Archive for the ‘Redondo Beach’ Category

by Mark McDermott

Trash collectors made a grisly discovery last week when a deceased newborn infant was found inside a trash can on the 700 block of Irena Avenue.

A subsequent police investigation led to the arrest of a 24-year-old former Redondo Beach resident, Jessie Canfield, who was arrested under suspicion of murder. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office has thus far not pressed charges, pending a report from the Coroner’s Office that could up to two weeks.

The baby was found at about 9 a.m. on March 3 when a trash collector began emptying a 64-gallon can that was too heavy to lift. A Redondo Beach Police Department Crime Scene Investigation unit developed information by canvassing the neighborhood that led to Canfield’s arrest the next day at her current residence in Santa Barbara.

According to police, she had attended a party at a residence on Irena Ave. on the night of March 2. Evidence found at the residence – particularly, large amounts of blood – indicates she gave birth to the baby in a bedroom at the party. Canfield later told police that she was unaware she was pregnant.

“I guess that is possible,” said RBPD Lt. Joe Hoffman. “However, it’s very difficult to believe. We are talking about a full term baby here.”

Investigators estimated that the baby, a girl, weighed between six and seven pounds.

An attorney representing Canfield reiterated that her client was unaware of her pregnancy. Nina Marino, a lawyer with the Beverly Hills firm Kaplan and Marino, suggested that the Coroner’s report would clear Canfield of any murder charges.

“We expect the Coroner’s report to indicate that the child was stillborn,” Marino said. “My client is traumatized.”

Canfield, a 2004 graduate of Redondo Union High School, was released from police custody on March 5.

“Physically, she is fine,” Marino said. “She is taking antibiotics, and she’s recovering. You know, I think we can all sympathize with the trauma she has undergone.”

RBPD Sgt. Phil Keenan said that one message that police are trying to convey is that the Safe Surrender program is available to protect babies from being hurt or killed in cases of potential abandonment.

“Anyone can basically go to a hospital or a fire station and turn an infant in, and there are no questions asked,” Keenan said. “There are just no questions asked.”

Hoffman said that what the Coroner determines regarding the condition of the baby will likely be the deciding factor on whether charges are filed against Canfield. Even if the baby was stillborn, Hoffman said, disposing of the child in the trash was the wrong choice.

“There are programs in place,” Hoffman said. “In any event, this is just not the way to handle it.”

“It’s incredibly bizarre and very unfortunate,” Hoffman added. “It’s a tragic situation, not matter where it happens. But especially, in Redondo Beach, we are not used to dealing with major, high profile incidents like this, and so it really shocks the community when this happens.” ER

by Mark McDermott

The Redondo Beach Board of Education Tuesday night moved to lay off as as many as 24 elementary school teachers and eliminate eight other positions, including three high school teachers, a principal and an assistant principal.

In a unanimous vote, the board approved a recommendation authorizing that layoff notices be sent to teachers by March 15, the deadline required by state law for teachers who will not be rehired in the next school year. Additionally, the board also voted to lay off a school counselor and a teacher on special assignment.

“I think all of us here share a deep sense of regret as we pass this resolution,” said board president Todd Loewenstein. “I’ve said this before: my goal on this board is to save jobs. That is one thing I need to do, because I realize it impacts not just teachers and not just students, but a lot of families. And it impacts the community.”

The district, due to state funding reductions, is preparing to cut $3.6 million from its $65 million budget in the upcoming school year. After cutting more than $5 million during two rounds of state budget cuts last year, a school board that has prided itself on keeping cuts “out of the classroom” felt compelled to approve teacher layoff notices.

“What alternatives are there?” school board member Carl Clark asked at one point in the meeting.

Superintendent Steven Keller said the alternatives include contract negotiations with its employees, talks that are likely to include topics such as increased furlough days and possibly salary cuts. But ultimately, Keller said, few alternatives exist that would not impact RBUSD employees in some manner.

“Basically, I wish it was something just like turning off lights and not buying computers,” Keller said. “But when most of our business is personnel…that is where we are at. I wish I had a brilliant answer for you, but it just comes down to people.”

Assistant Superintendent Nancy Billinger said that 85 percent of the district’s budget was personnel costs, including 70 percent for teacher salaries and benefits.

“We are so limited in our options…These are horrible decisions to have to make, but when we really look at how big the number is, it’s daunting,” Billinger said.

The layoffs would save $2 million. The district had hoped to save another $1 million through an early retirement package offered to 70 teachers, although early indications are that not enough teachers accepted the incentivized offer to quite meet that target.

