Sun Valley Volunteers Adopt Streets in Cleanup Effort

Residents in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, long troubled by graffiti and litter, can adopt a neighborhood block and keep it clean in a new volunteer effort kicked off Thursday in Sun Valley.

The Adopt-a-Block program, the brainchild of Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, enlists residents who pledge to keep one section of roadway free of unsightly scrawls and trash.

The program is patterned loosely after the “Adopt-a-Highway” effort sponsored by Caltrans. That effort encourages private donations to fund the cleanup of area freeways. The graffiti-fighting neighborhoods, as in the Caltrans program, will sport roadside signs proclaiming their status as the wards of cleanup-minded residents.

“The purpose of the program is the same as the California highway program,” said Bernardi, who joined community groups in unveiling a roadside sign Thursday. “But in this case, the people themselves will do the cleaning.”

The first group to sign up was the North East Valley Residents Assn., which promised to monitor Laurel Canyon Boulevard around Cantara Street and a stretch of nearby Morella Avenue. The Sun Valley Neighborhood Watch organization has also gone on board, keeping a lookout around Sun Valley Junior High School in an area bounded by Sherman Way, Saticoy Street, and Tujunga and Vineland avenues.

“We’re going to change the name from ‘Sun Valley’ to ‘Beverly Hills of Sun Valley’ because it’s going to be so clean,” vowed Mary Bobek, 37, who spearheads the Neighborhood Watch group with her husband, Paul.

Her organization and others that join the effort will receive paint purchased with funds from Bernardi’s office and Operation Clean Sweep, a city-sponsored beautification effort. Arrangements will also be made for the groups to borrow sandblasters and other equipment from established anti-graffiti groups, such as the Sun Valley Graffiti Busters, Bernardi spokeswoman Shirley Walton said.

Bobek, a mother of two who has lived in Sun Valley for 17 years, said Adopt-a-Block duties will be incorporated into Neighborhood Watch, with residents patrolling the area on foot each day.

Block captains will make note of eyesores to be eliminated in a neighborhood that is “very high in crime, very high in debris and trash,” she said.

Bernardi said the program, which he hopes will expand to other parts of Los Angeles, will also deter street crime.

“Besides keeping the community clean, it will convince graffiti writers and other people who shouldn’t be in the neighborhood that, ‘hey, this is a neighborhood that’s on the watch,’ ” the veteran councilman said. He added that the effort will help “make it an unpleasant community for drug dealers or graffiti painters.”