Architect Kara Hill details her role as lead designer of the Valley Performing Arts Center at California State University Northridge; Paul Laverack / El Nuevo Sol.

Kara Hill, the architect and lead project designer for the Valley Performing Arts Center (VPAC), shares insights into the history of large performance spaces; she also details many of the personal and group decisions that influenced the construction of the VPAC, which opened in 2011 on the campus of California State University Northridge.

Ms. Hill appears on Friday, November 17, 2011 in the Kurland Lecture Hall (which she designed) as the inaugural speaker in CSUN’s Commerce of Creativity Distinguished Speakers Series sponsored by the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication.

Following her lecture, Ms. Hill takes questions from the audience, and she is joined by Robert Bucker, Dean of the Mike Curb College, who was present throughout the development of the new performance hall.

Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti shares his personal experience with "the long-term cost of living cheaply in the short term." Paul Laverack / El Nuevo Sol.

This is a short series of videos, showcasing several speakers at the “RePower LA” community meeting, at Pacoima Community Center on Saturday, November 5, 2011. “RePower LA” is a coalition of civil society organizations dedicated to creating green jobs in Los Angeles, by using public policy to move the city toward sustainable energy.

Ricardo De Los Santos discusses his work weatherizing low-income homes as part of the Utility Pre-Craft Trainee position created by the Los Angeles DWP and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

“With the help of the union, and the DWP, I got this opportunity,” De Los Santos says. “I’m working with a great company with great benefits.”

The benefits are not only for him, however. “This program has been very helpful for me, for my colleagues, and for the customers. They’re very happy with the stuff we do. It helps them out in the long run, as far as having cheaper bills. We’re hoping we can continue doing this.”

Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti shares his personal experience with “the long-term cost of living cheaply in the short term,” discussing his family’s battles with cancer which related to their living near freeways as he was growing up. He points out that what seems cheap today, as leaded gasoline did in those days, often comes with hidden costs to our families and communities, which become tragically clear years later.

Garcetti is upbeat about the prospects for RePower LA. Due to solutions like theirs, Garcetti says, “We will be living not only more inexpensively, but also healthier, longer lives.”

Kent Minault, volunteer coordinator for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Los Angeles, discusses several aspects of the city’s present coal-power situation.

Minault examines the reasons behind the recent spike in coal prices, and the proven efficiency-enhancing methods which could make it possible to get off coal in the near term. “Energy efficiency,” Minault says, “is the most important source of energy we’ve got!”

Minault points out the difference between energy conservation and energy efficiency, calling our buildings made in the past seventy years or so “energy stupid.”

Minault closes by naming current legislative initiatives which he thinks are essential to moving forward with green energy innovation, and he emphasizes to the attendees the importance of expressing their wishes to their elected representatives. “They need to know we have their backs.”

Finally, appearing below are the full remarks of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power general manager Ron Nichols. The Los Angeles DWP is the largest publicly-owned utility in the United States.

Nichols talks about the changing priorities at DWP, away from what costs the least in the short run, to what will cost the city the least in the longer term. He repeatedly discusses increasing investment in energy efficiency, which he calls the number one job creator locally, for the DWP.

He admits that the DWP has been slow in the past to invest in such programs as the current Utility Pre-Craft Trainee – he explains the reasons why investor-owned utilities have historically been faster to invest in similar efforts – though he stresses that DWP is taking a different approach now. “We are making a huge change.”

A theme running through Nichols’s remarks is the DWP’s need to have a budget sufficient to creating energy-efficiency programs. While these programs, like the Utility Craft Pre-Trainee, will create long-term benefits, there are short-term costs to implementing them. Nichols never states this outright, but as he explains where the DWP budget comes from, it becomes clear that electricity rates will have to go up.

Nichols provides an example of how pricing can be used to incentivize behavior. He implies that higher night-time rates can be used as one inducement to encourage businesses to cut back on their overnight lighting usage. He is quick to add, however, that more efficient equipment is another element in that solution.

