Volunteers help maintain parks
Volunteers helped maintain trails as a part of National Public Lands Day last Saturday at Leo Carrillo State Park. Beach clean-ups and trail maintenance also took place locally at Point Mugu State Park and Charmlee Wilderness Park. National Public Lands Day is a National Education Foundation program that takes place throughout the country each year.
Coastal recommends approval of Malibu High field lights
The California Coastal Commission staff has recommended approval for the field lights proposal at Malibu High School, with several modifications. The commission will vote on the project Oct. 5 in Huntington Beach.
Staff recommends that from November to early March, lighting be allowed at Malibu High School until 7:30 p.m. for up to three nights per week. From Sept. 1 to May 31, lighting would be allowed until 10:30 p.m. for as many as 18 times. Staff recommends the caveat that lights not be allowed more than twice per week, and in that case not on consecutive nights.
School board member charges institutionalized racism at SAMOHI
Board of Education member Oscar de la Torre said Thursday at the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education’s regular meeting that “institutional racism” was responsible for inflated suspension rates for African-American students at Santa Monica High School. The comments followed a presentation made by SMMUSD staff regarding efforts to improve racial sensitivity at the school after a May 4 incident in which two white members of the wrestling team chained an African-American student to his locker and shouted “slave for sale” and other racial epithets. A noose was also reportedly found nearby.
Citing statistics from the 2010-11 school year, de La Torre said that while African-American students comprised about 10 percent of the student population, they accounted for 31 percent of school suspensions. De La Torre said this disproportional percentage was not true of white or Latino students.
“I don’t know what you call it. I call it institutionalized racism,” de La Torre said. “I think a lot of people in this dialogue are scared of using the ‘R’ word, but we need to call it the way it is in order for us to solve it and deal with it honestly.”
District staff has been preparing a number of changes at the school in the wake of the incident. These include increasing awareness of and responsiveness to racial insensitivity and bullying, working with coaches to revise the student athletics handbook sections on bullying and hazing, and reexamining the literature taught in English classes to ensure it does not reinforce racial stereotypes.
Emily Shane’s accused killer faces hearings
Sina Khankhanian, the 27-year-old man charged with second-degree murder in the death last year of 13-year-old Emily Shane, faced preliminary hearings Tuesday and Wednesday. This is the second set of preliminary hearings for Khankhanian, whose case was dismissed Sept. 13 due to procedural issues. The second-degree murder charge was refiled shortly thereafter. A trial could begin in December.
Pedestrian killed on PCH near Gladstones Malibu restaurant
A pedestrian was struck and killed Saturday night at approximately 10:35 p.m. on Pacific Coast Highway near Gladstones Malibu restaurant at Sunset Boulevard, according to officials from the City of Los Angeles Fire Department Station 23.
Fire Capt. Wayne Havron said the victim was a woman approximately 30 years old. She was struck in the number one northbound lane of Pacific Coast Highway, and sustained multiple traumatic injuries to various locations on her body. She was transported to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
While he could not confirm it, Havron said he had heard that the person who struck the woman made a U-turn immediately and then walked back to the scene of the accident. He then contacted the fire captain and stated that he was the driver of the vehicle that struck the pedestrian.
The death of the pedestrian comes less than a week after a high-speed Ferrari crash at almost the exact same location. The Ferrari collided with a power pole and split it in two, killing the passenger and critically wounding the driver.
Lower Rambla Pacifico Road to be opened Oct. 20
The long awaited reopening of Lower Rambla Pacifico Road is scheduled to take place “around Oct. 20,” according to Scott Dittrich, president of the homeowner’s group that has paid to reconstruct the road. The northern portion of the road has been separated from Pacific Coast Highway since a landslide in 1984.
The 76-member Lower Rambla Pacifico Road Owners Association has paid $4 million, Dittrich said, to construct a private road that would reestablish a link between the northern and southern sections of Rambla Pacifico Road. Dittrich said a stone base would be laid for the access road this week, and paving would take place two weeks later.
The new, gated road will be 1,800 feet long and 20 feet wide. It will be privately funded and maintained by the road owners association. Dittrich said the gate still needed to be relocated approximately 230 feet to accommodate the wishes of two homeowners who originally wanted to be behind the gate, but changed their minds. The project goes before the City of Malibu Planning Commission Oct. 4 to receive approval to move the gate.
Additionally, a five-foot wide trail easement has been granted across the road to allow for the re-establishment of the Malibu Pacific Trail. People will be able to access the trail through small entries located next to the vehicular gates on foot, bicycle or horse.
There has not been an access road from Rambla Pacifico to the highway since a landslide in 1984 closed a portion of the road. Various legal disputes and other problems have prevented the road from being reconstructed since that time. The difficulty emergency vehicles have in accessing Rambla Pacifico was blamed for causing the further spread of the 1993 fire, which led to two deaths.
“This is actually just a huge benefit to all of eastern Malibu, because it’s going to allow firemen to stop a fire and to be able to fight a fire,” Dittrich said. “So it won’t spread as it did in ‘93 where it burned all the way to PCH in that fire because of a lack of access. During a fire or other emergencies, the fire department will have access to it of course.”
