Month: April 2018

Message to Students from National School Walkout Organizers

Another national school walkout is planned for this Friday. The walkout coincides with the anniversary of the Columbine shooting. The organizers of the event are asking students across the nation to walkout of classrooms in support of reform to existing gun control laws.

TUSD supported a similar walkout that occurred on March 14, 2018. On that day, Congressman Ted Lieu spoke at South High while students at other schools participated in a variety of organized protest events. During that walkout students could remain in their classrooms or join the planned walkout events without consequence.

This time organizers are calling for an all day walkout beginning at 10:00 am versus only a 17 minute demonstration. For the upcoming walkout, it appears TUSD plans to allow each school site to handle the event as they deem necessary. Students leaving class, however, will be marked absent unless they are attending an event sponsored by the local school site.

TUSD Superintendent Dr. George Mannon referred an inquiry on the subject to Kati Krumpe, the Chief Academic Officer.  She responded as follows:

Q. Does TUSD plan to hold classes that day as usual?

Q. Will any accommodations be made for those that choose to participate in the walkout or will there be any organized events like there was for the prior walkout a few weeks ago?

A. Our site administrators will ensure that any student(s) wishing to participate in a walk-out be given a safe place to protest and speak. While there may be organized events at our local campuses (they will let us know by Thursday but I didn’t want to delay getting back to you), this is a site by site decision based on student interest. We do not advocate for students leaving the campus where we cannot safely supervise them. Our schools had peaceful protests on March 14th and we anticipate the same for Friday.

Q. How will local sites determine student interest for April 20th?  How was student interest determined on March 14th?

A. Site teachers and administrators worked with their student groups (student council, clubs, interested students) to determine the activities and events that occurred on March 14th and are doing the same regarding April 20th … We have found our students to be quite cooperative when events are co-planned with site help. Students have appreciated the opportunity to have a voice with teachers and administrators supporting their first amendment right.

Q. Will kids be marked as either absent or truant or be penalized in any other fashion if they leave class and refuse to attend for the remainder of the day?

A. By law, we have to mark students absent if they are not in class. If they left school without permission, the absence would be unexcused. This would reference students that did not participate in whatever activities that the site provided. Our intent is not to create a discipline issue with our students but to have good dialogue with them.

During the last mayoral campaign four years ago Toyota announced that it was breaking up with Torrance and moving its sprawling headquarters to Texas. It was only recently, however, that the last employees vacated the site leaving Torrance to soldier on without its largest employer. Toyota’s departure was apparently not fast enough for Mayor Furey.

At the mayoral forum held last night at the North High library, Furey was asked to provide his short and long term vision for Torrance. In response, Furey said that we have to bring businesses to the City. In reference to Toyota leaving he dismissively quipped, “Bye, bye Toyota, you finally left.” Furey then said he recently traveled to Israel to meet with a number of high tech industries that are interested in locating to California in an attempt to sell them on the Toyota campus.

Tom Brewer’s vision included updating the General Plan and looking at the budget. He said that revenues were flat and that the City needed to figure out what they were going to do with mounting expenses like pension obligations.

Political newcomer Ron Riggs articulated his vision for Torrance in the wake of Toyota’s departure by stating:

“As the owner of two millennials, one 26 and one 27, I see the future for the South Bay here. My kids aren’t able to move out right now because they are having issues with affordable housing, but also we’re having issues with employment here … I’d like to bring Silicon beach this way and work on Software.com’s and I would really like to have more senior housing.” 

Brewer and Furey also took turns sparring at one another during the forum. At mayoral forums in the last campaign four years ago, Furey and Brewer were mostly friendly and complimentary of one another. Not so this time around as there appears to be no love lost between the candidates.

In his opening statement, Brewer remarked upon an issue that has dogged Furey during his whole term in office by saying:

“You might hear tonight that campaign contributions won’t affect a Council vote, but we saw how $40,000 in illegal campaign contributions got McCormick ambulance their contract and the mayor a $35,000 fine from the FPPC … This is an example of what I feel is poor judgement and/or influences harmful to our City. Under my leadership, Torrance will not be for sale to special interests.”

Brewer returned to that same theme in his closing statement when he said, “I am running for Mayor because so many in our community are unhappy with our current leadership. If no change is made, I am concerned that campaign contributions will influence more decisions by the City Council. I am not the only one that is unhappy with the leadership in our City. I have the endorsements of half of the Council … They want new leadership as well … Let’s restore integrity and respect to Torrance.”

Furey used his closing arguments to accuse Brewer of slinging mud. In reference to his rival, he said:

“As you can see one candidate has started a mudslinging campaign this election; as he did last time. I don’t believe that to be the Torrance way. Torrance is better than that. Folks, I have never voted for a contract or an issue based on a campaign contribution. Campaign contributions are an evil necessity of running for office … when he goes low, I’ll just go higher.”

Torrance is proposing changes to its current Master Fee schedule that will increase many of the current user and regulatory fees. The changes are the result of a City-Wide User Fee Study that was commissioned by the Council in late 2016 at a cost of $45K. The study included a review of the 500+ existing user and regulatory fees. As a result of that review the City is proposing increases to a majority of the existing fees as well as proposing 13 new types of fees. If implemented, the new fee schedule is expected to generate approximately $570K in additional revenue.

The vast majority of the these fees already increase on an annual basis based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). Per the staff report, the cost of providing the services has outpaced the CPI growth thereby necessitating the proposed increases.

Most of the proposed fee increases are relatively modest. Some, however, are more significant. A few examples of the increases are included below:

• Fee for a Conditional Use Permit (new >8 unit/>15 Com Ind SF) will increase from $3,418 to 13,684;
• Fee for an Environmental Assessment will increase from $3,535 to $10,193;
• A person retrieving a dog/cat from impound may now be subject to a new $114 per hour special handling fee (plus an existing per incident fee);
• Fee to appeal a matter to the City Council will increase from $288 to $750;

In recent years, the City Council has approved increases to water rates, refuse collection services, and sewer collection services as well as implemented a new green building fee. The City has also enacted the Optimized Street Sweeping Program which is viewed by some as a stealth revenue generating scheme.

The Council will discuss the matter of the new fee schedule at its meeting this evening.