Environment I know I’m not alone in this experience. I finish the hike from my car to the grocery store, check my pocket and happily confirm that I brought the grocery list…only to realize I left my bags in the car.
At first blush, the new plastics ban might feel like a bit of a pain in the multi-colored reusable bag. It’s definitely taken some getting used to. But on reflection, it’s really not a big deal. Remembering to keep bags in the car and grab them when you head to the store is just one of numerous little things we do that collectively make a difference.
Think about how far we’ve come with recycling. Once a fairly exotic notion, now it’s just a standard part of trash pickup. We’ve reached the point where we automatically look for a recycling bin wherever we go, and might be disappointed if we don’t find one.
Making little things that make a difference a routine part of daily life is a cornerstone of the Culver City Unified School District’s environmental sustainability efforts. In conjunction with its volunteer Environmental Sustainability Committee, the District has implemented a number of school-based initiatives – recycling, solar energy, composting, edible gardens – all part of creating what Superintendent Dave LaRose calls a “living, breathing classroom” that helps students learn about alternative energy and sustainability up close and personal.
The most visible initiative is Green 5, rolled out in the elementary schools beginning in 2012 and designed to create a culture of sustainability that will carry forward as students move on to the Middle School and High School. Green 5 is built on five little things: easy things students and faculty (and the rest of us for that matter) can do to save energy and work toward sustainability:
One: Reduce. By opening blinds to let in the sun, or closing doors to conserve heat, we can reduce our energy consumption.
Two: Reuse. Reuse whatever you can. By using refillable water bottles we can eliminate up to 360,000 single-use bottles in our school district alone.
Three: Recycle. By recycling and composting, we conserve our natural resources.
Four: Ride. Bike, walk, skate and scoot to school more – ride more, drive less – help reduce traffic and greenhouse gases and get healthier too.
Five: Rethink. Rethink what you do, buy and why. Stay con¬nected with nature and our community.
As the kids are discovering, doing those little things is no big deal, and after a while they become automatic.
Little things produce measurable and sometimes immediate results. A perfect example is the food waste and composting program, launched at Linwood Howe Elementary in October of 2013. It’s designed to significantly reduce the amount of food waste we send to landfills, which the EPA has identified as a significant source of methane, a damaging greenhouse gas.
The goal of the program was to lower Lin Howe’s average daily output of landfill trash from seven bags to three bags over time. But on the first day of implementation, according to Todd Johnson, co-chair of the Environmental Sustainability Committee, Lin Howe produced just two bags of landfill trash, diverting all the rest to compost and recycling. And as of October, all CCUSD elementary school children are eating off new compostable paper trays, a healthier and sustainable alterative to Styrofoam, which has been eliminated.
When the food we buy is placed in reusable bags, the trays we eat it on are biodegradable, and what we don’t eat ends up in the earth instead of landfill, that’s progress.
When enough little things become commonplace – a routine part of our daily lives – that’s a really big deal.
Michael Zucker
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Ice Rink
The City of Culver City’s highest priority is its commitment to ensuring the public’s health and safety. There have been a number of rumors circulating recently regarding the Culver City Ice Arena, located at 4545 Sepulveda Blvd., and plans relating to the closure of the business by the current operator. The City would like to address these concerns.
The City of Culver City was informed by the current operator of the Culver City Ice Arena that they plan to close their doors to the public on Feb. 2. Although the Ice Arena will no longer be accessible to the public, the equipment on site, including but not limited to, electrical power, refrigeration system, and generators, will remain operational through evaluation and determination of the system’s condition.
At the direction of the City Council, City Staff continues to work with the Ice Rink Operator and the property owner regarding the status of the facility. The goals of the City and its Fire Department are: one, to ensure that the Ice Arena’s equipment and cooling system continue to operate in a safe manner; and; two, in the event the Ice Arena is decommissioned, that process is performed safely. The City is prepared to invoke whatever powers are necessary to ensure the public’s health, safety, and welfare during this time of transition.
City staff realizes that the community has questions regarding the property’s status and the public’s safety. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed, along with decisions made by the property owner and any new lessee. Throughout this process, the City and its Fire Department are taking every step necessary to ensure the continued safety of the public.
City Manager John Nachbar
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Emergency preparedness
For the past year members of our Neighborhood Association have worked on developing an Emergency Preparedness Program. Our commitment should a disaster strike is to “be prepared, not scared.”