Dittrich added that the benefit of access for emergency vehicles would also help the safety of residents along the road in non-fire situations, because the majority of calls to the fire department involve calls for paramedic services.
Woman trapped on 500-foot sheer cliff saved in dramatic rescue
A 24-year-old woman was rescued shortly before nightfall Thursday while clinging to the side of a sheer 500-foot vertical cliff in Topanga, according to a press release from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station.
The woman was trapped for more than two hours in a sitting position on the cliff face with one hand grasping the sandstone rock. She had been led by a male hiking partner to attempt to descend down the rock face by rock climbing, but after descending 40 feet, they soon realized the climb was more dangerous than they had anticipated.
The woman’s partner was able to climb back up to the top of the cliff and made a “weak makeshift safety line” for her to hold on to. The pair was unable to alert authorities due to a lack of cell phone reception, until the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station was notified nearly two hours later. She was rescued by a Sheriff’s Department helicopter soon after.
“We were about an hour from darkness,” Sgt. Phil Barth, Sheriff’s Air-5 Rescue crew chief, said. “At night, we have to wear night vision goggles, which limits your field of vision to about a third and is 10 times as difficult for us to make rescues.”
As the pilot of the rescue helicopter neared the sheer cliff and lowered his partner, Sheriff’s Paramedic Deputy Mark Desmarteau, on a hoist cable, the cable began to spin.
“The wind and rotor wash against the rock face creates a vortex and we sometimes start spinning out of control as we leave the aircraft,” Deputy Desmarteau said. “I pointed to a place on the cliff face away from the woman, so the crew chief would know where to position me, and so I could stop the spin by grasping the cliff.”
Desmarteau added, “The crew chief has to position the hoist exactly right as he lowers the rescue paramedics into a place where we can make the rescue. If the crew chief misses, I could become an unwilling battering ram.”
Sgt. Barth said, “We have to be spot-on, especially with someone hanging from a cliff like that. If not exactly right, we could accidentally knock her off the cliff.”
After Desmarteau stopped spinning and reached the victim, she shouted over the noise of the helicopter, “Please don’t let go. Please don’t let go.”
“She had a death grip on the ledge and I told her she had to let go,” Deputy Desmarteau said. “I had to pry her fingers off of the rock.
“It’s understandable and common given the circumstances,” said Deputy Desmarteau. “There is no surviving that fall [500 feet to the canyon floor].”
Malibu company DocuHome helps locals protect houses
Malibu resident and DocuHome CEO Bradford Stanley started his company to teach locals and people across America to prepare their homes for natural disasters. In recognition of National Preparedness Month, DocuHome, which launched last year, is offering their help for free during the months of September and October, according to a press release from the company. DocuHome helps homeowners document and store personal and business assets using new technologies.
Stanley was inspired to help communities prepare for disaster after losing his own home in the Corral Canyon fire of 2007.
“It seems like just yesterday that I saw my home go up in smoke in the Corral Canyon wildfires,” Stanley said. “The lessons that I’ve learned from that terrifying day was just how unprepared we were for the devastating loss, how under insured we were and how frustratingly difficult it is to itemize our assets and calculate the value of our loss for insurance replacement. We have shaped DocuHome’s mission to help people everywhere prepare for the worst, whenever it may come.”
More information can be obtained by visiting www.DocuHome.com.
Soboroff named senior advisor for space shuttle project
Steve Soboroff has been selected as the senior advisor for the California Science Center’s space shuttle endeavor project, according to a press release. The project’s goal is to transport and permanently exhibit the Space Shuttle Orbiter Endeavor in Los Angeles.
California Science Center officials requested Soboroff’s involvement soon after it was officially awarded the Endeavor over 20 other applicants from throughout the country.
“We are excited about the task of bringing Endeavour home to California, since it will provide an educational platform for the public to celebrate our state’s longtime leadership in science, technology, mathematics and engineering,” California Science Center president Jeffrey Rudolph and Foundation Board chair Tom Soto said in a joint statement. “We are confident that it will attract and engage the next generation of California’s and our nation’s workforce in these fields. It’s a monumental project, and Steve Soboroff, with his vast experience in stewarding into existence some of the most exceptional projects in our city, will make a great senior advisor.”
The Endeavor is a $1.7 billion spaceship that flew 25 missions. It was developed and built in Southern California 20 years ago and completed its last voyage in space this summer.
Pepperdine’s cross tower undergoing cleaning
The cross tower at Pepperdine University, currently wrapped in black scaffolding, is undergoing cleaning. Pepperdine Public Relations and News Director Jerry Derloshon said it has been more than a decade since the tower has been cleaned, and refurbishment is needed for wear and tear caused by the wind, rain and sun. Derloshon expected the cleaning to take another week.
Another objective for the cleaning project is to “birdproof” the tower, as it has taken damage from another element of nature in recent years.
“It’s a tall and enticing target for our bird friends,” Derloshon said, “and we’d rather encourage them to go elsewhere.”