Last night, about 50 residents of the Larchmont Village Neighborhood Association gathered at Van Ness Elementary School for a wide range of neighborhood updates at the semi-annual meeting of their organization. Guest speakers included Van Ness school principal Pauline Hong; LAPD Olympic Division Senior Lead Officers Joe Pelayo and Daniel Chavez (who spent the previous part of the day at a task force meeting addressing recent reports of dangerous behavior in public libraries), and City Council District 4 Senior Field Deputy Catherine Landers.
Discussion topics incuded education about a proposed Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, neighborhood development, filming issues in the area and neighborhood safety.
On that subject, LVNA board member Karen Gilman told the Buzz, SLO Pelayo reported that in response to the increase in property crimes reported to the LAPD recently, an additional police car is now patrolling the area bordered by Western, Melrose, Plymouth and Gower, including the neighborhoods of Larchmont Village, St. Andrews Square, Ridgewood-Wilton, and Windsor Square (north of 3rd street) on every shift. According to Pelayo, who provided more information after the meeting, the new patrols are called “Z cars” and do proactive patrolling, including stopping cars and suspicious persons. At night, after dark, the car will also focus particularly on streets that have the poorest lighting…including Irving Boulevard, south of Beverly, where a home invasion robbery took place within the past month.
[This article was updated to add more specific information about LAPD’s additional patrol car.]
