Dr. William Brien was elected to the City Council in 2009 and is now serving his rotation as the vice mayor. Before that he was on the Recreation and Parks Commission and Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education. Civic duties aside, Brien is an orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He is the hospital’s executive vice chairman of the department of surgery and the director of the Cedars-Sinai Orthopedic Center. He is also a former Cedars-Sinai chief of staff. A lifelong Beverly Hills resident, Brien attended Hawthorne and Beverly Hills High. His four children have also attended city schools. Patch recently met with the vice mayor for some coffee and conversation. In part one of our interview with Brien, we discussed the Joint Powers Agreement and negotiations with the school board, the possibility of a subway tunnel going under the city’s only high school and future plans regarding the pensions of Beverly Hills employees. Beverly Hills Patch: What is the status of the latest Joint Powers Agreement , a four-year contract in which the city pays the school district for access to school facilities? Vice Mayor William Brien: The end goal is to come up with a funding formula that can be supportive of the schools and also makes sense for the city. I don’t think the concept of major reductions that meet the other percentages of reductions we’ve had will occur. We recognize the value of the school facilities and also the need that the school kids and district have. What the final funding number will be, I don’t know yet. We need to sit down and get into some of the details with the school district … what their expectations are … in terms of access and use, and what’s going to be available. But I don’t foresee major reductions in this. And certainly we’ll work together to protect the kids in this district … that’s really what we want to make sure we do here. Patch: What are the city’s next steps in opposing a Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway tunnel from going under Beverly Hills High School ? Brien: The reviews that came out basically said [Metro staff] believe that there was a significant safety risk on Santa Monica Boulevard , and there was not a significant safety risk from an earthquake—in geotechnical and seismologic standpoints—from going under the high school. The staff will make their recommendation to the [Metro board of directors] and I’m sure their recommendation will be under the high school. Then it will be up to the Metro board members to decide whether or not they believe that that’s the right thing to do or not. And we’ll see what they have to say on that. I think from the standpoint of the city and school district, I believe that all of us have been unanimous in opposing the subway going under Beverly Hills High School. I believe that there is a reasonable alternative still on Santa Monica. I don’t know whether it’s unsafe or less safe, and whether or not something can be built structurally sound and made as safe with additional dollars if it goes down Santa Monica. I think those are the things that we need to look at. If it’s totally unsafe on Santa Monica, I would not support building it in that area. Patch: Will the City Council and the BHUSD school board join together in an effort to stop Metro from tunneling under BHHS? Brien: I think that we as a city and a school district need to put aside the past rhetoric —because that’s what it was—and actually start looking at the science that was put out and see whether or not the reports are scientifically accurate, factual and really represent the risk or not to the Santa Monica alignment. I think that that’s our job to do now. We actually have data and I’ve said from the beginning I want to see the data. I want to look at this in a scientific way and I want to make that assessment—still opposing going under the high school—but I wanted to see that data and I think that that’s the way you make good decisions. I think that the rhetoric was dismissive and unfortunately unnecessary, and yet we were all saying we don’t want it under the high school. Just some of our voices were not being heard no matter how many times we said that. In the end we now will put together a working group. Council member [Lili] Bosse and I will be looking at this and we will be reaching out to the school board and they will decide who’s going to liaison with us, if they want to liaison with us, and then we’re going to come up with a plan to jointly review [Metro’s] information, I hope. I think the community needs to be able to understand our assessment of Metro’s data. Then we’ll be able to better assess what our options are, whether the final EIR [Environmental Impact Report] is appropriate or not and if there are issues, demand that those issues be addressed. Patch: How much money is Beverly Hills willing to spend to stop a subway from going under the high school? Brien: When you look at these types of issues, No. 1, you identify what your options are. And our options are, not being the decision maker, to oppose things. You have to look at the rationale of how you’re going to oppose that and what is the most successful way by which you can win. Some of that may be based on science, some of that may be