TUJUNGA : Officials, Businesses to Fight Local Problems

With creeping blight an increasing problem, residents and business owners along and near Commerce Avenue in Tujunga took a step Thursday toward taking back their neighborhood from drug dealers, troublemakers and apathetic landlords.

City Councilman Joel Wachs, Los Angeles Police Department officers and business owners announced that they will work as a team to more efficiently battle community problems in an area bounded by Hillhaven Avenue on the west, Apperson Street on the north, Silverton Avenue on the east and Foothill Boulevard on the south.

Wachs and others made their comments at an afternoon press conference in Little Landers Park.

As members of the Community Impact Team, representatives from the LAPD, the community, the city building department, the Los Angeles County health department and the offices of Wachs and state Assemblyman Bill Hoge (R-Pasadena) will meet regularly to coordinate their efforts in combatting community problems.

“It’s a constant communication,” Wachs said. “It’s each holding each other up to do their part.”

As Wachs spoke, children played on the park’s neatly trimmed lawn and new-looking playground equipment, drawing a stark contrast to the drug-dealing that police say goes on in the area, mostly inside homes. But boarded-up storefronts on Commerce Avenue just north of Foothill Boulevard were suggestive of the neighborhood’s lingering problems.

In the past, enforcers of the area’s criminal, building safety and health codes dealt with problems in isolation and often in reaction to residents’ complaints. Now, team members said, they will combine their efforts and take a more active role.

“We’re going to be turning over the rocks and looking for the problems, engaging the community and getting information from the community,” said Bill Wakeland, an aide to Wachs.

Wakeland said the neighborhood was chosen because more crimes are reported there than in any other Sunland-Tujunga neighborhood. The most prevalent crimes are car theft, auto break-ins, burglaries and drug sales, said the LAPD’s Jay E. Phillips, senior lead officer for the neighborhood.

Phillips said he got the idea for the team from a federally funded LAPD program under which police have worked with deputy city attorneys and building inspectors to revitalize other city neighborhoods. Phillips communicated his concept to Wachs through Wakeland, and Wachs was receptive to the idea, Phillips said.

Pam Myers, a business owner in the area, said she believes the success of the program will depend on the active participation of merchants and residents.

“The individuals who live here have to stand up and fight for their rights,” she said.