A Ball of String and Spirit

Talk about neighborhood empowerment. One of the best examples in recent years of can-do cooperation between city officials and neighborhood residents can be seen in a resurrected circular median in a Van Nuys neighborhood.

The original circle, at the crossing of Katherine Avenue and Archwood Street, was paved over years ago, for reasons no one can remember. The resulting unusually large intersection became a magnet for trucks, which used it as a turnaround, belching diesel fumes and creating a racket in the otherwise quiet neighborhood.

When residents learned that the city planned to resurface the street anyway, they called City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski and, armed with old photographs of the once lushly landscaped traffic circle, asked if the median could be rebuilt.

It could, and was--in a record three months.

That something got done--and quickly--is only one of the happy surprises in this can-do saga.

The landscaped median was built out of the regular street repaving budget and required no extra funds. This was due in large part to the ingenuity of a Bureau of Street Services official who showed up with a ball of string and a tape measure and designed a curb, saving the bureau three months’ work by an engineer.

A city landscaping supervisor came up with leftover plantings from other city projects to landscape the circle with sycamore trees, nandina shrubs, African lilies and trailing pink geraniums.

Sure, it’s a simple little median, not a grand park. But already it’s sparked other improvements in this neighborhood of modest homes, like freshly painted houses and newly planted flower beds. And it ties in nicely with other city efforts, from the Van Nuys Targeted Neighborhood Initiative, which receives federal funds for public improvement and beautification, to a new citywide emphasis on slowing down traffic through neighborhoods.

But most of all it instills pride and motivates residents and city officials alike to do more, which is a pretty good definition of empowerment.