Lake Balboa

I enjoyed the article about peaceful places to visit in Los Angeles ["Getaway, in the City," Sept. 22], but the article left out a beautiful serene setting: Lake Balboa in the Sepulveda Basin in Van Nuys. This 30-acre site is one of the more beautiful areas of the San Fernando Valley. Joggers use it in the early morning, couples take boat rides in the afternoon. It is always clean and used extensively on the weekends by families. The Lake Balboa recreation area should have been on Steven Barrie-Anthony's list.

"OK, start!" calls the man with the clipboard, nodding toward a portable clock. That's my cue. Compass in hand, I dash out of the starting gate and up a grassy slope to the west of Lake Balboa, on a race toward … well, I'm not sure. Somewhere between here and the lake is an orange-and-white flag that marks my first goal of the course. I'll have to find my way there by map. I'm one of about 100 local adventure seekers who have gathered at the Encino park on a cloudy mid-April morning to take part in orienteering, a competitive sport based on outdoor navigation.

The Sepulveda Basin's Lake Balboa, a popular site with walkers, bikers and boaters alike, will soon be even more appealing with the extension of the bicycle path, the addition of a lifeguard station and public restrooms, the expansion of the children's play area and other improvements. The $2.6-million project is part of a plan to make the crowded weekend spot a little more hospitable to the Valley park-lovers who flock there each weekend.

Re "El Monte lifeguards still in the deep end," Sept. 20 This was my impression of El Monte: It is the town where novelist James Ellroy's mother was murdered in 1958, and it was the subject of an amusing song by Llyn Foulkes and the Rubber Band in the 1970s. Comes now a young, exuberant crew of lifeguards who enjoy their jobs, doing absolutely no harm and entertaining more than 1.5 million people worldwide. You can't buy that kind of positive publicity. And Mayor Andre Quintero's response?

The Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission voted Monday to rent paddle boats at the 26-acre lake in the Sepulveda Basin, but delayed action on a plan to charge a $5 launch fee for private boat owners using the lake. By a 4-0 vote, the commission approved the paddle boat rental operation at Lake Balboa Park, to be run by parks department personnel. The boats will rent for $10 an hour or $7 per half hour.

Workers at Lake Balboa in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area said Monday that additional signs banning biking and skating on a 1.3-mile walkway around the lake have curbed the flow of non-pedestrian traffic on the path. The activities have never been permitted, said park worker Chris Sooy, but until last week there were only three signs along the path and the rule was commonly ignored, resulting in many collisions involving bikers, skaters and pedestrians.

Park workers found several hundred dead fish floating on Lake Balboa in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area early Wednesday, apparently killed after oxygen flow to the man-made lake was accidentally disrupted. The dead fish, including trout and catfish planted in the lake last winter and this spring, had to be scooped from the water by parks employees in boats.

Water will begin flowing Monday into Lake Balboa in Sepulveda Basin, enabling the San Fernando Valley's only public boating and fishing lake to be open for use by late next week, city and federal officials have announced. Reclaimed water from the Tillman sewage treatment plant will be pumped into the 27.5-acre, 10-foot-deep lake, topping it off at 72 million gallons by Thursday. "It's wonderful.

Stephen Moe skims the lake shortly after dawn in a 16-foot aluminum boat and begins another day of what he calls "the greatest job I have ever had." "I get to work outside with wildlife," Moe said. "Ride a boat on a lake, help improve the area and, most of all, I get paid for it." Moe's job does not take him to a lake in a remote area fed by mountain streams.

It's not quite the high seas. But once a week, Lake Balboa serves as the watery site of a miniature America's Cup. The lake, located in Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area, is the favorite hangout of the Lake Balboa Model Yacht Club, a group which formed about a year ago to pursue the pleasures of model boating. It's a hobby that can become quite a passion. Nationwide, the American Model Yachting Assn. has attracted 4,000 members.

Re "Tackling AEG," Opinion, Sept. 10 Jim Newton's Op-Ed column begins with a promising, to-the-point headline, one that implies that the interests of the people of Los Angeles are in conflict with developer AEG's. But in his second paragraph Newton writes, "AEG, the developer, has so successfully courted influence over the years that it's hard to drive a hard bargain. " Why say it so politely? What Newton must actually mean is, "AEG owns Los Angeles; it has paid off so many officials for such a long period of time that there is no one left to defend the city's interests.