Elementary school teacher layoffs would likely be tied to increased class sizes. The district has prided itself on the lowest class sizes in the South Bay, with a ratio of 22.3 students for every teacher at the kindergarten through third grade level this year.

Jefferson Elementary kindergartner teacher Emily Butler, who identified herself as one of the teachers slated for layoff, asked the board to do whatever possible to protect class sizes. She said even a single year of increased class sizes could have a drastic impact on student learning.

“I know as an adult, when I’m doing the family budget, one year starts to feel like the next,” she said. “But to a five-year-old, every year matters so much…Please, impact the class sizes as little as possible.”

Tanya Ross, the parent of one of Ms. Butler’s kindergartners, said that she has three more kids who will be kindergartners in successive years. She said increased class sizes would not only cause more children to struggle but would also hurt the district’s overall academic achievement.

“It’s really going to bring test scores down,” Ross said.

Redondo Union High School teacher Tim Baumgartner argued that the district does have an alternative – tapping into its reserves. The state has temporarily loosened its requirement that each district maintain a three percent economic uncertainty reserve and allowed – for the next two years, anyway – as little as a 1.5 percent reserve. Baumgartner noted the district’s reserve is currently at 3.8 percent, or $2.9 million.

“We have stated many times in board meetings that reserves are for hard times, and we are there,” Baumgartner said. “Spend down, and spend down now! There is money in the reserve to protect not having any furlough days.”

Board members have in the past expressed reluctance to dip below three percent, arguing it would risk the district’s overall solvency. But Tuesday night they focused more squarely on the difficult decision directly at hand, approving layoff notices. Board member Jane Diehl said that the board has essentially been making cuts since 2003, and while other employees have been laid off – including administrators and classified employees – this was the first time the district had considered such a large number of teacher layoffs. Last year, eight notices were issued, but only one teacher ended up losing a job. Diehl said few other options remain.

“Because we’ve been doing this now for six years,” Diehl said. “We’ve been cutting and cutting.”

The state will not officially adopt its budget until June, at the earliest, and so there are still uncertainties regarding school funding. District officials are looking for other alternatives or sources of revenue, including a fundraising drive the Redondo Beach Education Foundation that is asking the parents of every child in district to contribute $360. If that were to happen, the district’s budget problem would be solved this year.

Billinger said that some of the cuts would almost certainly be implemented, including administrative layoffs. She said at some teacher layoffs – particularly at the elementary level – could possibly still be avoided.

“We have to disrupt all these lives to give us more time to figure this out,” she said. “…It just gives us a little bit of room to make some of those decisions.”

Loewenstein, addressing the many teachers and parents in attendance, said the board would do what it could to protect employees and class sizes.

“I can’t guarantee you anything,” he said. “But I don’t want anyone here to lose hope.” ER

 by Mark McDermott

A dog liberation movement within the city has been stifled, at least temporarily.

A group of residents who petitioned the city to relax its prohibition on dogs in parks by allowing leashed dogs in Czuleger Park were denied by the City Council in a 3-2 vote Tuesday night.

The vote supported a staff recommendation against opening up the 3.3 acre park, located between Catalina Avenue and the pier, to dog-walking. Recreational and Community Services director Mike Witzansky said the city could not afford increased enforcement and maintenance costs.

“Now would not be the ideal time to expand services for dogs in our community,” Witzansky said.

A staff report indicated that the current prohibition against dogs in city parks, enacted in 1979, makes enforcement efficient and maintaining green parks easier. It noted that the city established a 3-acre dog park in Dominguez Park in 1993.

Councilman Matt Kilroy said relaxing the prohibition would only complicate matters.

“I own a dog,” Kilroy said. “I have a back yard….I don’t see the point. If all they are doing is walking dogs on a leash, walk down Catalina Avenue. I just don’t see why we need to make things confusing, to start opening up that door to having dogs in parks.”

Councilman Pat Aust said that there is already enough of a problem with dogs defecating in city parks despite the prohibition.  

“Anything we do to confuse the issue only makes it worse for the rest of the city,” Aust said.

Councilman Bill Brand, whose district includes Czulger Park, said that a majority of residents are in favor of allowing dogs in the park. He said the city should be able to find a way to respond to those wishes that is neither expensive nor complicated.

“All the other cities in the South Bay allow dogs in parks,” Brand said. “This is a very unusual situation, where the city doesn’t allow dogs in the parks….Frankly, if we don’t do it, there will be a lot of angry residents down there. They are really going to wonder what we are doing up here if we won’t simply allow them to walk their dogs through a park, on a leash.”