During earlier remarks at the same event, the LA City Council president cautioned residents to be less concerned with their rates than with the bottom line cost of their bills. Both Garcetti and Nichols recognize that the per-unit cost of electricity is likely to rise as the department mounts ambitious plans toward sustainability.

However, the overall cost of energy to the consumers can still drop dramatically – as residents use less. Nichols explains that the DWP has a mandate to reach 10% savings from efficiency by the year 2020, while the Sierra Club’s Kent Minault cites a Los Angeles study which found savings as high as 40% are feasible.

The tension between rising per-unit cost and falling overall prices is the tightrope walk that Nichols needs to balance successfully if Los Angeles is going to move toward greener, more sustainable energy in the future. “To fund more programs like the Pre-Craft Trainee,” Nichols points out, “we need to get some additional budget.”

Nichols is emphatic, “I want to make clear to everyone in this room – LA DWP wants to put more money into these programs. It is our number one priority.”

Nichols closes by stressing the need for concerned citizens to push their elected officials to make the right moves. “They need cover,” Nichols says. “They need to know their constituents want this.”

In this interview taped September 24, 2011 at Branford Park in Pacoima, California, Kent Minault – the volunteer coordinator for the San Fernando Valley portion of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Los Angeles campaign – describes the goals of the campaign in detail. Minault discusses the economic benefits of moving LA away from coal as an energy source, the steps to increasing our energy efficiency, and the rise of the Beyond Coal movement, a volunteer-driven effort that is gaining momentum across the city.

The San Fernando Valley (SFV) came into existence when the former governor of California Leland Stanford made a deal with Senator Charles Maclay. Stanford said he would put a railroad across the San Fernando Valley if Maclay would build a town there and by 1874, people started to come.

Midge Gisel, former president of the Historical Society of the SFV, said the progression of the valley happened in five steps.

“First it was the buffalo to help the Indians, then it was the Spanish that brought in the sheep, the Mexicans that brought in the long horn steers, the Europeans brought in the wheat and now we have condominiums,” Gisel said.

Originally the SFV was inhabited by Native Americans, Tongva and Chuman specifically, according to “The Changing Face of the San Fernando Valley” by Joel Kotkin and Erika Ozuna.

By 1800, Spanish settlers overtook the land and the Native American population had been reduced ninety-five percent because of diseases, killings by soldiers, rape and intermarriage.

Gisel said the SFV has always had a largely Hispanic or Mexican population.

“The word Hispanic was never used though, truthfully it was Latin or Mexican or Spanish, but the word Hispanic was not used,” Gisel added. “I’m half Portuguese and if you look in the dictionary that’s actually considered Hispanic too and there were a lot of Portuguese people living in California. They migrated a lot in the early days here.”

Gisel said the ownership of the valley was really between the families of Lankershim and Van Nuys, who were pioneers of the San Fernando Valley.

Isaac Lankershim and Isaac Van Nuys purchased the southern half of the San Fernando Valley and planted wheat, Gisel said.

They were very successful at growing the crop and they earned the name of “The Wheat Kings of the World” because they shipped all over the United States, she added. This was the beginning of the agriculture of the valley.

“Before we had flood control, the valley flooded terribly, just terribly,” Gisel said. “As a native Californian in this area, I would say flood control is really what caused the valley to grow because until they had control of that it was mostly agriculture.”

The Hispanic population that had occupied the SFV was dominated by new European settlers in the 1900s, stated “The Changing Face of the San Fernando Valley.”

According to the 1920 census, just over 21,000 people were in the valley. The city of San Fernando had the highest population at 3,204 people. Burbank had the second highest population at 2, 913 people.

The valley was the fastest growing urban area in the nation, with over 400,000 people by the late 1940s, according to “The Changing Face of the San Fernando Valley.”

“By 1950, Anglos counted for at least ninety percent of the total population,” said Kotkin and Ozuna.

Eugene Turner, geography professor, said chain migration is what caused people to move to another state or area.

“You go to where you have friends or family,” Turner said.

Gisel said her grandparents came to the SFV when their old neighbors, the Warner brothers, wrote them a letter and asked them to move to the valley with them.

