Officer Sue Shine and GOCHA have decided to cancel Thursday evening’s meeting due to the conflict with Glenoaks School’s Open House.  It will be rescheduled and we will let you know the new date as soon as it has been arranged.  Sorry for the last minute notice but we want the kick off meeting to be as well attended as possible.  Thank you for your interest in this new program. We will see you soon.

Officer Sue Shine from the Glendale Police Department will be at Joe Bridges Clubhouse at Glenoaks Park this coming Thursday, May 26th from 6-8 PM to help us set up a Neighborhood Watch Program here in the canyon. Hope you can join us for this important meeting.

Thanks to the efforts of GOCHA, the Glendale PD, the Glendale FD, and the City Council, a new ordiance was passed closing “fire hazard severity zones” or open hillsides between the hours of 10pm and 6am. This will hopefully curb partying and other activities in the hillsides that pose potential fire hazards. The ordiance is not just for our canyon but for all of Glendale.

Here is the ordinance: more…

Come join Lt. Todd Anderson and Officer Sue Shine to discuss our Glenoaks Canyon Neighborhood Watch Program.

Event will be held Thursday, May 26th, 2011 from 6pm-8pm at Joe Bridges Clubhouse in Glenoaks Park.

I got an email last week from a canyon resident recounting a story they experienced recently at their home:

On Friday morning 12-3-2010 about 11AM a green jeep pulled up in the cul-de-sac on our block of Delcourt.  Two men got out and walked up the middle of the street in front of our house and walked into our open garage.  My daughter just happened to be standing in the kitchen to witness this and threw open the kitchen window and yelled for the men to “get the hell out of our garage”.  The men took off running toward the intersection of Hollister and Edwards.  Upon seeing this, the green jeep parked on Delcourt “peeled” out, quickly stopped in the intersection to pick up the two men and fled.  Our daughter called 911 and alerted the police.  They responded immediately to our house and searched the canyon, but the men were long gone.  The police reported that there have been a number of residential burglaries reported in Glenoaks Canyon and that they have increased their patrol in recent weeks and will increase it even more with this incident.

About 1 month ago, the house across the street from us was burglarized.  It was on the market to be sold and the burglars cut the lockbox off the front door and removed the keys and let themselves into the house.

Let this be a reminder to us all that even though we all feel very safe in our canyon, there are people that come in to our canyon that do things to disrupt our comfort and safety. Please keep an eye out for this kind of activity and call the police if you see anything of concern.

[UPDATE] I spoke with Glendale Police Officer Sue Shine earlier this week and wanted to clarify some facts. According to police reports, the burglary mentioned above in the empty house was actually a false alarm. Police responded to the alarm but found no forced entry and nothing out of place. Officer Shine also wanted me to relay that while it is important that we always be vigilant, crime is very light in our canyon compared to other areas of Glendale.

As you can see at crimemapping.com, our canyon is a very safe sanctuary. Our police officers frequently patrol our canyon and help keep it that way. If you want to be alerted via email about crimes in our area, you can sign up at the crimemapping website to receive email alerts.

There has been an increase in door-to-door solicitations in the area. The Glendale Police Department urges all of us to be aware that some of these solicitors may not be legitimate and has issued an Information Release about these Door-to-Door Solicitors. The memo can be found here: more…

Irresponsible activity, including drinking and smoking, has continued in the Glenoaks Canyon hills at night.  Determined to prevent a recurrence of the kind of wildfire that struck our hills one year ago, the GOCHA Board has established a Fire Prevention Committee to study this problem and to consider various options with the assistance of officers from the Glendale Police and Fire Departments.  The Committee has concluded that the most direct and possibly most effective option more…

Attention all Glenoaks Canyon cyclists and pedestrians. The next meeting of the LA County Bike Coalition focusing on Glendale is happening this Wednesday, October 21st from 7pm – 8:30pm at the Brand Library Recital Hall. more…

Thanks to several of our canyon residents for providing some stunning photos of the fire and the efforts of our local firemen and women. I hope this helps archive and document the fire that threatened the homes in our canyon on August 4, 2009.

Glenoaks Canyon resident and GOCHA board member, Paul Chamberlain also wrote a nice piece that was published in the Glendale News/Press. You can read it here.

In addition to the photos here, there are some interesting videos that have been posted on Youtube. Be sure to click “more” to see the full post.

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August 4th, 2009 was certainly a scary day for all of us in Glenoaks Canyon. After getting a call at work from my wife that our canyon was on fire and having to hike up to our house from Harvey, I thought the worst. more…