Valley Glen Voice - Valley Glen Neighborhood Association

Valley Glen Voice
OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE VALLEY GLEN NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION
Volume 12, Issue 2
www.valleyglen.org
Spring 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
General Meeting
Your VGNA Board:
Carlos Ferreyra
President
Dean Abston
Vice President
Judy Bernstein
Secretary
Mickey Jannol
Treasurer
--------------Grid Reps:
Area A - Joel Rosenthal,
Judy Bernstein
Area B - Pat Lloyd
Area C - Janne Bissett, Peer
Ghent, Judy Price
Grid 1 - Rose Sevilla, Valli
Aman
Grid 2 - Seth Eskigian,
James Stack
Grid 3 - Linda Carreon, Regla Vera, Pam Vardanian
Grid 4 - Asta Criss, CoLee
Viedelle-Smith
Grid 5 - Carlos Ferreyra
Grid 6 - Allan Goldstein,
Paul Monoukian
Grid 7 - Mirna Pajuelo,
Emilia Trivisonno, Jan
Mathews
Grid 8 - Vacant
6:30 p.m. Meet and Greet (pizza and more) - Meeting starts at 7:00 p.m.
Erwin Street School Auditorium - 13400 Erwin Street
Raffle prizes include a $50 and two $25 Ralph's Cards.
- - - And just four days later - - -
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Annual Yard Sale
13422 Oxnard Street - 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Please clean out your garages and closets to help raise
funds for your Association.
If you have lots of items for the Yard
Sale, please call (818) 207-7178 for us to pick them up. We like clothes, tools,
children and pet toys, house wares, chachkis, nick-knacks and novelty items,
We cannot accept large appliances or furniture. Thank you very much for your
help to make this event a success.
From Your Editor Mickey Jannol —
Please come to our General Meeting this Tuesday June 18th. Sorry for the short notice but you get
pizza and other goodies like raffle prizes. Also, you may meet a new friend or
be inspired and empowered to make something in your neighborhood better.
In this issue, we take you around our Valley Glen Grids with a new restaurant
review. We give you some Valley Glen culture and public safety updates. You
will get some empowerment education on the Greater Valley Glen Council and
learn how you can get involved in the GVGC.
There is some good news to report from our last issue. June 2012 was indeed the bottom of
the Valley Glen housing market. Prices have risen 10-20% since then with minimal inventory
on the market. Most banks have held off selling their remaining properties believing better
prices will come. Wall Street funds have been buying up distressed and foreclosed houses
such that Wall Street represents 1 out of every 5 purchases. These funds are maintaining the
properties and renting them out with the expectation of price increases during 2014 and 2015.
A couple of notes. The City Bureau of Street Services is beginning street resurfacing work on
Burbank Blvd. between Whitsett and Fulton. The project involves cold milling the existing
street and then resurfacing it. The project will last up to 4 weeks and may disrupt traffic. Portions of Burbank will be closed for a short period during final resurfacing. Please call the Bureau at (818) 756-8651 for further information or if you require special accommodations.
Also, please mark your calendar for Sunday October 27, 2013. This is the date for your Association’s Annual Picnic. It will be held at Valley Glen Community Park. It’s a great family
event and it raises money for the Association’s Adopt-A-Family Program. My family and I
very much look forward to seeing you at our picnic.
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Valley Glen Voice
Volume 12, Issue 2
From Our President Carlos Ferreyra —
There is a lot of confusion among residents of
Valley Glen as to the difference between the Valley Glen Neighborhood Association and the Greater Valley
Glen Council. The Valley Glen Neighborhood Association is an independent organization which is the voice
of Valley Glen residents and works towards making Valley Glen a better, stronger community. We are open
to all residents of Valley Glen and work hand in hand with our city council representative staff and other
government entities to improve the quality of life in Valley Glen.
