El Rincon: The School With Heart

Debbie Hamme

El Rincon.  My home away from home, the elementary school that both my son and grandson attended.  The site of my first job with the district in 1996.  A place that holds fond memories for me and a school with infinite possibilities just waiting patiently to come to fruition.

El Rincon is a school aching to reach its full potential.  Unfortunately, it faces challenges that are difficult to overcome in today’s fiscal climate.  When people tell you that it’s not about the money or that money doesn’t buy happiness, you want to believe that.  But, the reality is that it is about the money and that those schools with less cannot offer their students the same goods, services and opportunities that other schools in the district enjoy.

El Rincon has amazing teachers and support staff.  We are all deeply invested in our school and our students.  It is true that we have had a frequent turnover in principals—three in three years.  We now have a principal, Reginald Brunson, who is as invested in our school as we have always been and under his leadership, we are beginning to realize some of our potential.

Of course, there are still challenges. While we were fortunate to be the recipient school of grant monies that allowed us to create a state-of-the-art Science Lab, we soon realized that in order to utilize it to its full extent, we needed to have an aide in the lab during the school day.  It was difficult for the teacher to be responsible for the set up of the experiment, the execution of the experiment, the breakdown and clean-up of the experiment during lab time without help. With a limited block of time in which to accomplish all of these things, we worried that our students weren’t getting the maximum benefit of their time in the lab. Of course the solution would be an aide in the lab, but the problem that remains is how to fund it. 

We have had full day kindergarten for years and in the beginning it was decided that in order to make full day instruction a success, an aide would be needed in those classrooms for at least half of the day.  For awhile, that was what was happening and it was working.  Not that full day kindergarten wasn’t a challenge for our teachers in other ways—the children, even those with preschool experience, grew tired easily and had trouble focusing on their work.  Having an aide in the room helped. 

Then we faced another major challenge. 

A parent raised the issue of how those aides were being paid, and it turned out that since they were being paid for with Targeted Title I funds they could not stay in the kindergarten classrooms.  They could only be used to work with our Targeted Title I students in grades 2 through 5, since students are identified as being qualified due to their state test scores and testing doesn’t begin until 2^nd grade.  The result was that the three aides paid for through Title I funding would be taken away from kindergarten entirely, which left a single aide (who was paid through School Improvement funds) to be shared by our three kindergarten teachers.  The Title I funded aides would split their time working with targeted students in our other classrooms. It was a heartbreaking blow to the kindergarten students as well as their teachers, but much to the teachers’ credit, they rose to the occasion, as difficult as it was, came to terms with the result of a state guideline that had to be observed, and still enriched their students’ lives.

The other challenge we face is the community’s perception of our school. To some, we are CCUSD's  “African-American” school, to some we are the “permit” school, to some we are the elementary school with the most suspensions or the one with the kids that have behavior issues and to some we may now be a Title I school, as opposed to a Targeted Title I school.

But to us, the people who work at El Rincon and who give our all every day to do what’s best for our students and families, it is home.  We embrace our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) focus and strive to make each new school year better than the last. Our PTA is working hard to fundraise for us, even though they are still working through their own financial crisis, and while we do not have a booster club right now, we hope to in the future.

Yet, we persevere because while we may not be a school with money, we are a school with heart.

Debbie Hamme is a Staff Writer for the Culver City Progress Blog, the President of the Culver City Association of Classified Employees, and the Secretary at El Rincon Elementary School.

Help Protect Us From Fracking In And Around Culver City

Suzanne DeBenedittis

     1.  What is hydraulic fracturing or fracking?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hydraulic fracturing is  “the forcing open of fissures in subterranean rocks by introducing liquid at high pressure, especially to extract oil or gas.”  Fracking is a common term used for this process of hydraulic fracturing.

This supposedly common, 60 year old  practice in the petroleum industry has no common definition. Our neighbor, Plains Exploration and Production (PXP) in one of the documents on its website alludes to a number of definitions of hydraulic fracturing (some of which use the term to define the term).

Early on when Supervisor Ridley-Thomas held informative hearings, Jon Peirson who monitors the field told the audience that PXP was doing nothing more than “gravel packing”-- his euphemism for  a definition I requested of Dr Tom Clyde Williams, another Industry expert.

 According to Williams, hydraulic fracturing is the “Injection of liquids  into a formation at sufficient pressure to exceed the formation's fracture pressure - force great enough to raise the formation and breaking it in less than 12-24 hours (Rock weighs 2-3 time more than water - fracking pressure would be sufficient to lift that weight).”

