VAN NUYS — In an echo of the early '90s, name-change mania has seized Van Nuys, the Valley's largest community and once one of its proudest.
More than 800 residents of the areas to the west and north of Valley College want to call their neighborhood "Valley Glen" and formalize the change by posting blue, rectangular street signs advising visitors that they are no longer in Van Nuys.
The movement is like many name-change tempests that have swept through Los Angeles in past years. Passionately supported by people looking to strengthen community spirit and shore up real estate prices, name changes have since been ridiculed by commentators as a typically L.A. way of treating urban ills as image problems.
But mockery notwithstanding, name changes still carry as much emotional freight as ever--even by people who privately consider them silly.
The proposed Valley Glen name change carries little official weight. The neighborhood would remain part of Los Angeles, ZIP Codes would not change, and the rest of Van Nuys would keep its name. Only the signs, which are subject to approval by City Councilman Michael Feuer, would identify the new community.
Still, the issue has become among the most controversial in Van Nuys in recent years. A group of about 200 residents to the north of the proposed name-change area have signed petitions saying they want to join Valley Glen too.
Other Van Nuys residents have criticized the move as divisive. "Don't turn your back on a place just because it's not pretty," said Stratis Perros, 29, a lifelong Van Nuys resident. Valley Glen "is part of what's good about Van Nuys. Soon all we are left with will be the bad parts."
"Yes, it's just a sign," said actor Ron Recasner, who lives outside the Valley Glen boundaries. "But it's people sectioning off and being exclusive."
A standing-room-only meeting at Valley College to discuss the name change drew about 120 people Monday. People booed, clapped and interrupted each other. When one woman called Van Nuys "a cesspool," Recasner leaped to his feet, shouting his objection.
An African American, Recasner reminded the crowd that real estate covenants once barred blacks from the area. The room then erupted and people buried their faces in their hands in exasperation.
Some council members in recent years have attempted to place an unofficial moratorium on name changes because of the controversies they stir.
