Porter Ranch residents were treated to a local session with our political luminaries thanks to the forum created by the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council. Congressman Brad Sherman and LAUSD Board Member Tamar Galatzan spoke at the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council meeting on February 1, 2011.

Sherman took the podium first as the special guest and spoke on how Congress has extended tax cuts another two years and the Federal Reserve has kept short term borrowing rates practically at zero. In response to a question, he noted that there was a proposal to eliminate the mortgage tax deduction, but he is not in support of it, viewing it as a sure fire way to cause a precipitous drop in home values.

When pressed to identify spending cuts, he named two: Changing the focus in Afghanistan from counter-insurgency to counter terrorism viewing it as a problem to be managed, rather than a war to be won. Second, he identified farm price supports.

Galatzan tackled the looming budget issue head on, noting that LAUSD has cut $1.5 billion in the last two years and can expect to cut another $1 billion in the next two years. As a fellow LAUSD parent, she lamented that LAUSD is entirely reliant on state and federal dollars.

She was responsible for requesting and receiving an additional $85,000 for each non-Title I school during this academic year. Porter Ranch’s Castlebay Lane Elementary is a non-Title 1 school, due to its having less than 40% of its students on the free lunch program, so it doesn’t qualify for federal funding that other schools do. Castlebay received and used that $85,000 to secure an additional teacher this year, which put the fourth and fifth grade ratios at about 30 students per teacher. The maximum allowed in fourth and fifth grade is 36:1. Galatzan has submitted and been successful with the same request again this year!

Parents inquired about the status of the new Porter Ranch school. She clarified that the boundaries have not yet been set and the school is on schedule to open on time in the fall of 2012. The school has not yet been named, but the words Porter Ranch will be a part of the school name, as requested by the PRNC, having taken a survey of residents.

PRNC board member Becky Leveque thanked Galatzan for supporting the new school and getting its funding passed unanimously by the LAUSD school board, no small feat, when there are schools proposed for what could be perceived as more needy neighborhoods. Porter Ranch community volunteer Dave Hasson thanked Gatazan and Mitch Englander, Councilman Smith’s Chief of Staff, for working together with the PRNC in a unique partnership to design a school that would meet the needs of Porter Ranch.

Under current district rules, the new school would be part of the School Choice process, whereby the district and charter schools can submit a plan to operate the school, residents can participate in an advisory vote, and an operator is selected. “The (advisory vote) process is a complete disaster!” she emphasized. During the recent vote for the new high school on the former Granada Hills Hospital site, voter enticements included bonus points for students who voted, busing to the polls, billboards, phone calls, and more. Galatzan is up for reelection on March 8, 2011, and plans to approach the Superintendent with a suggestion to abolish the advisory vote altogether.

In other announcements, LAPD Senior Lead Officer Danny Del Valle noted that crime is down in the city and across the 12th City Council District.