Neither mention that the liquids/proppants utilize thousands of gallons of water laced with proprietary carcinogenic chemicals produced and injected by Halliburton,  nor that inherent in this process is seismicity which may induce earthquakes. 

(I sometimes wonder if Halliburton thinks corporately of  this field –in  which they inject the chemicals-- as a monetary win-win; for if they get to extrude oil & gas they make millions, and if this process triggers “the Big One” they stand to make billions cleaning up the devastation.)

2.   Brief History  & Costs-benefits analysis of fracking

Keeping our focus on  Culver City and  the Baldwin Hills,  let's look at the promised benefits and related costs of hydraulic fracturing.  

Benefits:  Intended benefits are cheap energy, jobs, additional revenue for City, County and State governments.  Unspoken benefits sought by any corporation include dividends to stockholders, with senior  management keeping their high paying jobs and earning bonuses if....

The promise of “cheap energy” from the touted 60 years of fracking belies the fact of  ever rising  gasoline prices.   And given our free market system, how can PXP tout “California Oil for California's Energy Needs?”   How can PXP assure the oil it produces will stay in California or even in the United States? 

Costs:   The price tag of these promised benefits primarily affect the communities in which fracking takes place as they pay the hidden costs.  How so?  

The Bush-Cheney administration created loopholes in major environmental statutes providing the Oil and Gas Industry  Exclusions and Exemptions.  Following is a direct quote from a  2007 report.

The Oil and Gas Industry’s  Exclusions and Exemptions to  Major Environmental Statutes written by Renee Lewis Kosnik, MSEL, JD  Research Director, Oil and Gas Accountability Project:

Executive Summary  

The oil and gas industry enjoys sweeping exemptions from provisions in the major federal environmental statutes intended to protect human health and the environment.  These statutes include the:

• Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and  Liability Act

• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

• Safe Drinking Water Act

• Clean Water Act

• Clean Air Act

• National Environmental Policy Act

• Toxic Release Inventory under the Emergency Planning and  Community Right-to-Know Act 

This lack of regulatory oversight can be traced to many illnesses and even deaths for people and wildlife across the country.  There are a variety of chemicals used during the many phases of oil and gas development.  These chemicals also produce varying types of waste throughout these processes.  Because of the exemptions and exclusions, toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes are permeating the soil, water sources and the air threatening human health to an alarming extent. 

For the entire document see http://www.earthworksaction.org/files/publications/PetroleumExemptions1c.pdf?pubs/PetroleumExemptions1c.pdf

Culver City and Baldwin Hills Fracking Concerns

Findings from a PXP sonar study showed there are oil and gas reserves under  Culver City residences and homes.  The EIR-CSD indicates PXP plans to drill approximately 60 wells in Culver City by 2015 and another 40 by 2028.   Their plan includes four wells to be drilled from the surface area of the oil field horizontally under Ballona Creek and into the Sentous formation which is at about 10,000 feet deep.

PXP has been successful at exploiting this rock formation using hydraulic fracturing as a well stimulation technique.  As part of the litigated CSD Settlement, PXP is preparing a Hydraulic Fracturing Study.    My concerns:

ñ  For this study PXP is studying a well they have fracked vertically to create a model for

           the planned horizontal drilling.  If the Baldwin Hills striations, water deposits and rock            formations were straight across like a layer cake, using (A) a study of  a vertical well to

            predict (B) results of a two to five mile long horizontal wells, the model might work.

            However, given the instability of this land (remember the collapse of the BaldwinDam)

            and the fact that its formations are very convoluted, the study seems to be more pro forma than predictive of potential hazards.

ñ  I wonder if PXP's plans to drill 100 wells in Culver City are inflated numbers?  This is an often used negotiating tool in development strategy, which makes developers look like they are offering concessions when they allow cut backs.   In fact PXP did this when they first stated their intention of drilling 1000 new wells in the Baldwin Hills, then conceded to 600, and then settled for 500.

ñ  PXP reports using over 160,000 gallons of water per well fracked vertically.

            For horizontal  drilling or fracking “two to five million gallons of water may be necessary to fracture one horizontal well in a shale formation.”  This is from the EPA Study http://www.epa.gov/safewater/uic/pdfs/hfresearchstudyfs.pdf 

            In our drought-ridden state, should use of water for oil take precedence over water needed for human and agricultural use?

