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‘The Valley’s Most Neighborly Town’

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Gone are the images of orange groves and oak trees, “Brady Bunch” houses and a small-town business district with a typewriter store, 1950s-style barber shop and owners who greet customers by name.

The images now are of bullets randomly fired at preschoolers in a Jewish community center, of armed police officers gingerly guiding a chain of children holding hands, of a balding suspect named Buford.

Suddenly “the Valley’s most neighborly town,” as touted by the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce, is associated with madness and hate, another place victimized by the inexplicable and the horrible, forever lumped in with the tragedies of Atlanta, Chicago, Littleton, Colo., Paducah, Ky., Jonesboro, Ark.

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“A hatemonger, innocent children, defenseless adults,” said Hal Bernson, the Los Angeles city councilman whose district includes the middle- and upper-middle-class suburb nestled in the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains. “The shooting will always be a stain on our community.”

Until Tuesday morning’s bloody rampage at the North Valley Jewish Community Center, no one paid much attention to the town of roughly 50,000 people, many of whom moved to Granada Hills because it’s sleepy and has good public schools.

The perfect place for raising children.

Sure, Granada Hills had its fair share of crime stories. And of community suffering, mostly caused by damage from the big quakes of ’71 and ’94.

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And the media doggedly covered the opposition--always opposition--to big-time developers who wanted to build Home Depots and other chain stores, threatening the mom-and-pop businesses along Chatsworth Street, just east of Zelzah Avenue.

But no story has attracted such international attention.

“The world might always remember us for the shooting,” said Richard C. Taylor, president of the Bank of Granada Hills, an institution established 16 years ago a block and a half north of the business district. “But it’s not who we are.”

‘We Will Get Through This’

That Granada Hills has its own bank says a lot. Not many communities can support small banks, which are frequently tempted to merge or sell out, Taylor and others said.

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At the Bank of Granada Hills, tellers remain for an average of eight years and not only know customers by name, but also have their account numbers memorized. Customers can walk right into Taylor’s office, as long as they’re prepared to give him updates on their families.

“The people here are made up of good stock,” Taylor said. “We will get through this.”

Indeed, Granada Hills residents said they are used to change. They may not always like it, but they can adapt.

Founded in 1927, Granada Hills was then nothing more than ranches and orange groves.

The housing boom began about 20 years later, when people like Roy Paul paid $12,750 for a yellow two-bedroom house, within walking distance from the TV store he opened on Chatsworth Street.

The ‘Next Bel-Air’

On Sunday afternoons in the spring, neighbors would drive around Granada Hills sticking their heads out of the car windows and smelling the orange blossoms.

“We called them Sunday sniffers,” said Paul, now 78 and retired. “Back then, I knew the name of every man, woman, dog and horse in town.”

He still talks with neighbors and socializes with customers at his friend’s typewriter store.

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But knowing everyone’s name, well, that’s too much.

“Times have changed,” he said.

Once almost exclusively white, the Granada Hills of the ‘90s is ethnically mixed, with significant and increasing Latino and Asian populations.

Once middle class, the community’s wealthy population is also rising, with million-dollar homes in the foothills in high demand. “Granada Hills is the city’s next Bel-Air,” Bernson said.

Granada Hills boasts the landmark Odyssey restaurant and the Knollwood Country Club, a public golf course and pool, as well as some newly built shopping strips with Starbucks, Blockbuster and Kinko’s stores.

Although diverse religiously, the community has a large and growing Jewish population.

“I believe that’s why we were targeted,” said Bernson, 68, who moved to Granada Hills about a half century ago, convinced it was one of Los Angeles’ best-kept secrets.

In a sense, residents say it still is.

As long as people remember the community as the place where Denver Broncos Super Bowl champ John Elway became a star quarterback in the late ‘70s playing for Granada Hills High School.

As the place where hundreds turn out each winter for the annual holiday parade, the largest in the Valley, with cars decorated in aluminum foil and members of the Rotary and 4-H clubs singing carols.

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As long as people remember anything but the bullets and the preschoolers.

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