PROGRAM SWEEPING AWAY NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCES.

Byline: Ryan Oliver Staff Writer

CANOGA PARK - In a victory for residents and the city's Neighborhood Prosecutor Program, one dilapidated house is slated to be razed and another is to be cleared of squatters in what officials said was one of the worst nuisance cases they've handled.

One of the homes at Independence Avenue and Gault Street is slated to be bulldozed in April, and gang members have been evicted from the other house, which has been sold to an owner who plans to refurbish it.

``When the trucks came out to clean up the place, some of the neighbors came out and cheered,'' said attorney Mike Pizzuti, a member of the City Attorney's Neighborhood Prosecutor Program. ``The property had real weak owners and no one was watching over the place.

``If it would have just been an abandoned property boarded up and sealed, it's cool. But when you have felons and gang members, that's when you come back with the big guns.''

Neighbors said they'd complained for years about trash piling up around the houses, located on a single lot, and about criminal activity they suspected was taking place there.

``We would see drug buys on an almost daily basis,'' said Betty Green, the coordinator of the local Neighborhood Watch. ``We knew when the house got a new supply because the traffic would increase terribly. This went on for years. These people had no respect for anyone or anything.''

Colleen Courtney, another attorney with the city's Neighborhood Prosecutor Program, helped coordinate the effort involving police and several city agencies to resolve the problem.

Both houses had been owned by the same family for generations, with the older of the two houses in the 20900 block of Gault Street tied up in probate court, officials said.

A reporter attempted to contact the heir of the properties, Virginia Argott, but a woman who answered the phone declined to comment.

The city's Building and Public Safety Department was called in and red-tagged one of the houses, declaring it uninhabitable, and ordered the other house to be brought up to code.

That property has since been sold and is expected to be renovated. Pizzuti said officials hope the new owners will replace the house that is scheduled to be razed.

Pizzuti said this was one of the worst nuisance properties he's dealt with, but there are others throughout the city that are nearly as squalid. The Neighborhood Prosecutor Program is now compiling a list of properties being dealt with by police and all of the city's agencies in order to concentrate its efforts on them.

LAPD Senior Lead Officer Terry Webb said the cases are difficult because it's hard to catch people using or selling drugs even after neighbors call and complain, he said.

Last year, officers got a search warrant for the property at Independence and Gault that resulted in the arrests of four people.

`There were needles all over the house, and (a resident's) children were in the same house,'' Webb said. ``All the adults there were under the influence of heroin or cocaine.''

Webb said that while such raids help, a more coordinated approach that targets the entire property rather than individual drug buyers and users can be more effective.

Green said her neighborhood has become livable again, and she plans to celebrate with her neighbors when the bulldozers arrive to tear down the house.

``This neighborhood has done a complete 180 now. It's back to having little kids out on the street again. When I see that house bulldozed, I'll know what I've done has paid off.''

Ryan Oliver, [phone]

ryan.oliver(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Betty Green, left, who watched the drug problems on her block fester for years, stands with LAPD Senior Lead Officer Terry Webb outside the house that will be razed in April.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer