Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 199
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter Seats were packed in the Mike Balkman Council Chamber at City Hall as three Culver City School Board members were sworn in at the Board's Tuesday night meeting. The excitement may have been sparked, not just by the "new kids in town" but by a sense that this is going to be a different Board than in the past. The five-member board now has a majority of members endorsed by United Parents of Culver City (UPCC) which is shaping up to be an important factor in...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter The City Council took action this week to begin planning for the 2014 Summer Concert Series, a gesture which may help the popular free concert series toward an earlier finalization of its schedule. The Council, at its meeting Monday night, opted to again retain Gary Mandell, owner of Boulevard Music, as producer of the concert series his 17th year. Mandell was not present at the meeting due to teaching a group class at Boulevard Music. According to the...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter The Expo Authority's latest community meeting, held October 30 at Vista Del Mar Center in Palms, offered extensive information about the progress of Phase Two of the Expo Line's construction. What's important for Culver City residents to know at this point is that street closures and detours necessary to construction will affect their commutes during the next two months. Glenda Silva, community relations representative for Expo, showed slides illustrating the...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter November 22, 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of a dark moment in American and world history-the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States. The events of that day, the shots that rang out during a motorcade in Dallas, have been the subject of numerous books, films, magazine articles, official government reports, and unofficial speculation. While the tragedy still has impact and continues to generate portrayals in the media...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter Although the Inglewood Oil Field near Culver City continues to be a controversial site because of the issue of hydraulic fracturing used in oil and gas extraction, there is what could be seen as a positive side to the oil field's resources. This is according to the view of James Clad, current energy consultant and former assistant secretary of defense for Asia, who recently appeared in Beverly Hills to lecture the World Affairs Council on "The World Politics...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter Drivers and pedestrians crossing Venice Boulevard near National at the Culver City/Los Angeles border are passing under a wooden bridge that spans Venice Boulevard and continues northwest of the Expo Line Culver City station. This bridge is the link between Phase One and Phase Two of the Metro Expo Line as it will run toward its terminus in Santa Monica, a 6.6 mile extension from Culver City. Phase Two of the Expo Line construction reached its halfway point...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter Culver City Unified School District (CCUSD) is implementing a Professional Learning Community (PLC) using the Common Core standards--and the School Board is being informed about these standards in a series of presentations by Dr. Kati Krumpe, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a U.S. education program that brings diverse state curricula into alignment with each other by following the principles of...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter The Culver City School Board heard from the CCUSD Environmental Sustainability Committee at its meeting Tuesday night. And like the U2 song playing as background for the committee’s video presentation, it looks like “a beautiful day” in store for the Culver City schools. Todd Johnson, the committee’s co-chair, is enthusiastic about the work that has been done so far. Regarding the video he said “[It] shows most of what we’ve been trying to do-all the excitem...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter October 1, 2013 marked the first day of a federal government shutdown in which more than 800,000 federal workers were forced into unpaid furloughs and many services were closed. It is the first such federal shutdown in 17 years. The shutdown is the result of a standoff in Congress because of attempts by Republicans to block President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. On Monday, September 30, the House and Senate wrangled for hours over several bills, with the S...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter There’s no doubt that parking is a major concern of Culver City residents. The City Council meeting Monday night dealt with the subject and gave direction to city staff on the issue of permit parking. The council chamber was packed. Thirty speakers weighed in during public comment on the city’s proposed changes to the Residential Permit Parking Program (RPPP). Because parking is such a stressful topic however, some of the comments were not specific to the...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter The City Council and Planning Commission sat in a joint meeting Monday night to review the city’s draft 2013-2021 Housing Element, to hear public comment, provide comments to staff, and direct staff to submit the element to the California State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). The Housing Element is one of nine elements that comprise Culver City’s General Plan and is the only one the state is mandated to review. The Housing Element add...
By Lynne Bronstein Observer Reporter The three-block street near Sorrento Market previously known as Bush Way has been re-named for Albert and Ursula Vera, former owners of Sorrento Market. The City Council was unanimous in voting for the re-naming. Albert Vera, Sr., was an Italian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 1950 at the age of 15. He gradually learned English and started a food delivery service that grew into a storefront grocery, Sorrento, at 5518 Sepulveda Boulevard. Over the years V...
Council Honors Veras With Street Re-Naming The three-block street near Sorrento Market previously known as Bush Way has been re-named for Albert and Ursula Vera, former owners of Sorrento Market. The City Council was unanimous in voting for the re-naming. Albert Vera, Sr., was an Italian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 1950 at the age of 15. He gradually learned English and started a food delivery service that grew into a storefront grocery, Sorrento, at 5518 Sepulveda Boulevard. Over the...
