Meeting Planned to Help Make Area Safer

Representatives from more than 30 city agencies and community groups will meet at a North Hills church today to discuss how they can work together to make the community safer, officials said.

The North Hills Community Impact Team was formed last month when residents at a community meeting called in the wake of two recent northeast Valley shootings insisted that the city take a more active role in combating local gangs.

Among the discussion topics will be a proposal by Councilman Richard Alarcon that would restrict the movement and activities of gang members in some parts of the Valley, including Orion Street in North Hills. The city attorney is conducting a study to determine if such an injunction is warranted.

Although a recent police report indicates that the overall crime rate fell by 12% in Los Angeles County last year, homicides in the Valley during the same period rose by 12%. Much of that rise has been attributed to an increase in gang-related slayings, police said.

“In areas where there is a deterioration of the community we need to bring together all of the city’s resources to focus on these hot spots,” Alarcon said. “We want to create a real community mobilization effort.”

Steve Martinez, associate director of Communities in Schools, a nonprofit group that works to get teenagers out of gangs, said that the varied community resources represented on the Community Impact Team give it the potential to create programs that can improve the lives of North Hills residents.

“I think this is the right way to go,” Martinez said. “When you have different people from different groups talking to come up with solutions to poverty, crime and gangs, that’s always positive.”

Captain Vance Proctor of the L.A. Police Department’s Devonshire Division and representatives from the mayor’s and city attorney’s offices and other departments are expected to attend the meeting, Alarcon said. Community organizations invited to join the impact team include Communities In Schools, New Directions For Youth, resident and homeowner associations and parent groups from local schools.

The meeting, which is by invitation only, is at Our Lady of Peace Church.