Turner added that most of the growth of Latinos in the valley is from births and foreign domestication.

The SFV Economic Research Center at CSUN shows the huge shift in racial demographics from 1980-2004.

According to the SFV Economic Research Center, the white population started with about 940,000 in 1980 and went down to about 780,000 in 2004. The Hispanic population, however, started from about 230,000 and grew to about 770,000 in 2004.

“In the last decade, Hispanics have just passed whites as the most predominant group,” Turner said.

The census states that Hispanics now make up 42% of the population in the SFV, while whites are currently at 41% of the SFV population.

The diversity of the specific cities in the San Fernando Valley varies greatly according to the LA Times Mapping L.A.

Mapping L.A. shows that the most diverse neighborhood is Winnetka, and the least diverse neighborhood is San Fernando, where 89.5% of the population is Latino.

Turner said some of the movement has to do with urban development and other things like that.

“We did a paper on ethnic diversity and the area around Cerritos was the most ethnically diverse in the United States back in the 1980 census,” Turner said. “It’s sort of on the fringe between the suburbs and the central parts of the city. The areas that are low diversity would be east LA, which is all Mexican or Hispanic. The Santa Monica Mountains is all white and southern Orange County is mostly all white.

Gisel said there always was a large Asian population in the valley until World War II.

“I see more of an Asian population coming back all the time in the area,” Gisel said. “The city of San Fernando has changed more. The workers there were actually Latin but they had a largely European population, like people from Sweden and other areas.”

Gisel also said she noticed that the Latin population has gone from agriculture into business.  She added that more people are coming in from Iran and different Eastern countries now that didn’t happen years ago.

Timeline of the population of the San Fernando Valley over the years: San Fernando Valley on Dipity.

San Fernando Valley Demographics

Entrepreneur Patricia Gracia is opening a woman-owned business incubator in Santa Clarita as a way to help other Latinas follow in her footsteps.

Gracia shows off one of her company's recent outdoor media campaigns. Linda Coburn/El Nuevo Sol

By LINDA COBURN
EL NUEVO SOL

Back in 1987, an 18-year-old girl made her way up to Tijuana from Peru and crossed the U.S. border in search of economic freedom. Today, Patricia Gracia is an award-winning entrepreneur and a U.S. citizen who is starting a business incubator so other Latinas in the Santa Clarita Valley can be supported in pursuing their own opportunities.

The Power Women Business Center will open its doors in December on the bottom floor of the two-story building that houses Power Media Group, the company Gracia founded seven years ago.

“We bought the building last year during the recession,” said Gracia. “It was the best time to do that, and it’s also the best time to start a new business.”

Gracia’s experience trying to run a business from home was the impetus for the incubator. In 2001, she left her job working at Cruz/Kravetz Ideas, an advertising agency in Burbank with the goal of being her own boss. She installed a computer, fax machine and telephone in the soon-to-be nursery in her home. Yes, Gracia was pregnant with her first child at the time.

“I know how difficult it is when you’re doing business from home,” said Gracia. “There are always interruptions. We are not behaving the same way as when we are working from an office.”

Gracia also knows that women and Latinos are among the fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs. Data to support that comes from the U.S. Census Bureau which, in addition to conducting decennial surveys of population in the U.S., like the Census 2010 which will take place next year, also collects statistics on businesses owned and operated by minorities and women. These are collected by the U.S. Census Bureau every five years through a special survey of business owners.

The most recent business ownership survey was done back in 2007 but the Census Bureau will not be releasing that data until halfway through 2010 so we have to look back to 2002 to find that women owned more than half of all Hispanic-owned businesses. In all, the Census Bureau reports, Hispanic-owned companies employed 1.5 million people and were responsible for more than $6.2 billion in payroll annually.

The Los Angeles region is home to one of the highest concentrations of Latino-owned businesses. Groups like the Latin Business Association and the National Latina Business Women Association have robust memberships.

Patricia Gracia, founder of Power Media Group and the new Power Women Business Center. Linda Coburn/El Nuevo Sol

Gracia’s incubator will join several others in the region, like the Women’s Business Center hosted by the San Fernando Valley Economic Development Center.

