GIGA GRANADA HILLS

On Monday, the City of Los Angeles Budget and Finance Committee voted to cut neighborhood council budgets by half, from $45,000 a year to $22,500 a year, and voted to take away all the the councils' unused rollover funds. Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council President Dave Beauvais said via email of the proposed cuts, "We understand that the City is going through a financial crisis and that funding is tight, but the reality is that Neighborhood Councils are much more attuned to the needs of their respective communities and make much greater use of the modest funding we receive than a bunch of bureaucrats downtown." The City Council will vote on the Committee's recommendation on March 2nd.

Nonprofit Los Angeles Neighborhood Housing Services, Inc. (LANHS) is putting on a " Foreclosure Prevention Fair " at CSUN on Saturday, February 6. The event offers foreclosure counseling with major lenders, HUD certified counseling and legal counseling agencies on hand to assist you for free. Come prepared, bring all of your documentation including income documentation and two current pay stubs, tax returns and mortgage statement. So it's a "fair," huh? I wonder if they'll have funnel cake? more info

It snowed in Granada Hills today -- but only at campus of Granada Preschool. The school hosted a "Snow Day" for students, turning the front drive into a winter wonderland, complete with sledding, snow angels, and hot cocoa.

TODAY is Groundhog Day, and celebrity groundhog Punxatawney Phil's ceremonialized annual weather prediction will once again unfold in Punxatawney, Pa. How this particular groundhog was selected for the task is a mystery, but as the appointed spokesman (spokeshog?) for all of his fellow groundhogs - and perhaps by extension all wildlife - Phil and his clutch of top-hatted human handlers have been saddled with a greater responsibility in recent years. That is because a clear consensus within the scientific community has emerged over evidence that points to the earlier arrival of spring each year. Read the rest at DailyNews.com

The Daily News has a nice little photo spread on today's budget meetings discussing funding for the neighborhood councils, and boy do things look uppity. But check out this photo: http://dailynews.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27775472&event=935554&CategoryID=26369 Behind the ranting and raving Robert Cherno, in the upper right, is that Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council's own Sue DeVandry? You go girl! Reprazent for the GH!

Kim Thompson On Monday, February 1 at 1:00pm, the Los Angeles City Council will meet to consider budget cuts to neighborhood councils. Such move would impact our neighborhood local councils, Granada Hills North and Granada Hills South, and the councils are asking Granada Hills residents to attend the meeting in a show of support, or at least contact Councilman Greig Smith and other Budget and Finance Committee Members via email and let them know that you want neighborhood council funding to continue. I know what you're going to say next: "Why should I care? What does the Neighborhood Council even do, anyway?" I've actually wondered the same thing myself, so I talked to Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council co-founder Kim Thompson. Thompson is more than aware that the work of neighborhood councils is often invisible to the communities they serve. She gives me an example: "There is a three-story building proposed on the old North Valley Jewish Community Ce...