ñ  The Newport-Inglewood Fault is a right-lateral fault in Southern California. The fault extends for 75 kilometers (47 mi) from Culver City southeast to Newport Beach at which point it runs out into the Pacific Ocean. The fault can be seen on the Earth's surface as line of hills extending from Signal Hill to Culver City. The fault has a slip rate of approximately 0.6 millimeter/year (0.02 in/year) and is predicted to be capable of a 6.0–7.4 magnitude earthquake on the moment magnitude scale.  From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport-Inglewood_Fault

ñ  Given the proximity of this field to this and another Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault area, whose active 7.4 fault line runs along LaBrea, is it in the best interests of the 300,000 residents that live on the perimeter of the Baldwin Hills Oil Field, as too our beach adjacent neighbors who will suffer the concomitant tsunami,to allow our elected leader to permit this controversial drilling practice before all safeguards are in place and communities in the danger zones are adequately prepared? 

4.    Legal Precedents

If Culver City's elected officials, as too our County Supervisors intend to honor their fiduciary responsibilities to the people's welfare, in good conscience they must require more of PXP than a study done on an inadequate model.  Given the health and safety risks involved in this highly controversial form of oil production,  our officials can follow the precedents of a city, a state and a nation that have  put a moratorium or ban on fracking until it is proven safe. 

In 2010, the City Council of Pittsburgh voted unanimously (9-0) to ban fracking.  “Drafted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), Pittsburgh’s ordinance elevates the rights of people, the community, and nature over corporate “rights” and challenges the authority of the state to pre-empt community decision-making.” "With this vote we are asserting the right of the city to make critical decisions to protect our health, safety, and welfare. -Pittsburgh Councilman Doug Shields”

Both excerpts from http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/pittsburg-bans-natural-gas-drilling

This May 16^th in Vermont, “Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law the nation’s first [state-level] ban on a hotly debated natural-gas-drilling technique that involves blasting chemical-laced water deep into the ground. . . . Shumlin said the increased amounts of natural gas obtainable through hydraulic fracturing were not worth the risk to drinking-water supplies. In the coming generation or two, “drinking water will be more valuable than oil or natural gas.”  http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/may/28/vermont-becomes-first-state-to-ban-frack/   According to CNN he also said,"This bill will ensure that we do not inject chemicals into groundwater in a desperate pursuit for energy,"  The science behind fracking is "uncertain at best," Shumlin declared.  See http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/23/tagblogsfindlawcom2012-injured idUS365234324120120523

In a similar vein, a year ago France voted to ban fracking. According to the Business Insider the French Parliament voted 287-176 to ban hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-12/news/30004330_1_shale-gas-fracking-hydraulic

In early May 2012,  speaking at the 13th International Oil Summit in Paris, French economy minister Eric Besson  said that France could reconsider its ban on the use of hydraulic fracturing in the exploration of shale gas if the technique can be proven to be safe. “He said that so far, shale gas explorers had been unable to prove that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was not harmful to the environment.
"That doesn't mean the subject is closed -- it could be reopened tomorrow," Besson said, adding that by tomorrow he meant over the next few years. But this would only happen if operators "can prove the safety of the technique."

http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/NaturalGas/8255711

                5.Common Sense Criteria: The Precautionary Principle & Informed Consent

The Precautionary Principle

As countries, states and cities struggle to balance their budgets while protecting the common good, lawmakers need  to look at Precautionary Principle approaches to resolve these very real concerns regarding potential harm from hydraulic fracturing for gas and oil.

“In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the application of the precautionary principle has been made a statutory requirement.”  from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle.

Also

The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to theenvironment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.

This principle allows policy makers to make discretionary decisions in situations where there is the possibility of harm from taking a particular course or making a certain decision when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. The principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk. These protections can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that provide sound evidence that no harm will result.

A precedent for using this approach is found in our own Federal Drug Administration (FDA) policy which demands that corporations prove that their substances “Do no harm” before they can  market them.

Informed Consent

Given that PXP is planning to drill under our homes, in addition to the Precautionary Principle, the changes to the Culver City municipal code in respect to hydraulic fracturing should also include:

1.      That all property owners  and residents in and near the horizontal drilling areas be duly informed by the City of the potential risks to their health, safety and property.

2.      PXP files with the City all letters from property owners who gave their mineral rights to PXP.

3.      That PXP needs to instruct all property owners regarding areas in their homes or buildings that may be adversely affected from the underground drilling.

4.      That property owners may file photos/videos of their property where potential damage may occur,

5.      That PXP indemnify the property owners and pay for any damages that may occur; that the burden of proof lies with PXP if property owners have filed photos/videos with the City before drilling occurred, such as foundations, door jambs, etc.

6.      That PXP put up sufficient funds in an escrow account that will pay for any damages or loss of life occurring within Culver City from its oil & gas production, with burden of proof on PXP regarding liability.

