Beautification

In August, Kevin and Danet Davis got a letter from the City of Santa Clarita informing them that the yard and parkway in front of their house were not up to city standards. The dirt and weeds had to go -- and preferably be replaced by vegetation or other landscaping -- and the city gave the Davises two months to make adjustments. But unlike cities that merely issue citations, Santa Clarita also offered a helping hand.

At the southern tip of Los Angeles, stashed behind railroad cars and fuel depots, is a pillbox of a community center called Mahar House. Inside, there is a tiny library for kids, with titles by C.S. Lewis and a biography of Paul Revere. In a classroom down the hall, equations used to teach parents the value of building credit are on a chalkboard. In the front room, volunteers give away food they've rescued from markets that were going to throw it away. It's the kind of place you root for. Behind it, almost inevitably, is the kind of place you try to avoid.

Faced with more than 4,000 miles of broken sidewalks and scarce money to make repairs, Los Angeles officials are weighing a proposal to put responsibility for making the fixes squarely on homeowners. Under the proposal, homeowners would be forced to replace the damaged pavement -- or pay the city a fee -- when they sell their property, before the close of escrow. The City Council's Public Works Committee got its first look Wednesday at the "point of sale" plan, which could cost the average homeowner as much as $15 for each square foot of sidewalk, and dramatically shift the burden for such repairs from city government to the private sector.

Neighborhood activists in the northeast San Fernando Valley thought they scored a major victory in 1995, when they persuaded Los Angeles officials to approve zoning rules to keep new buildings on Foothill Boulevard from blocking their hillside views.

The ficus crisis in Santa Monica appears to be headed to court. For the last several months, local activists and city officials have sparred over the planned removal of 54 ficus trees along 2nd and 4th streets, part of an $8-million beautification project. On Monday, Santa Monica's Landmarks Commission voted 6 to 1 to deny landmark status to those trees -- and 99 others -- in the downtown area near Third Street Promenade.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that a former nuclear and rocket engine testing facility at Boeing's Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley should be added to the national Superfund cleanup list. In a letter sent last week to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the EPA's San Francisco office recapped the history of chemical and radioactive contamination at the 2,850-acre hilltop lab that first began operations as a nuclear research facility in 1948.

In another small step toward the construction of the Orange County Great Park, Irvine will spend $14 million during the next year and a half to spruce up the area around the tethered orange balloon ride that opened this summer by surrounding it with five acres of grass, shade trees, benches and tables, the Great Park board decided Thursday.

Boeing Co. and its operating partners at a former nuclear research and rocket engine testing facility near Simi Valley met a state-imposed deadline this week to propose precise deadlines covering the next decade of its long-term cleanup effort. The state Department of Toxic Substances Control required Boeing, majority owner of the Santa Susana Field Lab, and the U.S.

The government announced a $14.5-billion plan to clean up Lake Tai, in a densely populated area northwest of Shanghai, where an algae infestation this year forced the suspension of water supplies to millions of people.

An army of volunteers hunting for litter across Los Angeles County collected nearly 80,000 pounds of trash Saturday, officials said. The effort was part of California Coastal Cleanup Day, held annually since 1985. But the cleanup doesn't happen just at the beach anymore: Officials expanded efforts inland.