based on challenging components of the final EIR. Some of that may be political. You look at all of those and you see which way you can best accomplish what the goal is, which is to not have a tunnel under the high school. At the end of the day you have to do an assessment on how much it would cost and what your chances are to win. At that point you make a decision how much you’re willing to expend. We’re going to spend money on this but at the end of the day, if the court system rules against our wishes and in favor of Metro’s, if that ends up being under the high school, then you start to run out of options. The other issue here though is they don’t have federal funding yet. We’ll see if it happens. To throw away precious school dollars, building dollars, dollars for kids … for the city to spend precious dollars taking away from critical city services—because we’ve made a lot of cuts over the last few years, and any more cuts do affect city services—you’ve got to weigh that in terms of whether or not you even need to spend at all right now. Patch: What is the status of pension plans for city employees? Brien: With regards to pensions, some of it is actually negotiated; some of it is governed by state law through CalPERS and is controlled by the state Legislature. Some things that we might as a city want to change, and maybe even some of our colleagues in the different unions in the city might even agree to change, sometimes you can’t change it because state law trumps that and there’s legislative control over that. I do think that in general, in the state of California locally and in cities around Beverly Hills, people have looked and basically said the current pension structure over the long term is not sustainable for municipalities, for counties and for the state. I think that you have to have some pension reform, and that’s OK. The reality is we need to find, working with our unions, a way to … sustain pensions for our employees that are retired, our employees that are here today and employees that come in the future—in a way that doesn’t bankrupt the city in the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. A dollar saved today has a profound impact over 40 years’ time in the city. What can change going forward for people within [current pension plans] is contribution—the employee contribution can change. And that can impact them. If you take 1 percent employee contribution, where right now the city or municipality is providing all 9 percent of it, that in essence is a 1 percent decrease in [employee] take-home pay because they’re putting money towards their retirement. This interview has been edited and condensed. Be sure to follow Beverly Hills Patch on Twitter and “Like” us on Facebook . More here: Vice Mayor Talks JPA, Metro and Pensions
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Posts Tagged ‘ children ’
After a Glendale Mother Has a Heart-to-Heart with Her Sons About Penn State Molestation Scandal, She Finds Out That Her Sons’ Babysitter Might Have Molested Them
A Glendale mother thought that the Jerry Sandusky molestation scandal at Penn State might provide a teachable moment for her children so she could warn them about the dangers of child molesters. It turns out that talk didn’t come a moment too soon. more › More here: After a Glendale Mother Has a Heart-to-Heart with Her Sons About Penn State Molestation Scandal, She Finds Out That Her Sons’ Babysitter Might Have Molested Them
What Is LAPD’s Strategy with Occupy LA?
Hundreds of LAPD officers in full riot gear were dispatched to the Occupy LA camp outside City Hall to enforce Mayor Villaraigosa’s order that the encampment be closed. Just before daybreak, it wasn’t protesters who left. It was the police. Here is the original post: What Is LAPD’s Strategy with Occupy LA?
Patrick Schwarzenegger: Haircut with Dad & Christopher
The 18-year-old aspiring model was joined by his dad Arnold and his younger brother Christopher . See original here: Patrick Schwarzenegger: Haircut with Dad & Christopher
Margie Petersen, Co-Founder of the L.A. Petersen Automotive Museum, Dies in Beverly Hills
Margie Petersen, who co-founded the Petersen Automotive Museum with her late husband, publishing magnate Robert Petersen, died in her Beverly Hills home Friday after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 76. Born in New York, Petersen (née McNally) worked as a model and actress in television commercials, including spots for Ivory Soap and Coca-Cola. During her marriage, Petersen spearheaded many philanthropic efforts with her husband, having worked with the Music Center, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Orphanage Guild and Childhelp U.S.A. Petersen was an active participant in projects aimed at battling cancer. She helped raise millions of dollars for a women’s cancer research center at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. In 2008, the Margie & Robert E. Petersen Foundation gave $15 million to the St. John’s Health Center and the John Wayne Cancer Institute. She was also a founder of STOP Cancer, and a member of the Associates for Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer Studies. Robert Petersen died of cancer in 2007 at the age of 80. The Petersens were predeceased by their two young sons, who died in a small plane crash in 1975. Memorial services for Margie Petersen are pending. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Petersen Automotive Museum, 6060 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, 90036; or to any charity of choice in Petersen’s honor. This story was compiled with information from City News Service. Be sure to follow Beverly Hills Patch on Twitter and “Like” us on Facebook . Continue reading here: Margie Petersen, Co-Founder of the L.A. Petersen Automotive Museum, Dies in Beverly Hills
