$55K Clean-Up Program Commences In Van Nuys

(CBS) LOS ANGELES Bureau of Sanitation crews will pick up abandoned shopping carts in the Van Nuys area within 48 hours of a complaint, under a six-month pilot program approved Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council.

Councilman Tony Cardenas initiated the $55,000 program as part of an effort to clean up neighborhoods in the 6th District he serves.

“We are wheeling out the blight in the Valley,” Cardenas said in a statement. “By giving Valley residents the power to pick up the phone and see a 48-hour turnaround on these junky, abandoned shopping carts, we are giving them cleaner environments and a deeper sense of community pride.”

Those living within District 6, which includes the communities of Van Nuys, Arleta, Sylmar and Sun Valley, should call 311 to report abandoned shopping carts.

Mattresses, gang tags, illegal dumping, streetwalkers, illegal workers and Ori B. Fogel’s slum mall on Kester and Victory will have to wait for their own pilot program.