7.      That PXP not begin any hydraulic fracturing or “gravel packing” or horizontal drilling until it can prove to the citizenry and not just assume or extrapolate from a vertical model study that its processes are safe, posing no hazard to our health or safety; and that it is in full compliance with the recent EPA requirement to capture toxic air emissions.

8.      That PXP pay for our Fire Department's Disaster Preparedness Coordinator and Staff to provide all at-risk areas with Neighborhood Emergency Response Teams (NERT) trainings and also establish Community shelter areas,  carrying out evacuation drills and teaching all how to shelter-in-place in case of emergency.   Area especially at-risk include Blair Hills, Raintree, Tara Hill, Lakeside,  Culver Crest and Marycrest Manor, as too our neighbor, WLA College, as well as our schools.

9.      That the City provide unbiased public education regarding the pros and cons of this controversial process and that until affected residents give their informed consent in writing, PXP cannot  engage in horizontal drilling in Culver City.

How you can get involved

Express yourself at 3 vital hydraulic fracturing meetings:

1.       May 31, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., 10708 Northgate, Culver City 90230.  An educational event to prepare for the State meeting about fracking (listed below)  (310) 204-0570 or makeCCsafe@gmail.com. 

2.       June 6, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., at the Greater Baldwin Hills Alliance office 3731 Stocker Street #201, Los Angeles 90008.  Fracking Advocacy Development meeting.  mark@chc-inc.org or (323) 295-9372 ext. 225.

3.      June 12, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., City Hall, Culver City, 9770 Culver Boulevard, Culver City sponsored by the California State Department of Conservation hosting 1 of the 7 state-wide workshops as part of a comprehensive information gathering process aimed at the development of regulations governing hydraulic fracturing.  http:/conservation.ca.gov/org/general-information/pages/hfworkship.aspx.

Suzanne DeBenedittis is the former Vice President and current Advisor to the Board of the Culver Crest Neighborhood Association.

The "Gold" Standard of Culver City Employees

Neil Rubenstein

Through a Public Records Act request that I filed, Culver City gave me several documents concerning City employees which are being utilized for this article.  The first employee I am writing about is Mary (Marlee) Chang.

There is a lot of debate throughout the country and in our community about public pensions.  While there are many questions raised by these documents regarding pensions for our city employees, the most concerning name appearing on the list of City employees’ pensions is Marlee Chang.  While some might argue that public safety benefits are too generous, at least we know those retirees on the list were qualified and earned their dues.  Not so with Chang who made her meteoric rise due to her association with former Chief Administrative Officer/City Manager Jerry Fulwood.

Chang neither had a four-year college degree nor understood the elementary difference between a cash and an accrual accounting system.  Yet she ended up holding the positions of City Controller and exited the City (with the early retirement incentive “golden handshake”) as one of the two, yes two, Assistant City Managers.

Marlee Chang first started working for Culver City in 1990 in the position of Administrative Assistant for which a bachelors degree was not required.  In 2004, Chang was appointed by Fulwood to become City Controller (which required a BA/BS degree in Finance, Accounting, Business or Public Administration) over other candidates who had advanced college degrees and much greater experience.  Chang submitted a resume which said she had a “major” in International Trade from Ming-Chuan College, Taiwan.  The outside recruitment firm of Avery & Associates in its applicant profile package clearly said Chang was “non-degreed”.  The College did not even offer accredited four-year bachelors degrees until 1990, many years after Chang moved to the United States, per her resume.  Jim Lavery was selected as the City Controller, however when Lavery left after less than a year on the job, Fulwood quickly slid Chang into the position.  So how did she come to be interviewed anyway and why didn’t the City’s Human Resources department, that was monitoring the process, pull her application out of the pile?   Wasn’t it a violation of the rules to appoint her, when the job application approved by the Civil Service Commission specified a college degree as a minimum requirement? 

If that wasn’t bad enough, it happened a second time.  After the changes to the City Charter form of government took effect and the City hired a Chief Financial Officer in place of the City Controller, Fulwood had to find a position for Chang.  So he created a second Assistant City Manager (which also has a minimum requirement of a bachelors degree)  and increased the minimum number of years of professional experience.  With no recruitment process whatsoever, Fulwood slid Chang into that position, with nary a blink of the eye from the City Council.  Again, Chang did not possess the minimum requirements to perform this job.

This might pass the smell test if Chang was one of those extraordinary individuals who is considered a leader in her field and recognized by fellow professionals as such, without the need of a diploma.  Chang is no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.  While the last City Treasurer was busy representing the City’s financial interests with professional groups, including making presentations, writing papers, and serving on statewide committees, very few public finance professionals even knew who Chang was and what role she played.

