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
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.
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.
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SNC Regular Monthly
Meeting Schedule
Public Services: First Monday of the month at 6:30p at SNC office.
Land Use Committee: Second Monday of the month at 6:30p at SNC
office.
Outreach Committee: Second Tuesday of the month at 6:30p at SNC office.
Board of Directors Meeting: Fourth Thursday of the month at 6:30p at
school.