Sydnee Singer, a local attorney who was behind the petition movement, was one such resident. She took exception to the council’s characterizations of dog owners.

 “We obviously don’t pick up poop, according to the councilman, and obviously do not obey laws,” Singer said. “And we obviously sign petitions for no reason at all.”

Singer questioned why enforcement costs would increase when police already monitor the park. She suggested that the council needed to be responsive to the many residents who do not have backyards and don’t want to have to drive to the dog park.

“We don’t have any place to walk them and, to me, walking them on the grass makes a big difference, instead of on the pavement,” she said.

Aspel said the council was being responsive not just to dog owners but to the rest of the city.

“This is not the Village Condominiums’ private domain,” he said. “It belongs to the entire city. I know you don’t have a backyard, but we answer to everybody. And it’s not my problem you don’t have a backyard.”

Enforcement, he noted, would be labor intensive because officers would have to nab dogs in the act of defecation in order to issue a ticket.

“The cops are not out there looking for scofflaw dog poopers,” Aspel said. “It’s going to be impossible. Our police have better things to do than chase down dogs pooping in a park.”

The council also rejected a recommendation by the Parks and Recreation Commission that the city allow dogs in Czulger Park for a 90 day trial period.

Singer said afterwards that she now intends to create a ballot measure to overturn the citywide prohibition against dogs in parks.

“It will be all parks,” she said. “It will overturn the ordinance.” ER

Pastor Chris Cannon visiting the Maison de Lumiere orphanage last week. Photo by Josh Newton

 

by Mark McDermott

The mother arrived at the orphanage carrying a baby in each arm.

Long lines stretch outside Maison de Lumiere every time the orphanage opens its doors three times each week for its feeding program. Hundreds of street kids and families living in makeshift dwellings in a nearby ravine have depended on the orphanage for meals ever since the program – which is run by the orphans themselves – was launched a few years ago. That need has only intensified since the January earthquake ravaged Haiti.

One day last week, amidst the crowd, Ariana Manassero took special note of one of the babies. They were twins, a girl and a boy. The girl looked healthy; the boy was skeletal.

Ariana is an 18-year-old whose dream of opening an orphanage in Haiti when she was 9 resulted in her entire family moving from Redondo Beach to Haiti. The Manasseros, including parents Bill and Susette and Ariana’s siblings, Vienna and Elijah, founded Maison de Lumiere five years ago and currently house and educate 50 orphans.

Ariana knew the twins’ two older siblings from the feeding program and had been monitoring the health of the little boy since visiting their home two months ago. Last week, she decided to act. She took her mother and members of a visiting team from King’s Harbor Church to the children’s home in the nearby ravine.

Pastor Chris Cannon, of Redondo Beach’s King’s Harbor Church, was shocked at what they found.

“They were squatting in a house with no roof, no floor, just dirt and walls,” Cannon said.

The mother, it turned out, had left after a fight with the children’s father. Dr. Eduardo Anorga, a Redondo Beach-based physician who was part of the team, examined the little boy. The child weighed about six pounds.

He turned to Cannon and spoke softly. “This boy is going to die,” he said.

Ariana spoke to the man in Creole and asked how they could help.

“Take the babies,” the father said.

The children had no names. The father told Ariana to name them after herself. They took the twins back to the little medical clinic at Maison de Lumiere. Anorga determined that the boy suffered from severe malnutrition.

“He would define wasting away,” said Anorga, who has visited Haiti five times since the earthquake in order to provide medical assistance. “He is probably as wasted away as you can get and still be alive. He looked like a skeleton.”

The little boy’s life was saved. The nurses at the orphanage began the slow process of increasing his caloric intake and within 24 hours he’d already shown remarkable improvement.

“There is hope for this kid,” Anorga said. “Especially now.”

Hope from Redondo

The 16-member King’s Harbor team left for Haiti Feb. 21 and returned Monday. Their goal was to help, heal, and provide hope.

The most tangible help they intended to provide was the rebuilding of the wall of the girl’s quarters at the orphanage that had been destroyed by the earthquake. The team arrived a week ago Sunday with two cargo planes full of supplies and immediately encountered an obstacle. Customs officials refused to release their supplies, which included a cement mixer and everything needed to rebuild the wall.

“Walls equal security and protection in Haiti,” Cannon said.

A three day bureaucratic standoff ensued that only ended when CNN’s Soledad O’Brien caught wind of the problem and arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport with cameras. Customs officials quickly relented and released the supplies.

