AUTHORITIES ON MISSION TO KEEP YARDS CLEAN.

Byline: CHARLES F. BOSTWICK Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- Los Angeles County officials are attacking Antelope Valley unincorporated communities' problems of junk-strewn yards and unsafe homes by creating a task force that teams up different county departments.

Public works, regional planning, health, fire department and district attorney officials will visit particularly dangerous and unsightly properties where the owners won't cooperate in cleaning them up.

``Deterioration of a community spreads like a cancer. Without intervention, a neighborhood that was once vibrant is destroyed,'' said Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, whose district includes the Antelope Valley.

The Antelope Valley Nuisance Abatement Team began operating in October, with its members going out about once a week to visit four or five properties. Cooperation among the different departments will reduce the delay in getting cleanup started on difficult properties, many of which are reported to county officials through town councils in communities such as Lake Los Angeles, Little Rock and Quartz Hill.

The properties they target typically are filled with broken-down cars and other junk, and the properties often have people living illegally in camping trailers or pickup-truck campers.

In one particularly notorious case, started before the task force's creation, county officials had to get a court order to clean up two adjoining properties north of Lancaster that contained more than 600 junk cars, trucks, trailers and other vehicles, 2,500 tons of scrap metal and other debris, and even roaming hogs.

Cleanup is still going on at one of the properties.

``Not only were the properties blighted, but they were a threat to public health,'' Antonovich said at a news conference to explain the new task force.

Antelope Valley residents in Los Angeles County unincorporated areas -- those areas outside the city limits of Lancaster and Palmdale -- can report a nuisance property by calling [phone].

Los Angeles County officials also said they have hired a private company to clean up graffiti around unincorporated communities. The goal is to have graffiti removed or painted over within 48 hours or a report.

The telephone hotline for residents of unincorporated communities to call to report graffiti is [phone].

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) L.A. County Public Works Director Donald Wolfe, left, and Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich look at pictures of cleaned places at a recent news conference in Lancaster.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer