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Fire Insurance Update

Insurance Commissioner Poizner Announces Hearings to Examine Availability of Homeowners Insurance and Fair Plan Concerns in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. The hearing for the Sayre Fire victims will be held on August 19, 2009. Hearing Details.

Additional Fire Coverage to be Provided by AIG

An April 21, 2009 Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced that the California Department of Insurance (CDI) has secured additional coverage from AIG for Sayre Fire survivors in Sylmar. While CDI and AIG had different positions on how the policy should be interpreted, New Hampshire Insurance Company (an AIG company) agreed to offer its insureds the additional 110 percent or 125 percent of coverage being sought by the CDI. Details.

Insurers Not Paying Out

AIG, Hampshire Insurance, and York Insurance are still not paying for replacement homes for burned-out Oakridge Mobile Home Park residents.

According to sources at Oakridge and at the Sylmar Fire Purchasing Association, AIG and its local adjusters have been rejecting all replacement estimates and refusing to help the Oakridge residents with AIG/Hampshire policies purchase replacement manufactured homes. Reliable sources, who have asked to remain anonymous, have cited numerous instances of the insurance company allegedly (and illegally) "steering" policyholders to dealers and manufacturers of lower cost and lower quality homes, and even in those cases refusing to pay the claims as being too expensive, even when the claim is tens of thousand of dollars under the policy limit. Combined with the recent announcement by Oakridge Park management that no replacement homes can be installed until every utility is fully restored, it could be an additional 45-60 days delay for rebuilding residents to return to life in their old community. Government officials have scheduled a tentative August 19th meeting to address the continuing insurance issues.

Another troubling aspect of the insurance company's refusal to pay policy claims is that most of the policies define limits on living expenses, personal property, and debris cleanup as a percentage of the amount spent to replace the home. So if the insurance adjuster can get the policyholder to settle for $50,000 less than the actual replacement cost of the home, the policyholder receives less reimbursement for their other expenses, and must spend more out of pocket. With homeowners displaced for more than 7 months now, every dollar of living expenses must be stretched to the limit, and with the insurance companies dragging their feet, the situation is beyond what many residents can bear.

SNC Awarded Council of the Year!

L-R: Martin Laufer, Minutes Expert David Levine, Tammy Flores, Jim Schopper, Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes, Quyen Vo-Ramirez, Hiral Bhakta, City Councilman Richard Alarcon, Rick Donnelly, DONE General Manager BongHwan Kim

This year the Valley Regional Congress conducted awards in various categories and the Sylmar Neighborhood Council won the award for Council of the Year. Awards were voted on by Neighborhood Council Board Members across the valley using an online survey. View all the winners. Congratulations to the SNC for a job well done!

View video of BongHwan Kim, General Manager of DONE and his comments about the future of Neighborhood Councils.

New Elementary School For Sylmar

An image of the new school planned for Sylmar was recently released by LAUSD. The school is planned to serve 750 elementary students in 30 classrooms and 297 middle school students in 11 classrooms. The preferred location current has eight houses on it. Current project documentation. (96 page PDF document.) Project Fact Sheet.

See the project information on the LAUSD Facilities Site. For more information about the project call, Rudy Cancinos, LAUSD Community Outreach, 213-893-6820.

SNC Appreciation Day a Grand Success

More than 600 people were served at the March 28, 2009 Community Appreciation Day, including the Mayor, Councilmen Alarcon and Weiss, and Senator Padilla. Many thanks go to Lynn Zekanis and her family for all the effort put into food preparation to make this event a great success. Photos provided by Voila Photography.

Fabulous BBQ	Memo greets arrivees.	Free trees
Youth activities	SNC President Quyen Vo-Ramirez begins the awards	SNC Directors with Councilman Alarcon
Mayor Villaraigosa thanks Director Tammy Flores	Director Rick Donnelly presents an award	Many thanks for a job well done
Thanks to the youth for helping in the evacuation center	Directors Nick Krall and Memo Reyes present an award	SNC Director Jeanne Rowe

View the complete photo gallery at Voila Photography

Board Opening

There is an opening on the SNC Board for 2 directors. If you are interested please come to the next meeting.

City Budget & Finance Committee Proposes Reducing NC Budgets by 78%

Neighborhood Councils were given quite a scare in early May when the City's Budget Committee recommended reducing NC budgets from $50,000 to $11,200. This was in sharp contrast to the Mayor's recommendation of a reduction to $45,000.

NC boardmembers and stakeholders across the city flooded their councilman's office with emails and calls because $11,200 is not enough of a budget for NCs to conduct meetings or outreach much less any neighborhood improvements. As a result the City Council voted to reduce NC budgets by the Mayor's recommended amount to $45,000. Read about it at CityWatchLA

Community Prayer Service and Lunch for Fire Victims: March 7

Friends:
I want to thank all who participated in the Community Prayer Service and Lunch held Saturday March 7th at Los Angeles Lutheran High School for the survivors of the fall 2008 Sesnon, Marek and Sayre fires.
Several Churches, Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council, Sylmar Neighborhood Council, Los Angeles City and County Offices supported the efforts of the outreach. We wanted to have a time of prayer and let everyone know we still care about them and certainly hope they get all the help they need to recover their losses.

Special thanks to Chief Chaplain of LAPD Ken Crawford, Captain William Scott LAPD Mission Station, Councilman Richard Alarcon CD#7 Office and the many Pastors from the Community for their comments.

My job was to coordinate the volunteers and we had more then we needed which of course (many hands make the load light) made my job easy. THANK YOU volunteers you guys ROCK!!!! I also had the unexpected pleasure of meeting 10 volunteers from Olive View Medical center. I also want to thank the local businesses that helped us with the lunch. I certainly hope to work with you all again.

God Bless,

Jim Schopper
Co-Chair Public Services Committee
Sylmar Neighborhood Council

City Picks Up the Fire Clean Up Tab

Council Member Alarcón is very concerned that two months after the fire, the debris has not yet been cleared up. He wants the work to begin as soon as possible but only with your permission.

January 21, 2009, Council Member Richard Alarcón was successful in getting the City of Los Angeles to be responsible for the clean up. You will have two options. If you hire your own contractor, you will have to deal with the City and State regarding your permits and plans. However, the City is prepared to clean your site, for you, with your permission, and you will not have to pay for this clean up. The City will contact you soon with details.

If you have any questions, please call Council Member Richard Alarcón’s Sylmar office at 818-756-8048.

Emergency Management Dept Bulletin about Oakridge Recovery - February 4, 2009
Health and Hazard Advisory

COMMON QUESTIONS

Who has the legal responsibility to clean up the site and remove the debris?
• Homeowners for their individual site and the park owner for the common areas (streets, community center, etc.)

Why is the City doing the work?
• Because it has been two months since the fire and nothing has been done.

Shouldn’t the park owner clean up the entire site?
• The park owner is only responsible for cleaning up the common areas like streets, community house
• The park owner could do the work but would have to get individual permission from each homeowner for the homeowner’s site. The park owner but was unable to get the permits

Will the City take my insurance money to pay for the costs?
• No, the City will front the money and seek reimbursement from the federal (FEMA) and state (OES) governments. The City will not ask for any insurance money unless your policy explicitly sets aside money for debris removal and will not allow that money to be used for any other purpose such as living expenses.

Will FEMA take my insurance money to pay for its costs for reimbursing the City for debris removal and clean up?
• We understand that the FEMA “offset” is limited to $500.00 but we are verifying the information.