“It was a miracle,” Cannon said. “She was there to do a story on two of the kids in the orphanage, and she took a camera right down there to the airport and said, ‘Who is in charge?’ I think it was a combination of Soledad and prayer that got us there.”

As they waited for the supplies, Cannon and the team worked on their other two goals. Anorga had arrived with $50,000 worth of medicine that had been donated by a local donor. The team set up temporary medical clinics in three of the surrounding ravines, treating hundreds of patients for ailments including wound infections, diarrhea, meningitis, scabies and severe anxiety.

Anorga said the need for medical care was overwhelming.

“We were out in one of the little tent villages and people are clustered together living in tents made out of sheets, or maybe a regular tent or a plastic tarp…And as they all kind of lined everybody up, I told [Pastor] Dave Beck, ‘We better start praying,” Anorga said.

If helping was difficult and the need for healing was overwhelming, providing hope proved to be the biggest challenge of the King’s Harbor mission. Cannon said the utter magnitude of the nation’s despair was apparent the moment the team left the airport. Hundreds of people flocked around the Americans. The pastor had to avert his eyes so as not to engage those who could not realistically be helped. If one person in a crowd of hundreds is helped, Cannon said, the situation can easily escalate into a riot.

“It breaks your heart to have to stare off in distance and not engage them,” Cannon said. “To look in their eyes and see the pain was equally unbearable. It was a Catch-22 – we came on this mission to help people, but you can’t help everyone…Anyone who goes, you’ve got to go with a specific group in mind to help. The whole nation is broken, and if you go thinking you can help everyone, you are going to cause more problems than good.”

Despair is also quite literally in the air. Cannon realized this his very first morning.

“I woke to tremors and the smell of death and women with their arms open begging for food,” Cannon said. “That was morning in Haiti.”

Preaching hope

That very morning, Cannon was asked to go to one of the ravines and preach at the tent city. More than 800 people lived there. “I’ve done my share of street preaching,” he said. “But this was daunting.”

The only thing he could think to preach was a gospel story about hope amidst hopelessness – the story of a leper approached who Jesus and asked to be healed.

 “Jesus says, ‘If you are willing to be cleansed, heal,’” Cannon said. “The man says, ‘I am willing to be cleansed.’ And he heals the man…’”

“The hope I was trying to instill in people is that there is a future in Haiti and that the answer isn’t leaving Haiti,” Cannon said. “Of course, we believe the answer is faith in Jesus, and that Jesus cares about Haiti….But also that we came from California, and we care about them. They are not forgotten by the American people.”

On Thursday, customs released the team’s supplies, and 20 Haitian men were hired to rebuild the orphanage walls. The men attacked the task with joy, singing work songs and songs of praise as the wall went back up. It was a quality that struck the entire team, Cannon said – the special capacity for joy that so many Haitians seemed to possess.

“One of my enduring images, as we left, was this older man on the job, wearing no shoes, standing in eight inches of cement, mixing with a shovel…He was probably 5-foot-4 and about 90 pounds of just lean muscle, with just the biggest grin on his face, waving at us, singing this Haitian praise song with joy you can’t find anywhere, just genuine joy deep from his heart, from his soul,” Cannon said.

He also noticed the utter unselfishness that so characterized even the neediest of children in Haiti. Children who come to the feeding program will take food off their plates to give to their younger siblings, who in turn are careful to only eat what they need, returning portions to their brothers and sisters.

“They know how to provide for each other,” Cannon said.

Earthquake Olympics

One of the orphans, a boy named Marcoral, caught wind of the Olympics taking place in Vancouver and decided that the orphanage needed its own Olympics. He dubbed it the “Earthquake Olympics” and last Sunday all the kids participated in matches of soccer, basketball, ping-pong, and Bible trivia. Early the next morning, just before dawn, one of the adults saw Marcoral awake early. He didn’t realize anyone was watching. He was out on the playground by himself, reliving and savoring everything that had taken place the previous day at the Earthquake Olympics, which came complete with American spectators. A little smile of joy spread across his face.

“I think about the phrase ‘God bless America,’” Cannon said. “I’ve been rethinking what it means, because I think God blessed Haiti in ways we can’t really fathom. There is a quality the Haitian people have you can’t buy, you can’t acquire, you can’t teach. It is something I think only adversity teaches.”

Cannon believes that in the long run the earthquake may have helped Haiti by making the rest of the world more aware of its plight. The Manasseros, he said, brought the reality of Haiti to the King’s Harbor congregation, all of whom have been brought closer together in their mission to help the community the family has created at Maison de Lumiere.

