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Culver City Council has unanimously voted to draft a plan to phase out oil extraction and gas wells in the city's 78-acre portion of the Inglewood Oil Field. At a special meeting last Thursday, the council directed staff to develop a framework and timeline for the phase out of active wells, following a presentation on the Amortization Study commissioned by the Oil Subcommittee. And councilmembers also discussed the possibility of litigation with Sentinel Peak Resource, owner of the oil field...
The field of candidates for Culver City Council grew to 9 as Heather Wollin filed her papers on deadline day. Joining Wollin on the November 3 ballot are Mayor Goran Eriksson, Albert Vera, Yasmine McCorrin, Khin Khin Gyi, Freddy Puza, Robert Zirgulis, Darrel Menthe and Anthony Rizzo. All 9 candidates are vying for 3 seats on the Council. The School Board race features two incumbents and two civic leaders. The hopefuls include board members Dr. Kelly Kent and Anne Allaire as well as ex board...
Pro football is heating up in east Ventura County. The temperature was quickly approaching the 100-degree mark as the Los Angeles Rams wrapped up their morning workout in Thousand Oaks. It was a spirited 2-hour session on the first day the media was allowed to observe training camp due to the COVID-19 protocol in place at all NFL facilities. To the satisfaction of all, there were plenty of 10-minute drills, scrimmage plays and welcomed hitting as the team moved into the next phase of...
As the Los Angeles Football Club prepares for the eighth edition of El Trafico against the L.A. Galaxy at Banc of California Stadium starting at 3:00 p.m. this Saturday, August 22, there was a major change in the front office as well as a couple of significant roster moves in the past week. Gone is Club President Tom Penn and fan-favorite forward Dio (Adama Diomande). Coming aboard is Mohamed Traora, and 18-year old defender from Senegal. Penn's departure will have no effect on the field for El...
There were times last season when the Los Angeles Chargers just needed someone to make a play. They were 2-9 in games decided by seven points or less. It was a combination of a key penalty or an untimely turnover or a lapse on defense that usually made the difference in these games. The early consensus for 2020 is that the defense will be the difference if the Chargers are to make their way back to the playoffs. In 2019, the Chargers ranked 6th in the NFL in total defensive yards allowed per...
The Culver City Parks, Recreation and Community Services (PRCS) Department and Fiesta La Ballona Committee will host a Virtual Fiesta La Ballona the weekend of August 21-23, 2020. Although COVID-19 safety precautions will keep us from holding the traditional Fiesta La Ballona event, we are excited to announce the first ever Virtual Fiesta La Ballona! This virtual event will take place Friday, August 21 through Sunday, August 23 on the Fiesta La Ballona website. The event will include links to...
Dear Editor, These are the ecomments I submitted to the city council regarding Action Item a last Monday evening, 8-17-120: "Honorable Mayor, vice mayor and members of the council. Given that permanent rent control program in Culver City is a virtual fait accompli, I’d like to address two issues which still may be considered and accommodated. One is a provision, which the city of Los Angeles has, to give some further rent cap relief to owners who provide all the utilities to their rentals. I hav...
Biden: Good of you to take my call, Mr. President, I hear you’re having problems with WHO. I think I can help. Trump: With what? Biden: With WHO. Trump: The Who, the rock group? Biden: No, just WHO. Trump: Who what? Biden: WHO. The World Health Organization. Giving you problems. Trump: When? Biden: When what? Trump: Joe, I don’t know what you’re talking about. When did you have problems with WHO? Biden: I don’t have problems with WHO. Me and Barack got along fine with WHO and with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general. Trump:...
California sizzled to a triple-digit temperature so hot that meteorologists need to verify it as a planet-wide high mark. Death Valley recorded a scorching 130°F (54.4 degrees Celsius) Sunday, which if the sensors and other conditions check out, would be the hottest Earth has been in more than 89 years and the third-warmest ever measured. The temperature, measured at the aptly-named Furnace Creek during a blistering heat wave, would be the hottest temperature recorded on Earth in August, said Ar...
by Alyssa Erdley News with Attitude Over the weekend, the state's California Independent System Operator, the overseer of the state's power grid, instituted the first rolling blackout due to power shortage in 20 years. Three of the utilities under CAISO's governance, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric, cut power on Friday evening to more than 410,000 businesses and homes. Customers experienced outages for about an hour over a 3-1/2 hour period. A sec...
by Mary Leipziger, Observer Senior Reporter ZJ Boarding House, another skate board store on Main Street in Santa Monica, closed Sunday. While there is still a Skateboard store at Lincoln and Marine as well, Rip City suddenly has a near monopoly on skateboard stores in Santa Monica Jim McDowell and William Poncher were very serious when they opened RIP CITY - a skateboard shop at 2709 Santa Monica Blvd on April 1, 1978--April Fools Day . They were semi retired, and had come to California in the...
Airbnb announced that it will ban all parties and events at its global listings, including capping capacity to 16 people, until further notice amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Users under the age of 25 with less than three positive reviews were prohibited from booking entire-home listings that are "close" to where they live. On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Garcetti authorized the city to shut off utilities to a Hollywood Hills home where several large parties were hosted despite the COVID-19 pandemic,...