WATCH: UC Davis Police Pepper-Spray Students
WASHINGTON — On Friday, a group of University of California, Davis students, part of the Occupy Wall Street movement on campus, became the latest victims of alleged police brutality to be captured on video. The videos show the students seated on the ground as a UC Davis police officer brandishes a red canister of pepper spray, showing it off for the crowd before dousing the seated students in a heavy, thick mist. This incident recalls the earlier infamous pepper spraying by a New York Police Department official of several women who were seated and penned in. The UC Davis images are further proof that police continue to resort to brutal tactics when confronting Occupy activists. One woman was transported to a hospital to be treated for chemical burns . “The UC Davis students were peacefully protesting on the quad,” wrote the student who took the videos in an email to The Huffington Post. The filmmaker, a senior, asked that his name not be used for fear of retribution by campus authorities. “The cop gave them 3 minutes to disperse before he said they would come and disturb the protest. The main objective for them was removing the tents. … The students did have a right to be on campus, they were assembling peacefully and the campus was open at the time.” In a longer version of the video, the students are shown seated across a stretch of walkway surrounded by more than a dozen UC Davis cops, dressed in riot gear and clutching batons. Many other students are standing along the sides of the scene, watching and protesting as the standoff unfolded. Some students shouted “Thugs on campus!” and “From Davis to Greece, fuck the police!” Those chants were tamped down quickly by others, who warned all to “Keep it peaceful” and “Keep it nonviolent.” The students held up that promise. They started up a new chant that would prove prophetic: “You use weapons! We use our voice!” At one point, one of the riot cops ambles over to the seated line and asks one of the students a question. The student replies, “We’re sitting here.” The police officer then returns to his position with the other officers. He also turns his back on the seated students, as does at least one other officer. They show no fear that the students might turn violent or threatening. The first cop talks on his radio for a while. After a few “mic checks” and few more chants, a cop goes back to the seated students. The student asks, “You’re gonna shoot me for sitting here? You’re shooting us for sitting here?” Roughly a minute later, the officer can be seen shaking the pepper spray canister as the gathered students start shouting, “Don’t shoot your children!” As the officer began spraying the group of students, onlookers screamed, “Don’t do it! Don’t you do it!” A news account captured the officer on camera spraying the students. The account names the officer as UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike. He did not return a voice mail message nor an email left Friday night. His voice-mail box eventually filled up to capacity as his name and phone number were posted on Twitter. The UC Davis Police Department did not return calls from The Huffington Post seeking comment. The UC Davis chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi, released a statement Friday. It states, “We deeply regret that many of the protestors today chose not to work with our campus staff and police to remove the encampment as requested. We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal.” Nathan Brown, an assistant English professor at the university, released an open letter to the chancellor, calling for her resignation. He wrote, “You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt.” The student filmmaker, who says he is not part of Occupy Davis, told HuffPost, “I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think such a thing would ever happen on campus over a tent being on campus. It’s embarrassing on the part of the police to take such actions.” Another video shows officers body-slamming a student in what appears to be a confrontation earlier in the day. Ten students were arrested Friday on campus. After the pepper spraying, the crowd of students began marching down the quad. The UC Davis cops? They’re pushed back down the walkway and finally leave. The students start an old cheer that rang true again, “Whose quad? Our quad!” UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza defended her officers’ actions to KCRA. She argued that it just wasn’t safe for students to camp on the quad. “It’s not safe for multiple reasons,” Spicuzza said. In a report by the CBS Sacramento station Friday night, Spicuzza said the officers’ own safety was also a concern. “If you look at the video, you are going to see that there were 200 people in that quad,” she said. “Hindsight is 20-20, and based on the situation we were sitting in, ultimately that was the decision that was made.” Spicuzza also said authorities were reviewing the videos. WATCH a 15-minute video of events immediately surrounding the pepper-spraying: WATCH a 42-minute video of events at the University of California, Davis: Read more: WATCH: UC Davis Police Pepper-Spray Students
