A Wish List for 1999

As 1999 dawns, 1998 will be remembered as the year the San Fernando Valley found its political voice, recovered its economic footing and began taking strong strides toward the future. On many fronts, the dramas and squabbles begun in 1998 will play themselves out in 1999--and the outcomes will change the daily lives of residents from Sylmar to Woodland Hills. Our hope is that their lives change for the better. To that end, The Times reflects on key issues of the year past and looks forward to the year ahead.

Secession: Against all odds, Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment gathered more than 200,000 signatures on a petition demanding the separation of the Valley from Los Angeles. Although that’s what the petition asks for, the leaders of Valley VOTE insist that’s not what they want. Instead, they claim to want only a study examining whether such a split would be feasible. It’s an exercise in semantics. Who, after all, could oppose getting all the facts? But this drive is not about facts. It’s about secession.

The Times opposes secession, believing that the Valley and Los Angeles are linked in ways that cannot be measured. Both would be poorer after a split--culturally and spiritually, politically and financially. A municipal divorce could come only after excruciating court fights in which vast sums of public money would vanish into the pockets of consultants, lawyers and spin doctors.

All for what? There exists not one scrap of credible evidence that everyday people would notice any change in their daily lives. The Valley will not suddenly become some cozy, Midwestern town where all the streets are clean and safe and, to borrow the phrase, where all the children are above average. In fact, Valley residents may actually find themselves paying more for less. And they may be even further removed from their elected officials.

This is not to suggest that VOTE’s campaign is without merit. It has focused attention on charter reform and highlighted the myriad problems in City Hall. VOTE’s claims about government being out of touch with the people it purportedly serves are absolutely true. But rather than scrap one dysfunctional system and replace it with another, true reform can occur if everyday people want it to.

That means more than just signing a petition. It means voting. It means going to City Council meetings--which ought to be held more often in the Valley and in the evenings so regular working people can attend. It means telling elected officials where they screwed up. It means sometimes pitching in to make the city we all share a better place to live.

Yes, there ought to be a few divorces in 1999. First, the politicians who run--some say ruin--this town should divorce themselves from the notion that they are anything but public servants who owe their jobs not to lobbyists or rich cronies, but to the people who pay their salaries. But ordinary people must also divorce themselves from the notion that the problems Los Angeles faces belong to--or were caused by--someone else. Without that, no reform, no new city will create anything better than the mess we have.

Transportation: All of us know the feeling of sitting in traffic, going nowhere; or of waiting for a flight snowbound somewhere back East. Sometimes that feeling can easily describe the state of transportation improvements in the Valley. Although 1998 saw movement on key decisions regarding the interchange connecting the Ventura and San Diego freeways, the stalemate over expansion of Burbank Airport continues, as does the slow construction of the Red Line subway under North Hollywood.

Last month, state officials recommended spending $13.1 million for improvements at the interchange of the San Diego and Ventura freeways in an effort to ease gridlock at one of the Valley’s most critical crossroads. Improvements would include the widening of connector roads as well as the addition of a lane on the San Diego Freeway. As early as this month, the state Transportation Commission could take action on the project. Approving the expenditure and working with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to finance construction is the right road to follow to get the new year off to a free-flowing start.

Try as they might, the opposing sides in the dispute over expansion of Burbank Airport seem no closer to agreement than they were at the start of last year--despite a high-profile visit by Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey. Sometimes it seems that they are not trying very hard, instead preferring to dig in their heels and let the courts decide. Our wish is simple: That Burbank and its partner cities find a way in 1999 to build a terminal that is necessary not only for passenger comfort but for passenger safety. How? For starters, Burbank can drop its demand for an overnight curfew and work on concessions it can reasonably expect to win. Otherwise, 1999 will be another good year for the lawyers, but more of the same for everyone else.

For merchants in North Hollywood, 1999 holds the promise of being the final full year of construction on the Red Line subway--a project that promises huge benefits, but so far has only delivered economic hardship to many shopkeepers. When the stations in North Hollywood and Universal City open in 2000, the subway will offer a direct ride to Hollywood and downtown and give commuters a way to dodge the crush in the Cahuenga Pass. It will also deliver tourists staying south of the Santa Monicas to neighborhoods they may not otherwise explore. May 1999 be a safe year for the men and women who work deep underground, but may it also be a rewarding year--the first of many--for the small store owners who have borne the brunt of construction’s unpleasant side effects.

Education: Valley schools got better in 1998--or at least their students did better on the standardized benchmarks that seek to measure performance. Dropout rates fell in most districts across northern Los Angeles County, but there remain wide differences in the performance of students from different schools. El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, for instance, sends four times as many students on a percentage basis to UC schools as San Fernando High. The improvements are laudable but students, teachers and parents can do better in 1999.

As money from 1997’s Proposition BB began flowing to Valley schools, campuses in 1998 saw improvements from new gym floors to air-conditioning. These physical improvements create an environment more conducive to learning, but the Los Angeles Unified School District must also pay attention in 1999 to overcrowding that will plague high school campuses in the East Valley. Campuses such as North Hollywood are forecast to have more than 1,000 too few seats for students in 2006. That may seem like a long time off, but new schools take a long time to build.

In higher education, local community colleges tried in 1998 to shore up their finances. Pierce College, for instance, gave preliminary approval to plans for a golf course and new agricultural center on the school’s farm. Innovative ideas like that--ones that combine fiscal realities with educational ideals--deserve a close look by all cash-strapped schools in 1999.

Economic Development: No doubt about it: The Valley has bounced back from the recession that ravaged it in the early part of the decade. The housing market is hotter than at any time since the boom of the late 1980s. New projects--from Newhall Ranch to Porter Ranch--are springing up to meet increased levels of demand brought on by low interest rates and high employment rates. High-tech companies in the northwest Valley and entertainment companies in the southeast Valley are booming. Expansion of Universal Studios promises to bring even more tourists to the Valley.

But 1999 should be a year in which the effects of growth are tempered. Boom times are never shared equally, and pockets of the Valley remain racked with poverty. For those the boom has forgotten, rising home prices and dropping apartment vacancy rates are not such good news. Neither do neighbors of projects like the Universal expansion or the Newhall Ranch development welcome changes they fear will worsen their quality of life. Their perceptions are shaped by the 1980s, when some builders and developers squeezed profit out of communities without much regard for what was left.

As the cycle of growth continues, our hope for 1999 is that compromise, cooperation and compassion win out over greed and competition. Public officials must not lose sight of the importance of affordable housing and of the delicate balance between growth and neighborhood preservation.

Public Safety: Although one would never know it from watching the evening news, serious crime is down in the Valley--and across Southern California. Local police, who have done an excellent job of putting bad guys behind bars, ought now focus on so-called quality-of-life crimes, pesky invasions like vandalism or drivers who refuse to yield to pedestrians. These are the sort of urban annoyances that discourage walking or spending time out in the community.

Environment: Despite the purchase of critical parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Valley has a long way to go before it can be called an environmentally friendly place to live. The Santa Monicas deserve greater protection from development. Residents around Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory deserve to know more about the potential health risks caused by decades of secret testing at the site. And the few endangered steelhead trout that still make the run up Malibu Creek deserve the opportunity to try in 1999 to extend their trip to Topanga Canyon--as at least one of them did last year.

All of us who live in and love this region sometimes feel like those fish--struggling upstream against the current, maybe wondering what the point is. But like those fish, the Valley presses on stubbornly year after year, making progress and hoping for the best. May 1999 bring it for all.