For the first time in roughly five months, AMC Theatres will pop the popcorn, dim the lights, and start the show. But will anyone buy a ticket? AMC, the world’s largest movie theater chain, is reopening more than 100 US locations on Thursday after closing their doors in March. Other major chains like Regal Cinemas and Alamo Drafthouse will also return this weekend, while Cinemark started its phased reopening last weekend. Roughly 1,400 of the 6,000 venues in North America are currently open, according to Comscore. (Track how box-office sales h...
Santa Monica police are warning locals about a recent phone scam in the area, urging them to avoid fraudulent calls. "SMPD staff [members] have received multiple reports from community members who stated that someone contacted them falsely claiming to be police personnel,” according to SMPD on Facebook A man impersonating a cop calls, said the post. He then: • Refers to the community member by name • Is very aggressive • Tells the community member there is a warrant for their arrest • Requests payment "Sometimes scams such as these will incl...
There is little question that the Post Office is slower than usual this summer. Local residents have reported that their mail is not delivered every day. The Post Office is busier than usual because of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, they find it difficult to recruit and maintain personnel, say several post office employees to whom we spoke. (Don't call them "Mailmen"--they prefer letter carriers). Also, Congress has not appropriated additional monies for overtime, due to the...
Hundreds of wildfires are burning across California leading thousands to evacuate - amid a blistering heat wave that is now in its second week. As of Thursday, blazes threatened thousands of homes and blackened city skies, as firefighters are struggling with containment. At least one person has died. Hundred of thousands of acres have burned as the fires chewed through brushland, rural areas, canyon country and dense forest to the north, east and south of San Francisco. Flames also carved their...
According to Newsom, firefighters are battling 367 known wildfires across California, including 23 that are considered major fires. But of those 367 fires, "the prospect of that number going up is very real," he said at a press conference Wednesday. As of early Thursday, Cal Fire reported that there has so far been a total of 5,762 "incidents," or number of wildfires, over the course of the 2020 fire season. All but three of the "active incidents" (or fires) listed on Cal Fire's website...
One helicopter pilot died in a crash, while battling one of the state's smaller fires in Western Fresno County in central California on Wednesday, according to Cal Fire officials. As of Thursday afternoon, 33 civilians and firefighters had been injured in the blazes, according to Cal Fire's assistant deputy director Daniel Berlant. In Northern California, police and firefighters went door-to-door before dawn Wednesday in a frantic scramble to warn residents to evacuate as fire encroached on Vacaville. Fire officials said at least 50 structures...
In all, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), more than 50,000 California residents have evacuated due to fires that are burning some 780 square miles across the state. That's an area equal to about half the size of Rhode Island. Tens of thousands were under evacuation orders in regions around the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday. Smoke blanketed the city, and could be seen from space, per satellites at the National Weather Service. The ash and smoke in the San Francisco air came from at least...
Many of the wildfires burning in California today were caused by a perfect storm of extreme heat and consequential lightning. The heat was generated by a strong ridge of high pressure over the western U.S., which also produced an onslaught of thunderstorms and lightning that ignited the blazes — often pushed by strong winds. In Solano County, a rural area southeast of Vacaville, evacuation orders were given to 8,000 residents — some fled for the first time ever. “I’ve lived here for 30 years, never had to evacuate before,” resident Tim Lukeh...
“California has a really flammable ecosystem,” University of Colorado fire scientist Jennifer Balch told the Associated Press. “People are living in flammable places, providing ignition, starting the wildfires against a backdrop of a warming climate that is making wildfires worse.” Area burned by wildfire in California increased more than fivefold since 1972, from a five-year average of 236 square miles a year, to 1,394 square miles a year — according to a 2019 study by Columbia University fire scientist A. Park Williams, Balch and others. A...
In efforts to contain the blazes, some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours, said Cal Fire spokesman Jonathan Cox. “We’re in the unfortunate position where firefighters are going to be spending several days out on the fire line,” Cox said. “It’s grueling, it’s exhausting.” Fire Management Assistance Grants (FMAG) have been requested and granted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) this week, to provide federal funding/assistance in combating fires including the LNU Lightning Complex, the Jones Fir...
by Rachel Ganz Following a zoom conversation last week with author Lisa Napoli about her new book "Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN and The Birth of 24-Hour News'' I immediately ordered my copy on Amazon. It is a well written and compelling history and launch of 24 –hour news CNN in 1980 by the genius and quirky Ted Turner. Lisa Napoli started her career in the summer of 1981 as an unpaid teenage intern at CNN'S New York Bureau. She is an accomplished journalist having worked at the New York T...
The City Council this week continued its effort to establish a permanent rent control ordinance in Culver City. At its Monday meeting, Councilmembers spent nearly 3 hours evaluating rent control and tenant protection policies for inclusion in a permanent program. The proposed policies dealt with no-fault evictions, permissible rent increases, rent registry, "mom and pop" landlords and "fair and reasonable return" analysis, among other items. The issue of permanent rent control was brought on...