Agustin Duran: Education Window: An Option to Start Getting Involved in Our Kids’ Future
If you live in Los Angeles and your child goes to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the chances that he/she will not be able to participate in a high school ceremony are high. Forget about them going to college and obtaining a bachelor’s degree. For years, the second largest district with the most Latino students in the whole country has been fighting to increase their graduation rate that not too long ago reached 43%. Today, it is at 56% according to Monica Garcia, LAUSD president. This means, that for every two students who start elementary or kindergarten at the LAUSD, one would not be able to graduate from high school and probably putting an end to their education. Currently, the district has over 700,000 students from which almost 75% are Latinos and 92% of the kids that are part of the English as a second language program speak Spanish (most of them from Mexico). In other words, if you are an immigrant in Los Angeles and speak Spanish at home, your kids have a big risk of not finishing their academic goals. If we don’t do something about it, they may become part of that 50% that won’t graduate in the future. The worst part is that the problem does not end there because after many congratulations for the students who finally graduate, less than 50% will finish with a bachelor’s degree. This situation reduced the opportunity for our children to become a doctor, engineer, teacher or whatever career they want to pursue because out of 10 kids that start school today, only 2.5 may end with a bachelor degree. As a Latino parent this is not acceptable. But what should we do: blame the teacher, the district or ourselves? Probably a better question may be: Can we afford to keep blaming and pointing fingers while our children keep dropping out of school and in a worst case scenario ending pregnant, in jail or drugs? I’ve had the opportunity to cover and follow the LAUSD for years and until now, there is not one board member, teacher or administrator that hasn’t said that they will do the impossible to increase the graduation rates, but so far and after 10 years we still have the same ups and downs. Should we wait until the school district does things right? Recently, I was at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles where dignitaries inaugurated the Education Window, an office where parents will have the opportunity to get involved in their kids’ education and help them to accomplish their academic goals. In the window they have preschool, elementary, intermediate, high school and college information and according to the Mexican Consul David Figueroa, every day close to 800 people visit the facility, hoping they will be interested in participating in their kids’ education. Also, one person will be there providing information on how to get parents involved, the options parents may have to get their kids into programs that will help children to not get behind and how to encourage them to continue all the way; to finish their higher education. The day of the inauguration, five aggressive advocators for the education delivered their speech and almost every single one of them had a story of sacrifice and story where they remembered their parents encouraging them to go to school; stories where they had to live with extreme limitations and sometimes work at an early age. They didn’t speak about the good or the bad school system they went during their first years of school. They remember the sacrifices, the support and the work their parents did for them to finish college; those images and memories always fed their will to continue their education until they finished with a Bachelor degree on their hands. David Figueroa grew up in Sonora while his dad was working as a bracero in San Jose California. With the support of his mother, he obtained his master degree in business administration and years later he went back to San Jose, California as a Consul representing his country. Now, he is the consul in Los Angeles and he is the one that after a couple months leading the office realized the risk that LAUSD was taking so he launched the Education Window. “We know education is the way to empower our community and this is what we are going to do here, but we need your help”, the consul challenged the parents to use the Education Window not only for their kids’ benefit, but for the whole family and community. The stories continued the rest of the evening, all of them inspired and praising their parents for what they are today. If we do not want to see our children as another statistic we need to get involved in our children’s education. Otherwise, in 10 years we will continue to talk about the