“I think we all have to adopt a village,” Cannon said. “We can all be that little part of the puzzle that helps rebuilt Haiti.”

The mother of the two twins that Ariana had helped rescue arrived at the orphanage last weekend. She took her daughter back, but left the little boy, who was growing a little stronger every day, in the care of Maison de Lumiere. In accordance with their father’s wishes, the babies were named Adriano and Adriana.

Ariana turned 18 on Tuesday. Reached via Facebook chat, her concern was with young Adriano.

“He is doing better every day,” she said. “We are praying he’ll be all fat and healthy really soon!”

The little boy, it turns out, also has a heart ailment. But Adriana was undaunted.

“We have faith,” she said. “I really think he’ll be okay.”

For more information, see www.childhope.org. For more photos, see joshnewton.smugmug.com or go online at www.easyreadernews.com.

 

by Mark McDermott

A photo at the beginning of Mayor Gin’s “State of the City” slideshow Monday morning showed a throng of people on a sailboat beneath the title of mayor’s address: “Pulling Together: On Course for Recovery.”

If this was a before-and-after kind of shot, it might have showed the same boat with a few less people, and those remaining dipping oars in the water. The city of Redondo Beach in the last year endured difficult economic times, requiring employee layoffs and an across-the-board six percent pay cut that was voluntarily accepted by all those who remained.

Gin acknowledged as much as he outlined the $10 million dollars that has been trimmed from the city’s budget since the economic downturn began. Those reductions include $4 million in salary cuts, $3.7 in program cuts, and $2.3 million in staff positions eliminated.

“This is $10 million in savings, and the numbers you are seeing don’t really show you the complete picture,” Gin said early in his address. “They don’t show the sacrifices that were made by our city staff.”

Another slide showed a projected $500,000 dip in property tax revenue – the first decline in more than a decade – from $19.1 million last year to $18.6 this year. Sales tax revenue, meanwhile, is projected to decline for the second year in a row, from $10 million two years ago down to $8.5 million this year.

“This shows very boldly what has happened,” Gin said. “The mantra of shopping Redondo is critically important.”

Gin said he chose the “Pulling Together” theme to reflect recent economic difficulties and how the city has responded.

“In many ways, it is emblematic of what has occurred in the last year,” the mayor said. “I don’t think any of us will disagree that the last year was an extraordinary year.”

The mayor’s address, which was hosted by the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, emphasized the progress he said the city was making on several fronts. He offered two simple priorities as the city proceeds.

“Number one, keep our budget balanced,” Gin said. “But number two, make sure we are moving forward and make sure we position ourselves very well for the recovery that will occur.”

Gin noted that the city – with enormous help from a private fundraising campaign – has begun construction on a new North Branch Library that should be completed by late summer or early fall. A transit center made possible by federal funds is being constructed near the new Target store in the north of town, as well, and South Bay entrepreneur Mike Zislis will begin construction of a 52-room boutique Shade Hotel in the city’s harbor later this year.

And while the economic downturn cost the city a prime sales tax generator, Mervyns, that store has already been replaced by Kohl’s, Gin said. The mayor’s announcement that Nordstrom Rack plans in 2011 to open a store nearby, just south of the Galleria Mall, drew the biggest response of the morning – several whoops and a round of spontaneous applause emerged from the otherwise subdued early morning audience.

“We hear the gasps of joy in the shoppers!” Gin said.

Other capital improvements include Inglewood Avenue street resurfacing and a water recycling and runoff diversion project at Alta Vista Park. Both are part of the $5.2 million in federal stimulus funded projects that are currently underway in the city.  The city has also proceeded with resurfacing the Esplanade, rebuilding fire-damaged Wilderness Park and installing solar lighting on the North Redondo Bikeway. Police have been newly equipped with mobile data computers and automatic license plate readers. Public-private partnerships, Gin said, have refurbished the city’s historical museum and the athletic facilities at Alta Vista Park.

“What I want to convey to you is despite this deep economic downturn we’ve had, these are all the things we were able to get done,” Gin said. “…You look at that list and it’s pretty remarkable what we have been able to accomplish.”

The mayor gave the annual Lifetime Community Service Award to Lorraine Geittmann, a former Daily Breeze reporter who later became a parole officer and who has served as a city commissioner, civic watchdog, and, most recently, as the president of the Friends of the Redondo Beach Library organization.

Geittmann, a 45-year resident of Redondo Beach, said she was proud to accept an award that has been given to some of the most accomplished figures in the city’s recent history.

