,” he said.