Neighborhoods

Northridge homeowners are fighting construction of what they call a "Costco-sized" local elder-care home, the latest in a series of skirmishes since the city changed its rules to allow senior-care residences almost anywhere. The 83,000-square-foot, three-story elder-care home proposed for Sherwood Forest, in southern Northridge, would sit among single-family homes on large lots flanked by citrus trees. Residents there are working hard to keep it out. More than 825 of them signed a petition in protest, and scores packed a three-hour zoning hearing to speak against it. When a representative for the developer defended the project, the crowd jeered.

Carpenter Community Charter is among the best elementary schools in Los Angeles. Its students surpass standardized testing goals, its art and music programs are thriving and it enjoys robust support from parents and the community. The campus also, officials say, is harboring scores of cheaters: families who have provided false addresses so their children can attend the esteemed Studio City school south of Ventura Boulevard. Faced with the possibility of over-enrollment this fall - and armed with new verification powers - Carpenter is taking action.

There's a $200-million hotel on the drawing board for downtown Los Angeles, so tourists from around the globe can kick up their heels at LA Live. And a few miles away on downtown's skid row, there's a TB outbreak brewing in a stew of Third World-style squalor and disorder. It's the yin and yang of our city's clumsily evolving downtown scene: We haven't managed to seal the deal for a professional football team, but we have been able to produce and sustain our own unique tuberculosis strain.

Complaining about "rats the size of small dogs," debris that falls like thick snow and a pervasive, rancid odor, neighbors at a public hearing Friday protested a plan to expand a Sun Valley recycling operation into one of the largest waste-transfer facilities in the state. "Vermin run rampant," said Gary Aggas, president of the Sun Valley Neighborhood Council and one of many residents to testify before a city planning officer about the matter. "Dust blows through the neighborhood constantly....

JERUSALEM - Construction of a freeway extension through one of Jerusalem's most-prosperous Arab neighborhoods is igniting tension in the once-quiet community and reviving complaints about how the city treats Palestinian residents. If completed as planned in 2015, the nearly 1-mile extension of Jerusalem's Begin Expressway will slice through the neighborhood of Beit Safafa, home to about 12,000 Arabs. Many residents say the extension would contribute to what they consider a pattern of discrimination and marginalization of East Jerusalem's Arab residents.

In a move to expand the small but prestigious math and science school, Caltech is preparing to relocate a campus child-care center to make way for a new dorm. But neighbors in the tony Pasadena neighborhood are complaining that the new site is too close to their homes and would create a traffic nightmare. Such town-gown issues are common in Southern California, where schools and universities share valuable stretches of real estate with their residential neighbors. The institutions are in a constant arms race to both attract students and find ways to accommodate them - leading to frequent clashes with the communities that surround them.

LAS VEGAS -- Federal officials say they have finished rounding up 11 “problem” wild mustangs in northern Nevada and that the horses will now be offered for adoption. The last of a band that once numbered 50 mustangs were enticed into a trap last week, as concerned residents of the Carson City neighborhood watched in dismay, questioning why the Bureau of Land Management insisted on removing animals that had peacefully coexisted with surrounding homeowners for years. In a news release Friday, the day the last horse was lured into a trap with offerings of alfalfa and barley, the BLM repeated past claims that people had complained about the animals crossing busy roadways and damaging property to graze in a small public park.

In the last three elections for mayor of Los Angeles, voter turnout has ranged from 18% to 38%. And that's of registered voters. Nice work, loafers. Of course, the perennial no-shows had their reasons for not voting. Didn't like any of the candidates. Didn't know anything about any of them. Nothing ever changes anyway. Went to the beach. Couldn't care less, blah, blah, blah. This time around, if you're thinking you might sacrifice two minutes of your day and cast a ballot on Tuesday - but you're still not sure - I'm going to offer up a little inspiration.

LAS VEGAS - A grass-roots community group in northern Nevada watched helplessly Wednesday as federal officials removed most of what remained of a band of wild mustangs with which residents say they have peacefully coexisted for years. About two dozen residents of a subdivision called Deer Run outside Carson City say they have tried unsuccessfully to negotiate the fate of 11 mustangs with the Bureau of Land Management, which governs public lands in Nevada and elsewhere and has purview over the wild horses.

Larry Hill is the dean of a small network of dog trainers who are out to save the bully breeds - pit bulls, mastiffs and Rottweilers - of South Los Angeles. His specialty is tough dogs in tough neighborhoods. In his professional work and monthly free classes, he takes lunging, yelping masses of dog flesh and molds them into gentle companions. Hill's mantra is there is nothing wrong with the dogs. It's the owners who have the problem, as I discovered one Saturday morning at St. Andrews Recreation Center in Gramercy Park.