“I can’t imagine being in the company of such wonderful people, such as Ron Cawdry, Marilyn White….This really is an honor,” Geittman said. “I’m overwhelmed.” ER

by Mark McDermott

In July of last year, United State Attorney General Eric Holder began what amounted to a victory tour of various law enforcement agencies who’d been helped by the stimulus money his department had awarded.

The goal of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had been to put people back to work, and it was working: at that point, 1,046 agencies had been awarded $1 billion in grants that had resulted in the hiring of 4,699 police officers. All totaled, $2.7 billion was allocated in stimulus money for law enforcement.

“I’m proud that our administration backs up our commitment to law enforcement not just with words, but with the resources our partners need,” Holder said at a police cadet graduation ceremony in North Carolina last July.

The Redondo Beach Police Department applied for the so-called JAG (Justice Assistance Grant) money and was awarded $97,785 a year ago February. It wasn’t enough to hire a police officer – the RBPD is down to 96 sworn personnel, down from 106 a decade ago — and the ARRA wasn’t recurring money, anyway.

But Chief Joe Leonardi was nonetheless pleased to finally address another need. The department interviewed and was prepared to hire three part-time employees in its records department, which has been operating short-handed for the better part of this decade – ever since the economic downturn that occurred after 9/11.

“I wanted them to supplement the records clerks we had lost,” Leonardi said.

But then a funny thing happened. The money never came. Other stimulus funds – including $5.2 million allocated for capital improvements – were self-administered by the city and arrived promptly. But the JAG grant was different – the Department of Justice had chosen the City of Los Angeles to administer the funds. Los Angeles began by taking 10 percent off the top as an administrative fee, and then slowly launched a process that included a Memorandum of Understanding with each of the 88 cities it administered and later another detailed legal agreement.

None of the cities will receive the JAG grants until all the cities have completed LA’s extensive process.

“It’s really curious for the City of Los Angeles, known for its bureaucracy, to be funneling this money and taking a fee off the top,” said City Manager Bill Workman. “That was very challenging.”

Leonardi said he doesn’t understand why the JAG grants – which existed prior to the economic stimulus bill, albeit in much smaller amounts – weren’t self-administered, as they were in the past. He said the Obama Administration is the first to require an outside fiscal agent to disperse the grants.

“I’ve sat and listened to how Obama wants to improve the economy and provide jobs,” Leonardi said. “I believe that is what they truly want to do. But what has happened is that has been subverted by the bureaucratic requirements and the process of going through the city of Los Angeles. It would have gone much faster if they’d stayed with the same paradigm and let each city manage its grant.”

Calls to the Department of Justice and the City of Los Angeles were not returned by press time.

Leonardi said that while the RBPD had a great need for the records clerks the grant would allow him to hire, other departments have more dire needs. Cities with higher violent crime rates were awarded amounts that would allow them to hire police officers – Long Beach is due $1.6 million, for example, while Compton’s JAG grant is $800,000, minus administrative fees.

“I’ve sat in meetings where [chiefs] are saying, ‘I don’t know how the rest of you guys in the room feel, but we really need this, and we really need this money to be distributed now, because we are hurting,’” Leonardi said. “They needed to know how long it was going to take. But people take this attitude there is nothing we can do about it, because LA is too big, and the feds are too big.” ER

by Mark McDermott

The hunt has begun.

The Redondo Beach Unified School District leaders over the next two months face an impossible task as they prepare for another round of state education cuts: trimming an estimated $3.6 million from the district budget in a way that doesn’t damage the education delivered to its students.

At Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting, the board discussed a few creative ways to save some dollars.

Assistant Superintendent Frank DeSena told the board that one possible area of savings would be to bring special education high school students currently categorized as “emotionally disturbed” and educated by a county program back to Redondo Union High School. The district currently pays the county for this special program, and DeSena estimated $200,000 could be saved by bringing the program in-house.

“LA County ends up sending us something, and that is a bill for how much it costs them to educate our students,” DeSena said. “We think we can to that for a significantly lesser amount. And without hurting any feelings, we think we can do a better job, too.”

Chief Business Official Janet Redella said that the district could also use $425,000 from the so-called Aviation Fund – money derived from the sale of the former high school – for the purchase of books. Such reserve funds are restricted, generally for capital outlays, but the state has loosened those restrictions. Redella said this creates a “window of opportunity” to use Aviation funds on such one-time costs as textbook acquisition, thus freeing up a corresponding general fund amount.

The district hopes to save as much as $1 million through an early retirement program being offered to 70 teachers. The deadline for teachers to accept the offer is March 5.

