DRY AT LAST: Summer starts today, marking...

DRY AT LAST: Summer starts today, marking the end of a very wet spring. Precipitation measured in Woodland Hills soared to 3.47 inches for the three-month period, way above the normal .15 inch. Summer should offer no surprises, though. WeatherData Inc. says the Valley will be the same old Valley: hot and dry. . . . “There will be nothing out of the ordinary,” predicts meteorologist Curtis Brack.

CHOPPERS: Encino homeowners are taking on the federal government. At issue: helicopter noise. . . . A group wants the Federal Aviation Administration to reconsider its rejection of a proposal to set a mandatory minimum altitude for helicopter flight over populated areas (B3).

NOW OR NEVER: Patricia Ireland, above, president of the National Organization for Women, will speak in the Valley Friday as local groups announce the formation of a new coalition to fight the 1995 Civil Rights Initiative. Ireland will appear at 11 a.m. near the West Valley Occupational Center and attend an evening workshop at CSUN. . . . She’ll try to cheer up activists who are “feeling the right wing’s pressure.”

SHE’S BACK: Liz Cheadle, former staff counsel to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, has been elected vice chair of the agency’s executive board. . . . Cheadle, 41, left the conservancy earlier this year to become dean of students at UCLA Law School, her alma mater.

FAMILY TIES: Computer training in the schools isn’t just for kids. At Walt Disney Elementary in Burbank, Mom and Dad can now receive lessons alongside their children. . . . Thanks to a bilingual after-school pilot program, parents can acquire much-needed skills (E3).

TONIGHT: Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Weaver faces George O’Mara at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills. Weaver, 44, figures that if fellow geriatrics George Foreman and Larry Holmes can do it, so can he (C6). “My daughter told me . . . that I was too old to be boxing,” he says. “I don’t feel that way.” . . . The eight-fight card begins at 7:30.