Oh, and Chang never did have any responsibility for the accounting function, which is normally what a controller handles.  Fulwood also declined to clarify that situation in renaming the position she held to Budget Director.  Who did have the responsibility for accounting, financial reporting, revenue collection, tax administration, investments and just about every finance function except for budgeting?  Oh, that was the elected City Treasurer.  Good thing, too, because Chang tried to incorrectly influence the presentation of a $6 million transaction in the financial statements one year until the City Treasurer finally had to have the outside auditors explain to Chang that she was in error.

After the changes to the City Charter were implemented and the economy declined rapidly in 2008, Fulwood submitted Chang’s position as one of the few being offered a “golden handshake” early retirement incentive.  Chang happily took this prize going out the door, too, since it gave her additional service credit, which will boost her retirement pension by tens of thousands of dollars. 

It's bad enough to pay these outrageous pensions for city employees who are both qualified and hard-working.  But how can our city council explain to the tax payers of Culver City that the money spent every year on Ms. Chang's retirement is a good use of public resources?

Neil Rubenstein is a Former Culver City Disability Advisory Committee Member and a Former Culver City Representative to the LAX Advisory Committee.

Proposition 29 Will Save Lives and Save California Money

Joanna Morales

When Californians head to the polls June 5, they will be asked to vote on a ballot measure that adds a $1 tax increase per pack of cigarettes to raise revenue for tobacco prevention programs, stop kids from smoking and raise money for cancer research in California. Proposition 29 will generate more than $700 million a year to help people quit smoking and to support California’s medical research institutions.

Prop 29 was written by the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association. It is being opposed by the tobacco industry, which has already spent more than $40 million to fight this public health initiative.

California’s kids buy or smoke more than 78 million packs of cigarettes each year. Passage of Prop 29 will discourage kids from ever starting to smoke. Increasing the price of tobacco products is the most effective tool we have to protect kids from Big Tobacco’s influence. As tobacco becomes more expensive, the products are less appealing to young people.  A $1 increase in the cost of cigarettes is expected to keep 228,000 California kids from becoming addicted smokers. It will also reinvigorate California’s world renowned tobacco control program by dedicating a significant amount of the revenues to tobacco prevention and control.

In addition, Prop 29 doubles funding for programs in California to help smokers quit. When a state increases a tobacco tax, birth defects caused by smoking decline and tobacco-related illnesses and deaths are reduced significantly. Research shows that raising the price of tobacco products by just $1 in California will save more than 100,000 lives.

California’s cigarette tax is currently 87 cents, but according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, smoking costs the state more than $15 for every pack sold. The annual health care spending in California caused by tobacco use totals more than $9 billion. Overall, Prop 29 could save the state more than $80 million in health costs within five years and more than $5 billion long-term as a result of the declines in adult and youth smoking.

Prop 29 will also generate more than $500 million annually to fund medical research in California. According to a recent study from the University of California, San Francisco, the investment will create 12,000 new jobs and nearly $2 billion in new economic activity in the state.

A “Yes” vote on Prop 29 means California researchers won’t lose their funding, new cancer treatments won’t be stalled in labs and access to clinical trials will increase at cancer centers across the state. With 155 Californians dying every day from cancer, and many of those deaths linked to tobacco use, we can’t afford to ignore this issue anymore.

On June 5, please join the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association and vote “Yes” on Prop 29.

For more information please visit www.CaliforniansforaCure.org.

Joanna Morales is a Culver City Resident and an active member of the Yes on Prop 29 Campaign.

Culver City Spends More On Legal Services Than All But 5 Cities in LA County

Gary Silbiger

According to information obtained by the Los Angeles Times through a Public Records Act request collected from the 88 cities in Los Angeles County, Culver City is high on the list of spending for City Attorney costs.  Some of this detailed information can be found at http://www.latimes.com/cityattorneyspending while other facts were received by the Times, but not posted on that website.

Of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County, Culver City, at $4,143,319, has the sixth largest annual legal services costs, which includes both expenses for City Attorney employees and outside legal firms.  Only Los Angeles, Long Beach, Vernon, Santa Monica, Burbank, and Hawthorne spent more money on legal services costs than Culver City.  However, Los Angeles has almost 100 times Culver City’s population, Long Beach has 12 times, and Santa Monica, Burbank, and Hawthorne have twice Culver City’s population.  Tiny Vernon has suffered severe corruption which probably caused the high legal expenses.  Other than Vernon, Culver City is the only small city in the County that spends such large amounts on legal fees.

