Focus on Potential Rather Than Problems : Labor, Business and Housing Hold Keys to Recovery

Much has been said within the past year about the changing face of the San Fernando Valley. Times reporter Sam Enriquez’s two-part series buttresses what we have already learned and takes us deep into the implications of that change. For the most part, it would seem that longtime Valley residents view the differences with nothing less than abject fear or, at best, trepidation.

“This is not turning out the way I planned. Society has become difficult and people have become difficult,� groused a high school football coach. “It seems like nobody speaks English anymore,� complains a merchant who says he is no longer proud to live and work in Reseda. “The bottom line is that many businesses do not want to be here (in Reseda),� said another merchant, who added, “It has become a shopping area for the lower middle class.� And for everyone who complained about how things have soured, there was someone who longed for the days when the Valley “was a wonderful place.�

There is cause for concern. Every week seems to bring news of another business that has gone bankrupt, left or undergone retrenchment. Every week, another senseless crime contributes to the perception that lawlessness rules once-safe streets.

But sometimes concern slides into a gloom-and-doom insult. For example, some ask how is the Valley to recover or become the engine that rejuvenates Los Angeles when the new residents are immigrants who can’t speak the language and will probably spend their lives on welfare, or are the people that Valley residents moved here to escape from in the first place?

Such Valley residents view it as Paradise Lost, but it is far more sensible to examine and exploit its potential strengths, and some longtime players and observers here are among the most optimistic about the Valley’s prospects for the future.

David Fleming, vice president of the city’s Fire Commission, a past president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. and a Studio city attorney, says that “out of the immigrants, you are going to find an incredibly hard-working group of people who are willing to work, if given the chance. They are going to start their own small businesses. They are going to fight for a chance to make their place in this world, just as all immigrants have done in the past. It took gumption to get to this country in the first place. They are looking for opportunities, and small business is the future of this region.�

In the past, according to a spokesman for the Valley Economic Development Council, “government here turned its back on small businesses and did not offer management expertise, technical assistance. The state, county and city have begun to do more of this now, but not enough. New business start-ups are on the upswing. That’s going to be the backbone. Now, we are readjusting. We can be equally robust, but oriented toward smaller businesses.�

Said Roger Stanard of the Valley-based law firm of Walleck, Shane and Stanard and Blender, “We have the labor force now. If we can solve the horrendous workmen’s compensation problem, streamline the permit process, and reduce the things that make it time-consuming and expensive to do business here, there is great potential for success.�

To John Marquis, senior vice president of the Trans-World Bank, there are other reasons for optimism. “Housing prices are down so low now that it is becoming affordable again to those previously priced out of the market. That will attract people who want to buy starter homes, and they will have to equip the houses. This isn’t going to happen in the next six months, but as housing prices become affordable again, we will be able to attract and compete.�

The way to view the new Valley is to consider its great potential, not bemoan its changes or abandon it.