In the last 12 months, the VEDC’s Women’s Business Center has counseled 322 clients about starting a new business or improving their existing enterprise, said Marlen Bello, associate director. In that same time, 35 new businesses were started, creating 42 jobs.

“These people are very motivated,” said Bello about graduates of the center’s most recent entrepreneurial training program. “Most of them have full-time jobs and families and they still come here for three hours one night a week.”

Bello’s organization receives funding from a variety of sources including the Internal Revenue Service, the California Employment Development Department, and the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley.

The money to fund the Power Women Business Center is coming from Gracia’s own pocket, something she can afford to do because Power Media Group, which focuses on developing advertising campaigns for companies wanting to target the Latino market, has continued to see growth even in the current economic downturn.

Twenty rose-colored cubicles fill a wide open room. Each will have its own telephone and computer. Her clients, as she calls them, will also be able to use the physical address of the center to receive mail and will have access to a copier, fax machine, conference room, lunch room and kitchen, and even a recording studio.

Entrepreneurs will choose one of three levels of service for which they will pay between $250 a month and $750 a month.

Although the incubator is not intended to be a profit center, having clients pay a nominal amount for the services they receive is a matter of principal for Gracia.

“You have to charge,” she said emphatically. “When we have free items, we don’t appreciate them. But when you pay even a dollar, you appreciate it.”

Patricia Gracia came to the US from Peru at the age of 18 with big dreams and became a successful entrepreneur with her own advertising agency. In this video she tells her inspiring story of making it in America.

Giovanni Chavira, Pierce College Business major, 19, plays dominoes at ONE generation daycare center in Van Nuys.

By HARRIET MIRANDA

It is fair to say that diversity is largely embraced by Americans due to the hundreds of years of migration of peoples of all backgrounds since its foundation. As American culture becomes saturated with influences from all ethnic backgrounds, society as its been known is changing in a rapid and drastic way. While most people would consider this an example of progress and that change is good, a recent study by Harvard professor Robert Putnam in 2007 said that “The declining civic participation in American societies can be attributed to widespread mistrust in communities due to so much diversity…” he went on to say that because of this there is a decline in civic participation and that people are less likely to participate in group activities, voting, and even elections.

The neighborhood of Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley is a staple of the melting pot communities in modern society. Demographic information for the San Fernando Valley Economic center in 2006 shows that in Van Nuys and Reseda combined there are 41.2% Caucasian, 10.1% Asian, 4.4% Black, and 57.8% are Latino.

Despite its diversity, Van Nuys volunteer organizations seem to be proving Putnam’s findings wrong with the many volunteer organizations in the city and the wide range of services they provide for people of all ages. One of the organizations I found is The Volunteer League of the San Fernando Valley. Established over 50 years ago, it now has three main programs geared toward helping out local children and also senior citizens.

“Our main project is Clothes Corner,” said Betty Koondel, vice president of the league, in a telephone interview. “We clothe children from LAUSD, needy children referred by the principal, a social worker or the school nurse.” Koondel, a retired teacher who worked for LAUSD for 35 years, said the children are able to come in and choose a brand new school outfit, “We clothe them with a uniform, a polo shirt and a pair of navy blue pants or a skort for girls, socks, underwear, and toiletries, a backpack, we also give them a sweat outfit jacket and pants. The children also get a brand new pair of athletic shoes, a book and a toy,” said Koondel. Since last September the organization has clothed 1,742 children.

The other two projects are Kids on the Block, an educational puppet program designed to teach youngsters about disabilities. The last project they have is a choral music group called The Troopers, “They go to different convalescent homes and assisted care facilities and sing songs and holiday songs to the elderly,” said Koondel. “It really gives a wonderful feeling to the elderly.”

The league consists of 25 members who put together fundraising events to keep the programs running. The members are all women and come from different backgrounds. “Quite a few we have right now are retired teachers but there are all from different fields,” said Koondel, “everyone that is there has a feeling that they’d like to give back to the community and they’d like to help and work with kids…the smiles are just so rewarding.”

