Dear Mr. Mayor:

The Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council values our stakeholders' safety and is committed to funding Emergency Preparedness supplies.
(Full text of the letter below)

August 24, 2015
Honorable Mayor of Los Angeles,
Mr. Eric Garcetti
200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
RE: Emergency Preparedness Bins—Lake Balboa
Mr. Mayor:
In 2002 the valley was threatening secession because we were not getting our fair share of return. Out of that came the Neighborhood Councils to help the city hear and act upon the concerns of each neighborhood. At the inception of the Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council (LBNC) came the Emergency Preparedness Committee (EP) from those who lived through the '94 earthquake and understood what the community needed. An entire year's budget of the LBNC was used to purchase two EP bins and provision them with materials needed by LAFD, LAPD, EMTs, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) trained citizens, etc. From that time to this the City of Los Angeles is "not hearing" LBNC. After 18 pages and two years' worth of email requests, we had great hopes in January 2015 at the Resilience By Design meeting in Northridge, when you promised to get us together with Mr. Feuer. To this date, more revolving doors. The City of Los Angeles is  not "allowing" the LBNC  to replenish the out of date materials and the purchase of additional bins by threat of freezing LBNC funds. This
defies my common sense.
When I took office as a board member and now as President of LBNC, I understood my role was to promote more citizen participation in government and make government more respon­sive to local needs. There is a local need for EP bins with 5,000 students at the Birmingham Complex. There is a local need for EP bins with 55,000 stakeholders in Lake Balboa. There is a local need for EP bins for employees of Anheuser-Busch and Van Nuys Airport. There is a local need for EP bins with a 90 bed senior facility on Victory. With this in mind we are requesting a common sense reason why LBNC is being road blocked. We would like to know why after many years of requests that LBNC has still not been given audience with our Mayor and our City Attor­ney on this issue. We want to know why this is such a hot liability to the City of Los Angeles when our sidewalks continue to threaten injury daily. We want to know why Lake Balboa stake­holders cannot prepare our community for disasters. This is so disheartening especially in light of Mr. Feuer being the author of AB83.
At the August 5, 2015 meeting of LBNC, the board voted funding for a third bin and the provi­sioning of expired items in the current bins with a room full of CERT trained stakeholders from nearby Neighborhood Councils, who have also been told NO.
Mr. Garcetti, we know this is not the most important item on your to do list but it is at the top of ours and the clock has been ticking for ten years. We are tired of politely waiting. What will you do to help us get back to the basics?
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the Lake Balboa stakeholders. Sincerely,
                                         
Linda Gravani, President
Cc: Mr. Mike Feuer, Ms. Connie Llanos, Mr. Darren Martinez, Mr. Max Reyes, Ms. Eileen Decker, Mr. Bill Haller