Compared to the other 87 cities in Los Angeles County, Culver City has the twelfth largest percent of its budget, 3%, spent on legal expenses, including both in-house City Attorney and outside contracted legal costs.  Only Signal Hill, Hawthorne, Bradbury, Hermosa Beach, Vernon, La Habra Heights, Rancho Palos Verdes, Sierra Madre, Compton, Rolling Hills, and Artesia spend a higher percentage of its budget on attorney fees than does Culver City.  When a higher percentage of the budget goes to legal costs, other needed programs are denied sufficient funds, rejected, or  disbanded.

Comparing the annual amount of City Attorney costs (both in-house and outside contracts) to its population, Culver City, at $88 per person, is ranked sixth in per capita expenditure after Vernon, City of Industry, Irwindale, Signal Hill, and Santa Monica.

Small town Culver City, consisting of less than 40,000 residents, spends an unusually high amount for legal services when compared to other Los Angeles County cities.  In fact all 3 indicators explained above – total legal costs, percentage of legal costs as part of its budget, and per capita costs – find Culver City ranked 6, 6, and 12.  Is this tremendously expensive legal cost caused by overpayment of the City Attorney employees, the large payments of outside legal consultants, the duplication of responsibilities between in-house and outside legal assistance, the overuse of outside legal assistance, and/or the lax financial oversight of legal costs?

Looking at the last six fiscal years of the City Attorney’s office of Culver City, it shows a steady increase in expenses from the $1,137,670 for fiscal year 2005-2006 to $1,694,124 for fiscal year 2009-2010, although only one employee, a deputy city attorney II position was added in 2009-2010.   With the financial crisis lingering, the City Attorney’s office cut a deputy city attorney I, senior manager analyst, and legal secretary for the past 2010-2011 fiscal year and decreased its expenses to $1,401,429.  Who will fill the work accomplished by these 3 missing employees – the outside legal consultants, employees in other City departments, or by others paid overtime?  If these 3 positions are essential to the operation of the City Attorney’s office, will it justify having more outside law offices performing much more of the required work?   Even this fiscal year, though, showed a $1,401,429 total of expenses in the City Attorney’s office, which includes salaries, and some minor office expenses.  By subtracting an approximation of $100,000 for miscellaneous expenses (the City did not give an amount for these items perhaps because it was not asked) such as investigators, legal research computer services, mediation, subscriptions, and messenger and filing services, from the total amount, the 7 City Attorney office staff would earn an average of about $185,700 including benefits.  Of course, the attorneys, especially the City Attorney and Assistant City Attorney, make significantly more than the other employees.  Yet, this is a large amount of money spent for a 4 attorney office. 

Outside legal firms have cost Culver City an average of more than 2,000,000 per year for the past 6 fiscal years, including the current one.  Outside City legal costs and the outside Redevelopment Agency costs are similar in total expenses. 

The law firm of Kane Ballmer and Berkman, of which Murray Kane is the Culver City Redevelopment Agency counsel, took the largest share of the profitable legal fees, earning both a huge amount from the Redevelopment Agency and a small amount from the City.  For the past 6 fiscal years, Kane Ballmer and Berkman took away more than a half million dollars per year from the Redevelopment Agency – not a bad salary for an attorney. 

Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman and Mach, the law office representing the City in its PXP oil drilling law suits, averaged about $300,000 per year in legal fees after deducting the $710,000 reimbursement in settlement of these PXP lawsuits.

But it’s not only the Redevelopment Agency’s attorney and the PXP Oil lawsuit law firm that received handsome payments from the struggling city of Culver City.  The highest yearly payments by Culver City include: the law firm of Liebert & Cassady who were paid $609,000 one year, McCune & Harber who took in $511,000 in legal fees in a single year, Carpenter and Rothans who were paid $268,000 one year, and Fox & Sohagi who took in $186,000 in just one year.  All of these law offices have attorneys working part time for the City or Redevelopment Agency.  Yet when we study the amount paid for the work it seems like the whole law office was on a full-time retainer from the City.

The final group of outside attorneys used by Culver City are the 6 law firms that represent the City in workers compensation matters.  The 2010-2011 fiscal year demonstrates that Culver City paid a total of $185,732 to those 6 law offices, down a bit for the previous 5 fiscal years.

Now is the time for the City Council to evaluate its City Attorney’s office to determine its role and goals.  Some suggestions include:

     1.  Evaluation of how many attorneys and other staff is best for the City Attorney’s office and what type of work should they perform. 