Should smoking be banned in multi-unit dwellings in Culver City? That was the question mulled at the City Council’s meeting Monday night. The answer did not come easily. The item before the Council was an action item but not one that required a vote. The Council was asked to consider what action to recommend to city staff to either bring back as an ordinance or to not take action. Heather Baker, from the City Attorney’s office, noted in the staff report that while existing state and federal law...
Council Weighs Consequences Of Smoking Ban Should smoking be banned in multi-unit dwellings in Culver City? That was the question mulled at the City Council’s meeting Monday night. The answer did not come easily. The item before the Council was an action item but not one that required a vote. The Council was asked to consider what action to recommend to city staff to either bring back as an ordinance or to not take action. Heather Baker, from the City Attorney’s office, noted in the staff report...
Residents Prevail In Parking Meter Dispute When Bob Dylan sang “Don’t follow leaders/Watch your parking meters” he never dreamed that at Monday night’s Council meeting a large number of Culver City residents would refuse to follow their leaders by demanding that parking meters not be installed on the south side of Jefferson Boulevard. On the agenda was a motion to install parking meters at specific locations within parking meter zones. But the residents’ protests (which included a real prot...
Challenge To Expo Line Extension Fails A neighborhood group’s challenge to the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the planned extension of the Expo Line light rail system from Culver City to Santa Monica was rejected Monday by the California Supreme Court. In a split decision, the court ruled that the environmental review challenged by Neighbors for Smart Rail (NFSR) was legally valid, although four members of the court said the review should have contained an analysis of the project’s tra...
Council Mulls Notification Question What does it mean to post public notices of civic actions? And what news media qualify as outlets for publication of such notices? The City Council discussed these issues at Monday night’s meeting and voted to begin the process of vetting local newspapers in order to pick an official adjudicated “newspaper of general circulation” to post notices of City meetings and other City matters. Three locations were also suggested for the posting of notices. As per c...
CCUSD Deficit Shrinks Like Culver City’s own budget, the 2013-2014 budget for the Culver City School Board, approved at the Board’s meeting Tuesday night, is a much better-looking budget than in recent years, especially in regard to the deficit. “Give [CCUSD Superintendent] David LaRose some credit,” said Assistant Superintendent of Finance Mike Reynolds. “He locked us into a room and wouldn’t let us out until [our efforts] had borne some fruit.” Reynolds noted that CCUSD began the fiscal ye...
Council Approves Predictable Budget The Drama of Recent Years Is Missing The 2013-2014 Culver City budget was adopted Monday night but compared to the drama of recent years, when the Council had to approve major cuts and layoffs, the budget came and went without much fuss at all. Chief of Finance Jeff Muir said in his opening statement that there was “nothing significant about the report.” He noted that the budget had been presented on May 13, while June 3 and 4 had seen presentations by the var...
Council Hears Department Budget Overviews Working up to next week’s approval of the 2013-2914 Budget for Culver City, the City Council Monday and Tuesday heard presentations from each city department on its budget for the next fiscal year. To sum up what this budget looks like, Assistant City Manager Martin Cole described the budget as “status quo.” “There aren’t the drastic cuts of two years ago,” Cole told the Observer. But he said the budget was more or less the same as last year’s as t...
Council Splits Tree and Parkway Ordinance Mulling an introduced ordinance to amend and clarify regulations for tree removals and standards for parkways in Culver City, the City Council Tuesday decided to split the ordinance. It asked city staff to create two separate ordinances to cover what they felt were separate issues. Council member Andrew Weissman, after hearing the city’s staff report, noted that the topic of parkways had not been the subject of community meetings and he wanted the p...
What’s This? An Optimistic Budget Two possible milestones marked the Monday night City Council meeting. The Council passed an ordinance banning the use of single-use plastic bags in retail stores, and the presentation of the proposed 2013-2014 budget was more optimistic than in previous years. The plastic bag ordinance amends the Culver City Municipal Code to ban retail businesses from giving out single-use plastic bags, requires stores to charge ten cents per paper bag, and requires b...
Students in Culver City Middle School’s AVID program had the experience this past year of hearing members of the Chamber of Commerce talk about their businesses and the job potential of those businesses. The guest speaker talks, courtesy of the Chamber’s Education Committee, were part of the AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) program. Designed to help high potential students who would be the first in their families to go to college, to be college ready, AVID is an elective cla...
Culver’s New Mayor: Jeff Cooper Sahli-Wells Becomes Vice Mayor Culver City’s new Mayor is Jeffrey Cooper; the Vice Mayor is Meghan Sahli-Wells. The new leaders of the City Council were chosen at Monday night’s Council meeting. The Mike Balkman Council chamber was filled to capacity with people who wanted to see the changeover. Some of them also wanted to voice their opinions to the Council. Public comment saw no less than 17 speakers, sounding off on issues ranging from plastic bag dispo...