We are launching a street-bystreet canvassing effort to inventory community resources and skills, so should an emergency arise, we can coordinate efforts to facilitate everyone’s safety.
For example, if a serious earthquake were to occur, we may well have to fend for ourselves for hours or days as our Fire Dept. will have to triage priorities as Culver City has more than 150,000 people here by day.
We are having an organizing meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 12 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. If you would like to get involved or want to learn more about this effort, please contact Dr Suzanne De Benedittis. You can email me at CCNAEPC@gmail.com.
Dr Suzanne De Benedittis.
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Kudos to Journalist Who Legitimizes Educators
As a lifetime member of the California Teachers Association, I am deeply grateful for Gary Walker’s informative article in last week’s Culver City News, with the headline, “Legal action aims to remove teachers’ protections.” Having watched the “reform movement” decimate my profession and public education over the past two decades, I take hope as journalists like Walker expose the reformers’ anti-educator, anti-union agenda.
I am grateful that Walker chose Culver City Unified School District Supt. David LaRose as a credible source to cast doubt on the motivations of the nonprofit organization Students Matter, whose alleged mission is “to promote access to quality education” through litigation. I am just as skeptical of such organizations as is Supt. LaRose because they “tend to simplify the difficulties in education and promise easy fixes.”
Over the past twenty years, I have cringed at the vitriol with which the “reform movement” blames and attacks educators, making us the scapegoat for a wide array of complex problems in public education. I am pleased that Walker gave legitimacy to my profession and our unions by interviewing Culver City Federation of Teachers President David Mielke about the Vergara vs. California case, which is now underway in a Los Angeles courtroom. I unequivocally agree with Mielke’s assessment that “teachers have become the bad guys” and that, rather than “demonizing teachers,” we should be asking why our society does not fund education better. I also agree with Mielke that “the stakes are high for public education.”
I commend Walker for calling out Culver City’s parent group, who in the recent school board election, “openly questioned whether the endorsements of candidates backed by the teachers union had merit.” Since Walker offered no specifics, I offer one here: Alan Corlin, a proud member of United Parents of Culver City (UPCC) and backer of their three-candidate slate, wrote a letter published in the Culver City Democratic Club’s newsletter questioning the club’s endorsement of Karlo Silbiger and Claudia Vizcarra, both backed by the teacher’s union. In my rebuttal to Corlin’s letter, I suggested that UPCC appears to be an “anti-union” Political Action Committee (PAC). Corlin then lambasted me in the online publication THE FRONT PAGE, where anti-union rhetoric from UPCC members had spewed forth throughout the school board election campaign.
In addition to Walker’s calling out our local parent group, I commended him for contrasting the Los Angeles Unified School District’s ongoing fight between Supt. John Deasy and the LA teachers union with what Culver City School Supt. Dave LaRose describes as “a strong and collaborative relationship with our [classified, certificated and administrative] team members. . .” who are “sharing in a commitment to do the right thing . . . for all kids.”
Let’s hope that UPCC’s three victorious school board candidates will wholeheartedly share in that commitment. The fact that two of those board members failed to respond to Walker’s call for comment in his “teachers’ protections” story is troublesome.
Carlene Brown, MA. Ed.
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Dear Editor,
Misstating something over and over does not make it true. Regarding parent disapproval of the teacher and employee unions’ school board candidate endorsements, I wrote a number of letters to the paper about this subject. In every one I made it clear that I and others questioned whether the process which the unions use to decide endorsements accurately reflects the opinions of the majority of teachers and district employees. The process in simple terms was that the executive board of the unions voted, not the members. Seven to ten people made the decision for the over six hundred members. The unions endorsed three candidates, none of whom were elected. Judging by the large number of teachers and district employees who publically endorsed the three candidates who did win, Steve Levin, Kathy Paspalis, and Sue Robins; there are ample grounds to question the validity of the union endorsements. That this is the process used by many unions does not in the end make it representative since there appears to be disagreement between the unions “official” endorsements and the opinions of the members. Why not open the endorsement process to the many members of the unions?
To equate questioning a flawed process with lack of support for teachers and staff is an outright fallacy and it is time that this newspaper stop repeating it.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am the parent of a CCHS student, a member of
UPCC, a frequent school and community volunteer, a member of the High School Site
Council, attendee of many school board meetings, and was involved with the campaigns of Steve Levin, Kathy Paspalis, and Sue Robins.
Jamie Wallace