bad situation of the school district still is. It does not matter how poor we are, where we come from or what language we speak, if our kids see the sacrifice we are doing to put food on the table and a roof over their head and hear our words of encouragement for them to finish school all the time. With those memories, I believe our children will have enough to continue and not only to finish high school but to finish college. If you do not know how to do it or where to start, go to the Education Window at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles. I am sure they will give you enough support to make the difference in your child’s future. Agustin Duran is an editor at Latinocalifornia.com and has been a journalist for the last 15 years in LA. Visit link: Agustin Duran: Education Window: An Option to Start Getting Involved in Our Kids’ Future
Christina Patterson: It Wasn’t Just One Man Who Killed the King of Pop
When the verdict was announced, his sister shrieked. She sent a tweet to her 125,000 followers saying “VICTORY,” and ended it with seven exclamation marks. His fans waved their banners praising Jesus, and screamed, and wept, and blew horns. People said, while crying in front of cameras, that there had, at long last, been what their banners had demanded: “Justice for Michael!” His mother agreed. “I feel,” she told reporters, “better now.” Everyone seemed to. Everyone — apart, perhaps, from Conrad Murray, and his defense lawyers, and maybe some of the women who claimed to be his girlfriend, and maybe some of the mothers of some of his children — seemed to feel an awful lot better now. They seemed to think that although nothing could bring back the man they claimed to love so much, this was a very, very happy day. They seemed to feel like Michael Jackson’s mother, who couldn’t wait “to go home and share this day” with his children, and “couldn’t hold back tears of joy.” Everyone seemed to think that what had been a tragedy wasn’t any more. Because a man who was paid nearly £100,000 a month to give him the kind of drugs you can’t just pick up at Boots, had given him an awful lot of the kind of drugs you can’t pick up at Boots, and been so careless about it that he’d been chatting on the phone to a cocktail waitress while the man he was meant to be looking after was having a bad reaction to a drug you definitely can’t pick up at Boots, had been found guilty of killing him by accident. Or it wasn’t as much of a tragedy as it had been, because the person who caused it had been found and would be punished. Perhaps when these people heard that the most successful pop star in world history, who was not only a brilliant singer and songwriter, but also did some of the most athletic and original dancing ever done by a rock star, and who cared so much about his appearance that he made improving it into a life’s quest, was crippled with arthritis, and nearly blind, and had a toenail fungus so bad that doctors thought his flesh was rotting away, they thought this was a normal thing for a 50-year-old man. Maybe when they heard a recording of his voice, which was so weak and slurred that you could hardly make out the words, but which had sounded pretty good on the albums that almost everyone in the Western world had bought, they thought this was normal, too. And maybe not a single one of these people wondered what on earth had happened to his family, and the people he called his friends. Perhaps they thought it was normal to watch your brother, or son, or friend, have so many operations on his face that some people said some of the bones in it were in danger of collapsing, and that what you should say, when he came out of hospital from the latest one, was that he definitely looked better than before. Maybe they thought, when they heard he was paying someone nearly £100,000 a month, to give him drugs almost every doctor in the world would say he didn’t need, that this sounded like excellent value. And maybe when they heard another recording of the pop star in court, telling that doctor that he wanted to use the proceeds of the tour he was planning to help sick children, because he himself “didn’t have a childhood,” they just shrugged and thought “so what?” Maybe they thought that it didn’t really matter whether you had a childhood. That a childhood was a small thing to give up to produce the kind of music that the King of Pop produced, and a small price to pay for the fame he had. It isn’t all that easy to know what Michael Jackson’s family, friends and fans thought about any of these things, because, when they talk about him, they tend to talk as if he wasn’t a human being, but a god. His sister, La Toya, said on Monday that “victory was served” because her brother was, though technically dead, “in that courtroom.” She didn’t say what, if anything, she’d done when she’d watched her brother being flogged by their father for making mistakes in rehearsals throughout his childhood, and from the start of his singing career at the age of six. Nor did his mother. And nor, of course, did his father, who used, according to his son, to watch his sons rehearsing with a belt in his hand, and often told him that his nose was “too fat.” You’d have thought that sisters, and brothers, and parents, and