CROSSROADS, guatemala to reseda high:
this column by dennis mccarthy highlights monica gonzalez, what little formal education she had didn't include english when she came to the u.s. 5 years ago, who graduated thursday with honors from the lapd academy magnet at reseda high, plus she's leaving rhs with a 4.0 in her college prep courses.
former football coach joel schaeffer has "seen a lot of sharp, motivated kids come through Reseda High in his 37 years as a football coach, but none tougher or more dedicated than this young woman, he said. "

RNC TASKS & PROJECTS: funding
the DONE folks have begun to figure out how we'll get our dough

POP CULTURE, movies:
steve harvey's only in l.a. column in the times has apparently mentioned reseda's place in movie lore before. but this one underplays the role.

In ''boogie nights''
reseda-- unmentioned as a shooting locale -- a gross oversight as reseda is virtually a recurring character actor in the movie shot at country club, extensively on sherman way & parking lots surrounding. Here's a review. It earned awards & nominations.

''erin brockovich''
the next highest profile of the town in a movie, establishing shots of the exterior and scene filmed in parking lot of chamber of commerce office bldg on sherman way. Some big kudos.

''severed arm''
bad thriller uses establishing shot of reseda post office

''fast sofa''
crispin glover freaks out in discount bird store

''magnolia''
shot in & around the corner of reseda & sherman way

''karate kid''
tho' they made 4 of them, in no.1 the kid moves from new jersey to reseda, just a mention.

"an american rhapsody"
from an l.a. times feature story:
"In the semiautobiographical 'An American Rhapsody,' Scarlett Johansson plays Gardos' alter ego, Suzanne, at age 15; Nastassja Kinski and Tony Goldwyn play her parents; and Kelly Endresz Banlaki is Suzanne at age 7. The $3.2-million Paramount Classics film was shot in just 31 days in Budapest and Reseda."
It was highly regarded.

''the fluffer''
just a mention, lead's girlfriend works in a reseda strip club (obviously not now) or so it says here

"targets"
this site mentions filming at the drive-in, pic shows marquee referring to boris karloff, just before retiring, playing a retiring horror movie star making an appearance at a drive-in

tho' i can't swear, in ''terminator 2'' in the scene were they flee the northridge mall and go into the wash, i believe that's aliso creek wash they're heading south in, consequently before that awesome dirt bike/semi-truck/harley chase scene proceeds too far, that chase is in reseda. i can't swear tho

we've cinematic residents too, more later

POP CULTURE, movies:
only in l.a. column makes off-hand reference to off-hand line in movie mentioning reseda. that's nothing as reseda has a place on screen or behind the camera in a dozen films, from oscar-winning ''erin brokovich'' to the unheard of ''fast sofa.''

details will follow

KUDOS: high school sports:
cleveland girls's track team wins city finals
"...its first section title in the girls' meet with a 113-96 victory over defending champion Birmingham. The Cavaliers' point total broke the previous record of 112 set by Taft in 1998."
seniors michelle stinnette and brynne steward stood out.
randy bundy (see 5/21 entry below) didn't win the 400m, whose winner ran the fastest time in calif this year.

cleveland swimmers earned 3rd in city sectional championships

cleveland baseball team, seeded No. 15 for the city championship playoffs, got a 3-1 victory over No. 2-seeded Roosevelt (24-5) in the 1st round. Earlier in the season they had another underdog victory.

L.A. CITY GOVT, city council:
redistricting can't please all the people all the time

SECESSION, neighborhood councils
daily news slams bourough plan, asserting it'd be ''a bogus charade like ... powerless neighborhood councils?''

KUDOS, group accomplishment:
from april 25, reseda high is recognized with 22 other district schools, "for making the most improvement in their attendance rates last year over the previous year;" it rose 2.08 percent to 90.36 percent.