The Greater Valley Glen Council is part of the network of community councils mandated by the Los Angeles
City Charter and is a group of elected volunteers that are advisory to our City council representative and
other city entities on city issues that may affect the area they cover, which is Valley Glen and parts of North Hollywood. It
receives a budget from city coffers and all judiciary responsibilities that apply to public monies have to be met.
And speaking of budgets, one of our biggest fundraisers takes place Saturday, June 22, the annual VGNA yard sale! So clean
out those closets and garages, donate your old treasures, old bellbottoms
The Valley Glen Voice welcomes your articles
(disco is not coming back!), antiques, books, etc. and help keep the good work
of the VGNA going. Call (818) 207-7178 for pick up of your items, and remem- and letters addressed to VGNA, 13659 Victory Blvd.
# 283, Valley Glen, CA 91401. We reserve the right
ber, we cannot accept large appliances or furniture.
to refuse to print submissions and we edit. All rights
are reserved. Editor in Chief: Mickey Jannol
Around the Grids in Valley Glen
Valley Glen is a distinct recognized City within Los Angeles. We originated as
a neighborhood watch that grew to a City in 1997 and got freeway signs and
recognition by the U.S. Post Office in the mid-2000s. Our map appears to your
left and we divide our City into Grids A, B and C and 1 through 8. So without
further detail, here’s what’s going on in our Grids.
In Grid A, congratulations to members of the South of Valley Glen Park
neighborhood watch. An accident involving a big white pickup truck hitting a
red 2-door Honda resulted in the two drivers getting out of their cars and arguing. As this occurred, a passenger in the pickup starting emptying open beer
bottles in the gutters. Neighbors came out to object to the littering which
caused the passenger to take the beer bottles (in his backpack) and flee the
scene. The argument between the pickup truck driver and the Honda driver
escalated due to the pickup truck driver not wanting to exchange any information and his desire to drive away. However, the driver appeared to be impaired. 911 was called. LAPD Traffic Division arrived and decided to give the
driver of the pickup truck a field sobriety test. The driver had difficulty with
the test and volunteered to take a breath test which showed he had 0.19 blood
alcohol; well over the 0.08 limit. LAPD arrested the driver and thanked the neighbors for calling 911 as it kept a very drunk
driver off the road. As the LAPD Officer completed his report and wanted to confirm that this location was Van Nuys 91401,
several neighbors immediately corrected him and said, “No, this is Valley Glen 91401.” We take our name quite seriously.
In Grid C, at the northwest corner of Burbank and Fulton, we have a new
market called RIMON MARKET. The market opened in late April and is
located next to the Subway shop. The market is a Glatt Kosher market offering a variety of mid-eastern groceries. The market is an organic section, a
butcher and the New Orleans Kitchen that advertises New Orleans Kosher
dishes and sandwiches ranging from a basic pastrami sandwich to Creole
chicken, Gumbo and Jambalaya. The owners moved to the Valley from New
Orleans where they operated the Creole Kosher Kitchen in the French Quarter. RIMON MARKET at Burbank and Fulton
We will very much look forward to enjoying some New Orleans style
flavor. RIMON’s telephone number is (818) 909-7300.
In Grid B at the northeast corner of Oxnard and Woodman, Sofi
restaurant has opened, replacing the old Kyffin Pharmacy. Sofi is a
very well designed Mediterranean restaurant . Your Editor and his
wife Ellen had dinner there. For me, it was a tough decision between Moussaka, the Gnocchi and the Mahi-mahi (note the Mediterranean variety under one roof). However, Kristine, our maître d’
and manager, recommended the Mahi-mahi. It was most delightful.
Continued on page 3
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Valley Glen Voice
Volume 12, Issue 2
Around the Grids (continued from page 2)
This is Sofi’s second location. The original Sofi is located 8030 West 3rd Street near The Grove and
operates as a Greek restaurant. Sofi in Valley Glen offers a more Mediterranean flavor. You will like
the interior design and the spacious and luxurious feeling of the high ceiling with intricate crown
molding and the use of glass sliding doors to provide an open air feeling. Sofi serves breakfast, lunch
and dinner so make this your meeting place, place to be seen and reasonably affordable date night. It’s
a pleasure to see a little panache added to Valley Glen. You may call Sofi at (818) 779-1008.