Board member Arlene Staich said that by her calculations, the district has found ways to save $1.9 million without layoffs. But the rest of the amount would almost certainly need to come through personnel cuts.

“So that is a lot of people,” Staich said.

Board member Carl Clark said that if every district parent met the goal set forth by the Redondo Beach Education Foundation the entire budget problem would be solved.

“Roughly speaking, if every parent of every student contributed $350, as the RBEF is suggesting, then we wouldn’t have a budget problem, period. So encourage your parents to contribute for every student.”

Superintendent Steven Keller, in conjunction with the Redondo Beach PTA, is hosting a budget information night beginning at 6:30 p.m. at Parras Middle School on March 3. ER

Councilman Steve Aspel is offering this advice: "Get scoped."

by Mark McDermott

 Councilman Steve Aspel sent a funny email to his friends and supporters last week.

It wasn’t an unusual thing – some borderline dirty jokes and banter, as per his normal mode of discourse  – except that the email was titled “uh oh” and it contained some serious news. Aspel has been diagnosed with rectal cancer and will undergo chemotherapy, radiation treatment, and surgery.

 “I’m already bald, I could lose a few pounds so it can’t be all bad!” he wrote.

 The two term councilman, who celebrated his 57th birthday on Tuesday, said in an interview this week that doctors have identified a small, malignant tumor poking through his colon wall. The tumor is believed to be “stage three,” Aspel said, which is not an early stage but well within time for treatment.

 “It’s serious, but it’s not like the doctor told me to go fill out a bucket list,” Aspel said.

 Aspel has no plans to step down from the council as he undergoes treatment. “I intend on going about my life as normal,” he said.

 The councilman urged others to “get scoped” regularly so such cancer does not go undetected until it’s too late. And he forthrightly shared the story of how his tumor was discovered. He credited his doctor, Robert Hosseini, for forcing him to get a checkup by withholding a certain prescription.

 “It’s kind of funny,” Aspel said. “Here’s the truth: the doctor had to blackmail me into getting scoped. I went down for a refill for my recreational blue pills.”

 “For the want of sex, I get my life saved,” he added. “Even if I don’t, I get to go out like a stud!”

 Aspel said that the toughest part, thus far, was in dealing with the worries of his friends and family. But he said he has also been touched by the outpouring of concern.

“ It was pretty weird when they told me I had a malignant tumor,” he said. “I can’t even say I was shocked. I just said, ‘Okay, it is what it is.’ You think you are going to get all emotional when they say you have cancer, but I was pretty much at peace with it. My wife wasn’t quite at peace with it….Hopefully, they can take care of it.”

 In the meanwhile, Aspel said he takes comfort in knowing how well he raised his daughters, Catie and Brett, who have both rallied to his side. Catie, a student at Sonoma State University, made him particularly proud when she quoted the Grateful Dead’s “Touch of Gray” while commenting on her dad’s fight with cancer on Facebook: “We will survive/We will get by…”

 “When your daughter quotes Jerry Garcia, that’s pretty cool,” Aspel said. “That means you did something right.” ER

by Mark McDermott

A former Redondo Beach Police Department sergeant last week pleaded guilty to embezzling from the police union and the department itself.

Gene Tomatani, a 14-year-RBPD veteran, was the head of the Redondo Beach Police Officers Association. He admitted to taking $72,388 from the association and another $3,000 from an RBPD fund. The embezzlement, which occurred over the course of four years, was discovered in late 2008.

Tomatani formerly held two of the most trusted positions within the RBPD, supervising internal affairs and the department’s special investigations unit. Investigations revealed that Tomatani had a gambling problem and had fallen deeply in debt.

Dave Taneman, the current president of the RBPOA, said that Tomatani actions had taken his fellow officers by surprise.

“He did a lot of good things throughout his career,” Taneman said. “But behind the scenes, he had a problem. None of us knew the extent of the problem. He didn’t confide to any of us, or we definitely would have helped.”

Tomatani has already paid $12,000 in restitution. According to the terms of an agreement reached with Superior Court Judge Norm Shapiro and the public integrity division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, he will pay full restitution by his March 15 sentencing date. He is expected to serve three months jail time and three years probation. He will also be required to enlist in a treatment program, Gamblers Anonymous, for at least one year.

Both the POA and the RBPD have tightened their money-handling policies.

RBPD Chief Joe Leonardi said that the RBPD already had policies in place, such as one that requires that at least two police employees be present any time money is handled. But he said a thorough review has been conducted and a more comprehensive policy implemented.

Part of the problem, Leonardi said, was how thoroughly his colleagues trusted Tomatani.