Stacy Matulis doesn't see how one politician could represent everyone in the newly proposed 4th Los Angeles City Council District that stretches from the trendy neighborhoods northeast of downtown to the heart of the San Fernando Valley. She would know. The 33-year-old greets many of the baristas in her Silver Lake neighborhood by name, but she's also lived among the rows of strip malls in the Valley and teaches yoga to millionaires in their sprawling mansions in the Hollywood Hills.

A foodie rite of passage here in Los Angeles is to walk the pupusa mile: that stretch of Beverly Boulevard where Koreatown's northeastern fringe pans to a scramble of auto services, a hostess club or two, and Central American restaurants and bakeries. This is the old-guard Salvadoran restaurant row, but these days a new wave of restaurants is revealing a wealth of regional dishes beyond that well-trod corridor. The pupusa may be El Salvador's national dish, but Sonsonate Grill , El Santiagueño and Mis Raices , located in two lesser-known Salvadoran enclaves — between the Vernon-Main neighborhood and Jefferson Park in central L.A., and an area straddling Lake Balboa and Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley — are showcasing recipes worthy of their greatest culinary symbol, the delectable izote flower.

Administrators have overwhelmingly approved a deal that would shorten the school year this year and next, officials announced Tuesday. The pact will reduce the number of employee layoffs in the Los Angeles Unified School District and, with other measures, forestall some class-size increases. Administrators will forego two days of pay next year when students are not in school. The agreement will shorten the school year from 180 to 175 days. Negotiations with L.A. Unified also resulted in the preservation of eight small elementary schools that would have been closed, said Judith Perez, president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles In addition, the district backed down from mandating part-time principals at 34 elementary schools with fewer than 300 students, she said.

If Bill Plaschke and his ilk think that Tiger Woods is going to slit his wrists, break down and cry, bare his soul, and spill his guts with all the lurid details of his personal life — it's not going to happen. Furthermore, just because a handful of shameless celebrities and some celebrity-starved "common" folk have this obsessive need to air their dirty laundry via talk shows and reality TV does not mean this is to be expected of Tiger. Not enough remorse, apology or amends for you, Bill?

You could say that the West Valley League baseball opener between Chatsworth and Lake Balboa Birmingham high schools created quite a buzz. Literally. The game was suspended in the top of the first inning Tuesday when bees swarmed the field and eventually locked onto a chain-link fence down the third base line at Chatsworth. Observers found it hard to BEE-lieve. "I've heard of all kinds of cancellations, but never a bee-out," Birmingham Coach Matt Mowry said.

The San Fernando Valley Jazz Festival. Sound strange? Well, sure it does. After all, it hasn't been done before and the Valley is not exactly recognized as a jazz Mecca. But "Jazz on the Lake," the Valley's first jazz festival--44 hours of nonstop music on three outdoor stages around Lake Balboa in Encino--hopes to change all that. The event, which runs from noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, is presenting a kaleidoscope of jazz in a colorful, outdoor atmosphere.

After would-be kayakers find out about the buck-a-use kayak rentals at Lake Balboa in Van Nuys, they always seem to be waiting for the catch, the secret behind the plan designed to get more people paddling on the 27-acre man-made body of water. "People are skeptical about the program," says Jon Kopitzke, aquatic facilities manager at the lake run by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, because comparable rentals can start at $20 an hour. "We designed it to remove barriers.

It's not Ron Artest's fault that injuries occurred to players on the team this season. It's not Ron Artest's fault that the Lakers didn't acquire other players this off-season to provide depth. It's not Ron Artest's fault that Derek Fisher is showing his age after many seasons and playoff games. It's not Ron Artest's fault that the bench struggles and cannot provide relief for the starters. And it's not Ron Artest's fault that the other contenders in the West upgraded their rosters.

Freshman guard Isaac Hamilton of Los Angeles Crenshaw turned in a basketball performance Monday in the Westchester tournament that 15-year-olds, let alone high school seniors, just don't do. He made six consecutive three-point shots in the third quarter and finished with 27 points in a 91-50 victory over Lake Balboa Birmingham. "I was just feeling it, and when I'm feeling it, I know I'm not going to miss," Hamilton said. The 6-foot-4 Hamilton had 17 points Saturday against Pasadena Blair in his high school debut.