Panel Election Poses Test for CRA Project

A proposal to create the city’s largest redevelopment area in the northeast San Fernando Valley faces a major test this week when an election is held for 18 seats on a citizens advisory committee to oversee the project.

The Friday evening election for the Project Area Committee will help decide the fate of the proposal to spend $490 million over the next four decades to redevelop 6,835 acres.

Candidates who support the redevelopment program, including current committee Chairwoman Caron Caines, are competing against contenders who want the project killed, including Vice Chairman Jim Leahy.

“This election will make a difference,” said Leahy, who recently asked Councilman Alex Padilla to pull the plug on the project. Padilla, whose district includes the proposed project area, said he has agreed to attend a community meeting on the plan.

In the meantime, the councilman is supporting some candidates who favor redevelopment of the area, said David Gershwin, a spokesman.

The panel will play a key role in recommending to the Community Redevelopment Agency board and the City Council early next year whether to approve the redevelopment project.

“You need to have a Project Area Committee to help decide whether to move the project forward,” said Lillian Burkenheim, a CRA administrator. “This [election] is significant.”

Few people ran during the last election, and some who won later quit, leaving 12 of the 23 seats empty. Because a quorum of 12 is needed to conduct business, the panel has been unable to legally function for the last few months.

*

Only about 40 people voted in the 1997 election that created the Project Area Committee, officials said. So far, only 60 people have signed up to vote in Friday’s election at the Ritchie Valens Recreation Center in Pacoima, although voters can sign up until 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

“People tend to not come out for elections, period, from president on down,” Burkenheim said.

With the redevelopment project at risk if the election fails, many more candidates have registered to participate in Friday’s election.

So far, 36 candidates who registered by a Dec. 3 deadline have qualified to run, and six more are being reviewed for qualification.

Recognizing the importance of having a citizens panel elected by a large number of people from the community, Padilla spent Monday trying to drum up interest in the redevelopment project and the election.

“We really need to increase the number serving on the committee because we don’t have a quorum. We haven’t had a quorum in about a month and a half. Without a quorum the committee can’t function,” Padilla said.

*

Padilla conducted a tour of his district for the media to highlight blocks in Pacoima, Sun Valley and Sylmar that are blighted and, he believes, in dire need of the redevelopment agency’s ability to revitalize commercial and residential areas.

He pointed out vacant buildings plastered with graffiti and a desolate dirt lot adjacent to rundown houses in Pacoima. In Sun Valley, he focused on battered houses directly across from a landfill, and a lot with rusty old trailers surrounded by chickens and stray dogs.

“The sad thing is kids are living in there,” Padilla said.

In Sylmar, the tour went through an area of old motels converted into apartments, a spot that is notorious for prostitution, transients and drug activity.

“My vision is to upgrade housing in Sylmar, give Van Nuys Boulevard [in Pacoima] a face lift and maybe take out some of the shoddy bars and night clubs,” Padilla said.

*

Leahy said the larger field of candidates gives him hope that there will be more public participation in the committee’s recommendations on the project area.

He said that the project is too large and unfocused, and that the community redevelopment agency has not had a good enough record in other areas of the city to justify the proposal. He said having more candidates will make sure more people are involved in the final recommendation.

“It’s excellent that there are multiple candidates for the seats,” Leahy said. “I think the community has become more interested in what is being proposed.”

Voting will take place at the recreation center in Pacoima between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. on Friday.