friends, might think it wasn’t usually a good sign when someone built themselves a giant fun fair, and zoo, and named it after a fantasy land in a children’s book about a boy who never grows up. And that they might be a little bit worried when their best friends seemed to be prepubescent boys and a chimpanzee called Bubbles. But sisters, and brothers, and parents, and friends, didn’t seem too worried by any of this, or, if they were, they didn’t say so. They seemed to think that nothing could be strange in the life, and lifestyle, of someone who was very, very talented, and very, very successful, and very, very, very rich. They seemed to think that someone who was very talented, and very successful, and very rich should always do exactly what they wanted, even if what they wanted was to wreck their once-handsome face and body with plastic surgery and drugs. Michael Jackson called the drug that killed him “milk.” He never stopped seeking the props of the childhood he had lost. Perhaps when he looked at photos of that brown-skinned boy, with his big nose, big lips, and big smile, he saw a shadow of the person he once was, the person he’d paid doctors to wipe out. Perhaps he remembered a time before his life became a giant freak show. “Wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy,” Al Sharpton told Jackson’s children at his funeral. That, of course, was a lie, but what he said next was true. “It was strange,” he said, “what your daddy had to deal with. But he dealt with it anyway.” Yes, he dealt with it anyway: the parents who cared more about money and fame than that their son had a childhood, the brothers and sisters who were nearly as damaged as him, the people who said they were friends, but who only seemed to want to be sprinkled with his star dust, and the people — so many people — who just wanted his money. And a press poised for every new twist in the crazy carnival his life became. It was Conrad Murray’s defense lawyer who reminded jurors that “this is not a reality show, it’s reality.” Unfortunately, no one in Jackson’s sad, strange and shockingly friendless life, seemed to know the difference. Originally posted here: Christina Patterson: It Wasn’t Just One Man Who Killed the King of Pop
Halloween Hangover in the Hills
Halloween seemed to go on for weeks this year, what with the marketing at stores, spooktastic billboards and celebrations at city schools . Now that the costumes can finally be put away and the fake graveyards are beginning to disappear from your neighbors’ front yards, the question is what to do with all that candy the kids collected. One option is to dole it out a little at a time until it eventually becomes hard and tasteless months later. You can stick it in the freezer to make it last longer. Meanwhile, adults have a dangerous sweet tooth and nobody to tell them when to stop. Despite the best of intentions, I’m going to raid that candy bag. The kids don’t even like the Hershey’s Special Dark chocolates, so I’m doing them a favor, right? Perhaps take some of the candy to your office and put it out for co-workers. This strategy works if you want to see your work buddies (and non-buddies) gain weight, so long as you have enough discipline to not eat too much yourself. A better alternative that several of my friends use is the “switch witch.” Think of her as the tooth fairy for Halloween. She shows up the night after Halloween, takes all the kids’ candy and replaces it with a toy. I’ve heard of other friends having a “store” where their children “buy” things they want in exchange for the candy, like gummy erasers or plastic bracelets. This allows the kids to feel that they are in control of the process of trading away their candy. It’s good for their math skills too. You could also save the candy for a future party and use it to stuff a piñata. It takes a lot of candy to fill one of those things. Last year, I gratefully took all my children’s candy to a friend who was collecting for a program called Operation Gratitude that sends care packages—including candy—to U.S. service members who are deployed overseas. The organization also asks for letters and kids’ drawings, as well as toothbrushes and toothpaste, to go along with the candy. Dentists around the country participate in this program and many act as collection sites for the treats. Check with your dentist to find out if he or she is participating. The real fun of Halloween is running around at night in costume and being bold enough to knock on strangers’ doors and demand tribute. For kids who are usually not allowed to go anywhere without their parents and are taught to be wary of strangers, that’s an incredibly powerful reversal of norms. As for the candy? While most youngsters like it, they are usually not too sad to give it up a few days—and bellyaches—after the holiday. Be sure to follow Beverly Hills Patch on Twitter and “Like” us on Facebook . Here is the original post: Halloween Hangover in the Hills
Chemicals That May Harm Children’s Development
Your household and personal care products could be harboring a chemical called phthalate. It is added to plastics and lotions to soften the products, and preserve fragrance. Photo Credit: See the original post: Chemicals That May Harm Children’s Development