Koondel says there are many community members who enjoy giving back and don’t necessarily join the league. “We really emphasize we need members, they keep our organization going,” said Koondel.

A similar volunteer organization in Van Nuys is ONE Generation. Started in 1975 by senior volunteers they now have a number of programs that help the elderly and children of all ages. According to Volunteer Coordinator Amber Fuellenbach, in an e-mail interview, “ONE began as Organization for the Needs of the Elderly primarily serving seniors. We later added the childcare in a shared setting with the adult day care where the children and seniors of that program meet daily for activities.”
Fuellenbach said the volunteer age ranges from just 14 years old to 100 years old, and they currently serve about 600 people a month in both of their locations in Van Nuys and in Reseda.

Giovanni Chavira, 19, is a Pierce College student who volunteers at ONE three times a week for about 14 hours. When I met him, Chavira sat in the activity center playing dominoes with an elderly man. “They always have fun when they’re with kids,” Chavira said, “They feel young again especially when they beat me at the game.” This isn’t the first time Chavira volunteers, he has also volunteered to prepare taxes for free at another organization. Although he is currently completing hours for a political science class, Chavira has found the experience so fulfilling he is willing to come back when he’s finished with the 48 hours that are required of him. “It’s fun to volunteer and give back,” he said.

Barbara Hindoyan, a volunteer at ONE has been dedicating hours to this organization for 2 ½ years. Hindoyan has done volunteer work since she retired from working for the county as a social worker. When I asked her opinion of Putnam’s findings she said, “I don’t think it’s that people don’t care I think most of us can’t find the information we need, where we can find a good organization.” Hindoyan said this is important because at other organizations their attitudes toward volunteers were careless and didn’t inform them when they would be closed and other essential information. To Hindoyan it is important to volunteer to have something to do, “Once you’re not working yourself you don’t have a lot to do to fill up your time,” she said, “this is a very well run organization they manage to keep [the elderly] busy not just sitting around being watched.” Hindoyan comes every Tuesday and Thursday, on Thursday’s she said they play a Spanish version of bingo, something she is familiar with since she was born in Mexico. At this organization, they do exercise, they sit down for tea, and have joint activities such as painting, with toddlers from the daycare.

Felicia Woodall,29, is the activities leader at the ONE daycare center, and says that in the six years she’s worked there she’s seen volunteers of all ethnicities and ages come and go. “They are mainly students,” she said, “Some going into healthcare and rehabilitation.” She also told me about a teenager that volunteered there, “She was bad,” Woodall said about that student, but said that after volunteering there the student went to college and turned her life around. “People are concerned with the recession and turn to volunteering with their free time,” said Woodall , and people volunteer because they feel good “giving back to better someone’s life.”

Racquel Decipeda Volunteer Services Coordinator for the Volunteer Center of Los Angeles, said in an e-mail interview, that there are different reasons why people choose to volunteer. “Students may have hours to complete for school, they simply just want to volunteer in their community, some use volunteering to enhance their resumes, or a retired person who want to continue on having something to do and contribute to the community.” The Volunteer Center of Los Angeles supply volunteers to different organizations in the city. One in Van Nuys that they help is the Mary Magdalene Project which helps to rehabilitate prostitutes and take them off the streets. Dr. McCombf, the executive director of the organization, said since its inception in 1980 they have helped some 1,000 women. Volunteers at this organization are also from diverse backgrounds and ages and help out with fundraising events, tutoring and mentoring some of the women. They also serve by driving them to job interviews and other engagements.

These organizations like are largely helped by the time and effort of volunteers of all backgrounds. Without a doubt volunteers are at the heart of the success of many organizations in order to reach and better serve the elderly and less fortunate. There are no specific age limitations, there are no gender or race biases, they are all united one common cause to better the lives of others.

The Volunteer League of the San Fernando Valley is located at 14603 Hamlin St, Van Nuys, CA‎ – (818) 785-4134‎
Photostream by Harriet Miranda

Map of all the places featured in Van Nuys by El Nuevo Sol:

View Van Nuys at LABeez.org and ElNuevoSol.net in a larger map