Homeowners to Meet With MTA Official

Leonard Crenshaw stood in the middle of the grassy Chandler Boulevard median staring east at the Hollywood Freeway, toward the portion of the median that lately has been a source of controversy in Valley Village.

“Nobody wants over here to look like over there,” he said.

Over here, west of the freeway near Woodman Avenue, the wide median is covered in lush green grass, a strip of nature in between the paved roadway.

Over there, a couple of blocks west of the freeway and continuing past it to the east, the median turns to rock and cement, with overgrown weeds and debris.

Keeping the median, which is owned by the MTA, free of garbage has been the goal of Valley Village Homeowners Assn. president Lori Dinkin.

The latest news--that the MTA wants to construct a temporary storage facility on the median west of the freeway and in front of the homes on Chandler Boulevard--led Dinkin to schedule a special meeting next week with the MTA official in charge of projects on the median.

“It’s a chance for us to both sit down and come up with something fair for the community,” Dinkin said.

MTA officials did not return calls on Friday.

Recently, area residents were pleased to learn that the MTA planned to cleanup and landscape the median where it was needed.

But when the agency also announced plans to construct a temporary welding plant with a 16-foot sound wall on the site just east of the freeway, to prepare the area for the final phase of the Red Line subway, some residents were not so happy.

“We don’t need a big eyesore like that in our community,” said Dinkin.

As the saga of the Chandler median continues, Councilman Joel Wachs announced this week a proposal to streamline the city’s Adopt-A-Median program.

Although this program would not work in Chandler’s case because the MTA already owns the land, it would allow residents to maintain medians without the bureaucratic red tape that has bogged the process in the past.