And finally, to all Grids, thank you for making the March
23rd Strike Force event so successful. Over fifty of you showed up to help cleanse
our community of graffiti and abandoned rubbish. A special shout-out to Jean Sinatra of Grid 4 who organized this important event; to Councilmember
Paul Krekorian who was there to encourage our efforts; to his Field Deputy, Nikki
Ezhari who coordinated with City services for the actual pick-up/clean-up duties; to
our Van Nuys Police Department Senior Lead Officers Steven Underwood and John
Larsen, the Police Cadets who manned the phones at the Command Center and to all
of you who showed up on a Saturday morning to improve our community. Please
continue to follow up your efforts by calling 311 to report graffiti, bulky
items like furniture and appliances as well as abandoned rubbish.
Greater Valley Glen Council — GVGC Treasurer Carlos Ferreyra
As an elected group of volunteers, our primary mission is to be your
voice before city entities and work to help resolve the issues that you
bring to this Council. Later this year, we will be sending out a survey
asking what is important to you, the community, we will gather the
information and begin to work on addressing the problem areas.
We usually meet the first Monday of the month at Valley College in the Campus Center
building, Room 104. Our meetings start at 7:00 p.m. Please come and join in the discussion and think about becoming a member of the Council. While it is a volunteer
position, it is a rewarding one when you see the results of the work being done.
We look forward to hearing from you. Please navigate our website at www.gvgc.us
818.308.7212
The new signage at the northeast
corner of Burbank and Coldwater was funded by a portion of
the GVGC annual budget.
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Valley Glen Voice
Featured Valley Glen Authors and Artists
Murder Has a Memory
Longtime Valley Glen resident, Kathryn
Dawn O’Brien is the author of the Roberta
Law Mystery series. Set in Valley Glen, the
series follows adventures of hypnotherapist turned amateur sleuth, Roberta Law.
Murder Has a Memory was launched
in late 2011 and is available online through Amazon. In the
book, hypnotherapist, Roberta Law tries to solve a crime that
leads her into the reclusive world of a retired folk-rock icon,
Lori Taylor, whose recent reunion with her long lost daughter
may prove to be the source of something much more sinister.
Please
look up
Dawn O’Brien on her website at
www.robertalawmysteries.com
Goodbyes Before You’re Gone
This book is a tribute to those who are
fighting the battle against brain cancer.
Author Ellen Jannol contributes Chapter
10 to Allison Rios’ compendium of stories
of loved ones who faced unbearable odds
in the against brain cancer and the loved
ones who fought alongside them. This
chapter is about the late Joey Jannol, beloved son who passed away from brain
cancer in August 2011 at the age of 18.
Ellen is an avid reader with a passion and
a dream for writing and the UCLA Extension’s Writer Program was the catalyst for making that dream one step closer
to reality. Goodbyes Before You’re Gone is available on
Amazon and all proceeds go to the American Brain Tumor
Association. Ellen can be friended on Facebook or you can
email her at [email protected]
Learn Art and Piano from Linda Wehrli
Since 1989, Linda Wehrli's Pastimes for
a Lifetime, Inc. has inspired artists and
pianists of all ages for a lifetime or a career
of their own. Please look up her website
www.pastimes.com to view classes or
class packages in art and piano. Linda’s
studio is located 13615 Burbank, Unit B,
north side of Burbank in Grid C.
Linda has been drawing since the age of 5 and painting since
12. Her formal art instruction came from art professors at
California State University, Northridge and professional artists at their studios. Most recently, Linda hosted a reception
at Carter Sexton in North Hollywood that ran through June
7th. One hundred student art drawings and paintings from
Pastimes were on exhibit over Mother’s Day weekend. Students ages 5 to 84 years old displayed works in graphite,
charcoal, pastel, watercolor and acrylics.
Volume 12, Issue 2