     2.  Compare the City Attorney’s office in Culver City with ones from similarly sized ones in Los Angeles County.

     3.  What areas of law are handled in-house and what other kinds of work, if any, should they practice?  Are there other areas of law that the current staff can do?  Is it worthwhile to hire other city attorneys who can specialize in areas currently handled by outside counsel?

     4.  At the same time, a close look at outside counsel should be performed to determine a bidding process for the services of the dozens of law firms.  Is Culver City’s rate for outside counsel fair and consistent with other cities’?  How often should bidding for outside attorneys be performed?

     5.  Are the invoices from each law firm closely reviewed by City staff and City auditors and what do they look for?

Generally, everyone likes to finish in the top 10; but when the top 10 means the most expensive, it is fiscally sound to both audit and thoroughly review all funds.  After all, additional money is greatly needed, now more than ever, and must be carefully prioritized to services that help our residents, not exhorbitant salaries.

Gary Silbiger is the Co-Editor of the Culver City Progress Blog and the Former Mayor of Culver City.

Creating "Packaged Tours" of Culver City

Darryl Cherness

Culver City takes great pride in referring to itself as the “Heart of Screenland.” Unfortunately, our community has done very little to promote our motion picture and television heritage. The real challenge for the residents of Culver City is how to exploit our heritage to generate revenue and jobs for our City during this difficult economic time. Here are my proposals to address this issue:

Proposal #1

I propose that “packaged tours” be established that focus on Culver City’s motion picture and television heritage (i.e. Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, etc.). I call these tours “The Heart of Screenland Tours.” The tours, as I envision it, would consist of a walking tour of Sony Studios, lunch at a downtown restaurant, a taping of “Wheel of Fortune” or “Jeopardy,” and a night’s stay at the historic Culver Hotel.

Financial Advantages to the City

Tours, such as the one I have proposed, would bring multiple sources of revenue to the City. For example, the tour operator would have to pay an initial license fee to operate in Culver City. Moreover, the tour operator would have to pay annual taxes to the City based on gross revenue. In addition, lunches at a downtown restaurant would generate sales tax, and a night’s stay at the Culver Hotel would generate “bed tax” revenue. The City may also want to consider an “entertainment tax” (this is used by some cities for live entertainment) that could be tacked on to the fee charged by Sony Studios for the walking tour.

Political Considerations

The tours that I have proposed cannot be implemented without broad, community based support. While the tours would be privately operated and would not require City Council approval, it would seem to me that the support of 3 members of the City Council would make it easier to “sell” the concept to the community. It is imperative that this plan have the support of all the major stakeholders in the community including the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Business Association, the Culver City Historical Society, and, of course, Sony Studios, which is an integral part of the tours. Concerned citizens need to write or phone the members of the City Council as well as these organizations to generate support for the tours concept.

Once consensus is achieved within the City Council, among the stakeholders, and with Sony Studios, the next step would be to establish an organization or committee to negotiate with a tour operator and demonstrate to the operator how establishing these tours would be financially lucrative.

Marketing

The tours could be promoted not only by the commercial tour operator, but could also be promoted by the Chamber of Commerce or some other City organization. Ads, for example, could be run in Westways Magazine. In addition, there will be thousands of people boarding and disembarking from the Expo Line at National and Robertson when the station opens this summer. What’s to prevent the City, the Chamber, or some other organization, or citizen volunteers from passing out brochures about the tour to commuters? With proper marketing, thousands of tourists could be attracted to Culver City annually, creating jobs and revenue for Culver City.

Proposal #2

During the recent City Council campaign, there was a great deal of discussion about creating a “cultural corridor” in Culver City that would consist of the Wende and the Mayme A. Clayton Museums (the Wende consists of “cold war” artifacts, and Mayme A Clayton Museum is an African American Museum).

My proposal, to establish “package tours” of the museums, would be similar to “The Heart of Screenland Tours.” The tours would consist of a tour of the museums, lunch at a downtown restaurant, and a night’s stay at the historic Culver Hotel.

Many of the same financial advantages that apply to “The Heart of Screenland Tours” would apply to the museum tours. In regard to marketing, an integrated approach needs to be employed that focuses on both tours, not just one. The reason why I suggest two tours is for a very simple reason: It’s simply not possible for one tour to do all of the above.

Conclusion

The proposed tours offer a real opportunity to educate tourists all over America and throughout the world about Culver City’s exciting motion picture and television heritage. In addition, tourists will learn about the unique museums located in Culver City. Moreover, the tours offer a real opportunity for the City to generate multiple sources of new revenue at a time when Culver City desperately needs that revenue. The time for the tours is now. With your help, we can make these tours a reality.

Darryl Cherness is the Former President of the Culver City Democratic Club.