“He was considered very trustworthy within the department as well as by the police association, and I think you can tell that by the fact he was elected to the board not only as treasurer but also as president,” Leonardi said. “He was held in high regard by people that knew him. I think it shows that almost any person is capable of misconduct, and you have to have policies and procedures in place to mitigate it from happening.”

“This is clearly not an example of behavior within the department,” Leonardi added. “And it’s not acceptable.”

Taneman said officers are saddened by fate of their former colleague. Part of his punishment, he noted, is that he will never serve as a police officer again.

“You have some [officers] who are very angry at what he did to us, but most are just disappointed and sad at what happened,” Taneman said. “My own personal feeling is that no one is above the law. Of course, it’s up to the District Attorney to determine what the punishment will be. We didn’t’ tell the DA what we wanted for punishment – we just wanted our money back…we want to get closure.” ER

by Mark McDermott

The word, said one longtime harbor observer Tuesday night, is quagmire.

The City Council on Tuesday night tentatively moved towards approving harbor zoning that will allow 400,000 sq. ft. of potential new development.

But the zoning, which is intended to spur a revitalization of the struggling waterfront district, is likely to face a legal challenge from the citizen’s group Building a Better Redondo. The group, which in November 2008 passed an initiative called Measure DD that requires a citywide vote on significant land use changes, has argued that the new zoning should be put to a vote.

“I think we need to let the voters decide,” Jim Light, the head of BBR, told the council. “And that is what this is all about.”

City Attorney Mike Webb has issued an opinion, however, that says the zoning took effect in June 2008, a month after the Council first passed it and six months before the passage of DD. Among the many complications that arise in the timeline since is that the zoning, along with a larger Coastal Land Use Plan intended to give the city more local control over land use issues in its harbor, was subsequently sent to California Coastal Commission for certification.

What happened at the Coastal Commission – a state agency that oversees coastal zoning to protect public access to the ocean – and what it means for the future of the harbor are subject to vastly differing interpretations.

“Reasonable minds,” Webb said, “may disagree.”

Last July, the Coastal Commission voted 11-1 to approve the city’s application “with modifications.” Webb argued that since the Commission had never certified any zoning in the city before, the zoning itself was approved and put into effect in June 2008. The Coastal Land Use Plan, Webb said, has yet to be approved and will therefore be subject to a citywide vote.
Councilman Bill Brand disagreed. Brand, a Building a Better Redondo activist, argued that the Coastal Commission actually denied the zoning, subject to modifications, and that the zoning is not in effect until the council approves those modifications. Therefore the zoning too would go to a public vote, according to Brand.

“My contention is the Coastal Commission denied zoning,” Brand said. “We are going to make modifications. We are going to approve it.”

Those modifications, which were 17 in number and included view corridor protections, the required building of a new public boat launch, and tree trimming restrictions, were technically what came before the Council Tuesday night.

But as Mayor Mike Gin noted at one point, the council also faced several decades of distrust that began with the razing of the city’s historical waterfront decades ago and the failed Heart of City, a development plan that called for up to 1.6 million sq. ft. of new development in the harbor area that residents defeated in a referendum movement in 2002.

“This is sort of that legacy,” Gin said. “And part of reason we are here tonight is to redo and fix what that created.”

It’s a complicated legacy. When the Heart of the City was rescinded only months after its passage in 2002, some of its zoning documents were left in place – including the 1.6 million sq. ft. development cap – because referendum petitions to undo the entire plan would have required four different petitions. This created a conflict with the city’s General Plan, which was passed in 1992 and included a development cap of 324,000 sq. ft.

Councilman Steve Diels said that the council’s intention was simply to remove this inconsistency and protect residents from the Heart of the City zoning.

“We’ve been working exactly on getting rid of the Heart of the City mess,” Diels said. “We’ve been downzoning and adding park space…I am proud to be a part of that. I just hate that there is a chance we could end up back in the zoning that was in the Heart of the City.”

Webb said that an unintended consequence of putting the 400,000 sq. ft. zoning amendment to a citywide vote is that if it were defeated, the zoning would revert to what was previously in place – either the Heart of the City zoning, or earlier zoning that had no density or height limitations.

Councilman Matt Kilroy suggested that the city turn to the legal system to get a definitive answer on whether the matter should go to vote. He thought the city might be able to obtain a declaratory judgment on the matter, thus preventing a lawsuit.

“I am willing to live with what the courts say,” Kilroy said.

The council unanimously voted to direct Webb to prepare the approval of the modifications, as well as look into Kilroy’s suggestion. The matter will return to the council on April 6. ER