Tarzana Neighborhood Council Approves French Drain Funding at Community Center

The Tarzana Neighborhood Council voted Tuesday night to fund the installation of an outdoor French drain at the Tarzana Community & Cultural Center.

The council voted, 13-2, at its monthly board meeting at the Tarzana Elementary School to approve a $5,000 Neighborhood Purpose Grant to the community center. The decision followed a prolonged and occasionally contentious discussion during which some TNC board members sought to reduce the amount of the grant, arguing that the community center ought to tap local donors to raise part of the money needed to build the drain.

TNC Treasurer Evan Levi, who voted for the grant, told his fellow board members that the council ought to spend—or risk losing to the City—whatever money it has left before the end of the fiscal year in June.

Spending $5,000 on the community center is a good cause, not least because “nobody uses the place more than us,” Levi said, adding: “We’re there 288 days a year.”

TNC board member Harvey Goldberg proposed in an amendment that the council give the community center 80 percent ($4,000) of the money it had requested. But Goldberg’s amendment, which was also voted on, failed by a wide margin.

The French drain, measuring 180 linear feet and involving resurfacing decomposed granite, will be installed in a large expanse of land between the front of the center’s entrance and the office building—a low spot prone to flooding and erosion.

“Every time it rains, it becomes worse,” Jon Tsuchiyama, executive vice president of the Tarzana Community & Cultural Center, told the neighborhood council, adding that the center had invited bids and had picked Pacific Outdoor Living, a family owned Sun Valley company specializing in landscape design and the installation of outdoor projects, for the project.

Pacific Outdoor Living’s $5,000 bid was the lowest, Tsuchiyama said, adding that some bids were twice the amount.