An Injury to One Is An Injury To All

Karlo Silbiger

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

-          Martin Luther King, Jr., Alabama, 1963

Last weekend I went to Washington DC to visit my sister and celebrate with her and my family as she graduated from graduate school.  The day I arrived, President Obama made one of the most historic statements of his presidency when he declared with little prompting and great political risk during an election year that he supported marriage equality for members of the gay and lesbian community.  His decision and the impact that it will have on our country and our politics weighed on my mind throughout the weekend.  On the second day of my whirlwind trip through our capitol, we visited the new Martin Luther King memorial, complete with a massive recreation of King’s likeness and dozens of quotes (both famous and more obscure) from his many writings and speeches.  I was drawn to the one above as a true statement of purpose for the progressive movement, a real mission statement for achieving lasting equality.  And then it occurred to me: it should be no surprise to any student of history that the first non-white President in our country’s 223 year history would also be the first to support complete LGBT equality.

Every single person comes to the table with biases and prejudices that cause us to simultaneously fight for our rights and deny them to others.  Imagine a person who has had to deal with a lifetime of religious intolerance and then, when finally gaining acceptance, dares to judge the religious practices of others.  Or the member of a racial minority group who after years of struggling for basic civil rights looks down upon the immigrants who are fighting for the same thing.  This is natural and widespread.  But the smart leaders, those who really understand the long-term impact of their actions, know that the words of the Industrial Workers of the World (the “wobblies”) rings true: “an injury to one is an injury to all.”  If those around you are suffering from unjust treatment, then you are suffering too from living in a world that treats people unjustly.  The highest form of social activism, in my opinion, is that which occurs when the activist has nothing personally to gain but a better community to pass on to the next generation.

President Obama has had a somewhat schizophrenic relationship with the LGBT community since his election.  In 2008, gay marriage was a major political issue throughout the country, brought about by conservative groups who put propositions on many state ballots (including California’s) in an attempt to bring out their voters and divide this country.  Obama, then running for president, was forced to take a position, and he chose to walk a tightrope opposing gay marriage, supporting civil unions, and opposing hateful propositions, including proposition 8.  There is nothing wrong with a politician taking a nuanced position on an issue (especially one as complex as this), but it became obvious to most of us that the President was in fact a supporter of marriage equality, but simultaneously stuck in a position where he felt that the country was not yet ready to take the jump.  He tried to move the country along by ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the last barrier to full integration of the military, signing the “Mathew Shepard  and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” and appointing LGBT officials to more and higher positions in the federal government than any of his predecessors.  But he refused, until now, to take the final step.

The country is still quite divided on marriage equality, although moving in the right direction.  But more importantly, 2 of the groups that the President definitely needs to attract as strong supporters in November if he is to win, African-Americans and senior citizens, are among the most strongly opposed to this issue, which bring us back to the MLK quote that originally got me thinking.  In 1969, until the Loving v. Virginia supreme court case, it was still illegal in many states for interracial couples to be married.  We are only 43 years removed from the government legislating love based on race, but some African-American leaders have forgotten what it felt like.  Some, but not all.  During the Congressional debate over the poorly named “Defense of Marriage Act” in 1996 (signed, by the way, by Obama’s DEMOCRATIC predecessor Bill Clinton), African-American Congressman John Lewis famously said “You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love.  We are talking about human beings, people like you, people who want to get married, buy a house, and spend their lives with the one they love.  They have done no wrong.”  He remembered his duty to fight against the oppression of others as if he were being personally affected.  Obama took a leap of faith 2 weeks ago that many in his community will be adopting John Lewis’s view of historical relevancy.

Here in Culver City, there is often a splintering affect that takes place in our politics.  Some of us work on environmental issues, others on school issues, others still on cultural issues.  When there is an item on an agenda that impacts one neighborhood, I know that the residents of that neighborhood will be out in large numbers fighting to maintain their quality of life.  When we on the school board are addressing an issue that relates to one school or one group of families, we know that we will hear from the affected.  But how many of us come out to support what’s right even when the outcome has no direct impact on our lives?  How many of us are all around activists with no personal potential gain?  I can tell you from my experience in Culver City that it is quite a small number.  What the President did in making this decision was more than a monumental step in shaping the future of gay rights in our country.  It was also a reminder to us all that our reach is beyond the personal, that our responsibility is beyond the comfortable, that our work is to help those facing injustice, and that our time starts right now.

Karlo Silbiger is the Co-Editor of the Culver City Progress Blog, the President of the Culver City School Board, and the Former President of the Culver City Democratic Club.