SECESSION, neigborhood councils:
we like them, we like them, we really like them. the mayor knows it and hints that they'd go away.
"The Valley, ... would not, at least initially, have rent control or neighborhood councils, two popular city programs."

POP CULTURE: talk about outreach:
from march 13, interview between rock band flogging molly and a very lost writer, writing for oblivious copy editors:
''Over steak and fries at the Robin Hood pub in Reseda, ... "
hardly. it is a great bar, if you're ever on the far side of van nuys.
but that's no worse than tom petty, in his '89 song "free fallin'' sings:
''it's a long day living in reseda / freeway runnin through the yard''.... which freeway would that be exactly?
didn't matter either to the 4 artists who covered the song

SECESSION, the scary part:
freepers (regulars at the freerepublic website usergroups) are capable of saying anything. even this.

SECESSION: background
the l.a.times website has a compilation of its secession stories.

KUDOS, group acheivement:
last item on softball tourney
Cleveland beats Marshall, 5-0, in the city softball Invitational final

SECESSION: a valley view
from may 13, a 1st person story addresses one val's opinion, mentioning reseda
''For every Silver Lake or Leimert Park boho who cringes at the very thought of the Valley, there's a counterpart in Reseda or Chatsworth who loathes driving over the hill.''

SECESSION: it's on the ballot
buckle your seatbelts, we're in for a bumpy ride. LAFCO votes 8-1 to put it on the ballot. KFWB had it early.
l.a. times also & daily news, as of 11:30pm, no story on the website, yet this editorial digitally scooped the paper's news dept:
"At issue is more than just the practical matters of tree-trimming and trash dumps, but the philosophical questions of how the city would be structured. Where would power reside? What roles would neighborhoods and communities play in its formation and management?"

SECESSION: editorial
the neighborhood councils surface in this l.a. times editorial of 5-19 saying secession won't do what the neighborhood councils are doing already.
''A new Valley city of 1.4 million residents would have far less chance of creating a sense of community--such a sense is another reason cited for secession--than would the much-smaller neighborhood councils created by charter reform, 30 of which have already formed.''

KUDOS: successful run
cleveland high's randy bundy is the subject of this l.a. times sports column by eric sondheimer from 5-21.
''Last February, Bundy accepted a football scholarship to California. On Thursday, he'll be favored to win the 400 meters at the City Section track championships at Birmingham High. Next week, he could win the state championship... 'I want my mom to be happy,' Bundy says.''
his mom sets high standards.

POP CULTURE, :
l.a. media outlets have a way of telling valley stories with a discovery channel kind of flavor: ''we just peeked over the santa monica mountains... and surprisingly, we found a community of primitive people living there'' ... it's fitting somehow, in this may 20 feature on how ''almost hip'' the valley is, the sole reseda reference is to a skateboarder's run-in with a minor star. to men of a certain age, reseda was only known as where the skatepark was. now in this litigious era, it's a business that only municipalities can afford. hence, the nearby skatepark is reseda-adjacent, in balboa park.
''...acquit an unshaven C. Thomas Howell of criminal charges stemming from a confrontation with a Reseda skateboarder.''

KUDOS, group achievement:
feature from 5/15/02 covers students' accomplishment. the school wins too.
Fourth-graders in Newcastle Avenue Elementary School in Reseda wrote a book last year that's now won top honors in a nationwide contest.

KUDOS, team competition:
news tidbit from march 22, 2002
The Southern California High School Chess Championship... Reseda High won the team title

POP CULTURE, movies
this from a gossipy british paper and repeated by imdb.com
Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire's father Vincent, 46, was jailed for two years after he was caught only an hour after robbing a bank in his home town of Reseda, California in 1993.

KUDOS, academic:
this column by dennis mccarthy in the daily news from sunday, may 19, 2002:
Stanford University wanted the kid. So did UCLA, UC San Diego and Claremont College.
They all wanted the Valley's No. 1 academic draft pick after he graduates in June from Reseda High School, senior Jaime Gonzalez.