150 Turn Out for a Special Council Meeting in Valley

Valley residents got a firsthand view of the workings of City Hall on Wednesday night when the City Council held a special meeting at the Encino Community Center in an effort to make government more accessible.

More than 150 people turned out to hear their neighbors testify on secession, management at the Encino/Balboa Golf Course and the irritation at being awoken before dawn by helicopters from Van Nuys Airport.

They got to watch the council haggle over a bill of several thousand dollars a contractor had submitted to the city to pay for trips to City Hall to get building permits. They saw council members clamor in support of reforms in the sewer billing system.

The 1 1/2-hour meeting got a late start as city officials waited nervously for enough council members to arrive to make a quorum. In the end, 10 of the 15 council members showed up and the meeting got underway.

The council’s light agenda included one issue of special interest to Valley residents--Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski’s motion to look into a joint powers authority to oversee the Van Nuys Civic Center.

By combining the efforts of the state, county and federal agencies that use the center, services there could be improved, Miscikowski said.

That motion passed, as did a proposal to direct the city attorney to draft a more restrictive ordinance governing adult entertainment businesses.

“There are certain loopholes now in the law. This is a motion to close those loopholes,” Miscikowski said. The motion broadens the definition of adult entertainment establishments in the city code.

The city now regulates businesses defined as adult entertainment arcades, bookstores, cabarets, motels, movie houses and live theaters, among others. Miscikowski’s motion would add the term “and other related uses” to the code.

Miscikowski has said the changes would help the city regulate newer incarnations of adult entertainment businesses, such as lingerie modeling.

The motion also seeks to require a conditional-use permit for the operation of any new adult businesses proposed near a religious institution, school or public park. It would also require conditional-use permits for those within 1,000 feet from other sexually oriented adult businesses, instead of the current 500-foot setback.