Kanan fire quickly extinguished
A small brushfire that broke out on Kanan Dume Road Tuesday morning around 10:40 a.m. was quickly put out by firefighters. The fire burned a small area from the side of the road to the top of a ridge, of which on the other side was a house. However, Los Angeles Fire department spokesperson Maria Grycan said the first responding engine from Station 71 did “an incredible job of stopping the fire at the ridge,” negating the need for air resources. The road was closed for several hours for cleanup.
Grycan said the source of the blaze was unknown. Titania Lindfors, who was driving on Kanan Dume when she saw the flames burst out, said she believes the fire was started by a cigarette butt thrown out the window by someone in one of two cars that passed her just before the fire erupted. Grycan said an investigation will not take place because there was not enough evidence at the scene, but said it could have possibly been a cigarette butt, but it is not certain.
Council overturns Planning’s staircase rejection
The council at its Monday night meeting overturned the Planning Commission’s rejection of a permit for a 110-foot-long, three-foot-wide ocean bluff staircase connecting a Point Dume home to the beach. The Planning Commission had voted against the staircase on advice of city staff that the Local Coastal Program did not allow it. But a majority of the council was persuaded by property owner Clark Drane’s attorney, Richard Scott, that denying the permit would amount to a taking.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time I support staff,” Councilmember Sharon Barovsky said. “This is just one of those times that I think … we’re dealing with a taking issue and a fairness issue.”
Barovsky voted in favor of the appeal along with Mayor Andy Stern and Councilmember John Sibert. Councilmembers Pamela Conley Ulich and Jefferson Wagner voted to uphold the Planning Commission’s decision.
Schools post gains, falls in API scores
Point Dume Elementary School gained 35 points in the state’s 2009 Academic Performance Index (API), while Juan Cabrillo Elementary posted a loss of 37 points. Malibu High school’s API score was down by 3 points, and Webster gained 16 points.
The state’s 2009 Academic Performance Index and the federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) accountability report for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District were announced by the district Tuesday.
The district states that the 2009 reports show continued, steady gains for the district overall, with evidence of a narrowing of the achievement gap for several numerically significant groups. The district’s 2009 API is now at an all time high of 835, a five-point gain over the 2008 Base API.
The state’s Academic Performance Index is reported for the district as a whole and for numerically significant groups of students within the district. In Santa Monica-Malibu, these groups include African American students, Asian, Latino and white students as well as economically disadvantaged students, English learners, and students with disabilities. Results from the 2009 API reveal a narrowing of achievement gaps from 2008 to 2009, especially for African American students and students with disabilities.
The API is also reported for individual school sites and their numerically significant groups of students. For individual school sites, the state has set a growth target of five points over the 2008 Base API. For schools with an API over 800, however, the target is to remain at or above 800. All of SMMUSD’s schools met their school-wide growth targets for 2009. SMASH, the district’s small alternative campus, has not been awarded an API, due to its small size and relatively low participation rate in standardized testing.
The 2008/2009 API Scores for local schools are as follows:
Juan Cabrillo: Base API 2008—861; Growth API 2009—824
Point Dume: Base API 2008-909; Growth API 2009-944
Webster: Base API 2008-925; Growth API 2009-941
Malibu High: Base API 2008-820; Growth API 2009-820
Maureen Bradford, the district’s director of Assessment, Research and Evaluation, commented on the gains and losses in API for individual schools, “With schools at the higher end of the index, there is an increasing vulnerability in year-to-year fluctuations. For this reason, the state’s growth target for schools with an API above 800 is to simply remain at or above 800. In SMMUSD, however, we strive for continuous improvement, no matter where schools fall on the spectrum. We use data from standardized testing, our own district assessments and qualitative measures from student, parent and teacher surveys, and focus groups as we continually strive to improve our programs in order to better meet the needs of our diverse community.”
Barry Yates, principal of Juan Cabrillo Elementary, commented on several initiatives already in play to re-build Cabrillo’s API, which had experienced a 21 point jump in 2008, but then fell substantially in 2009. “To support students’ literacy development, we have hired a former Cabrillo teacher to work as a reading specialist in grades three through five and are bringing on board a before-school tutorial program for primary grade students. Teachers and students have returned to school excited and enthusiastic. We’re off to a great start and we expect great results.”
State Parks seeks public input for future of Topanga State Park
California State Parks will be holding a public meeting on Sept. 29 to begin the process of preparing a new General Plan to guide future use of Topanga State Park. The meeting will take place at Stewart Hall in Temescal Gateway Park.
The purpose for the public process is to develop a cohesive and comprehensive general plan that reconciles the outdated Topanga State Park General Development Plan created in 1977. It will incorporate the cultural and natural resources, features and facilities of recent acquisitions, including the 1,659 acres of Lower Topanga Canyon. What State Parks planners intend to do is create a comprehensive plan that gathers the disconnected parts and viewpoints, corrects obvious deficiencies, considers evolving land-use relationships and creates a planning structure that reflects this great park as a whole.
To do that, some of the many tasks to be undertaken are as follows: Re-establish a Declaration of Purpose and Vision for the park; define its role in serving regional, statewide, and national recreational, educational and environmental needs; identify critical natural and cultural resources and how to protect and preserve them, and address the many factors surrounding visitor use of the area. The issues of visitor-use include park access, orientation and circulation, future park visitation, trails, camping, public safety and more.
Planning information, including maps and documents, will be posted online at www.parks.ca.gov/?page id=25956 throughout the planning process.
New stormwater permit affects residential, public construction projects
The State Water Board approved its new construction stormwater permit earlier this month. The Board’s vote is the first time California has limited storm water runoff pollution from construction sites by setting numeric limits. The permit is based on the approach that minimal requirements are needed for low-risk projects and become progressively more stringent for projects with a higher threat to water quality. It also identifies appropriate control requirements based on the risk of sediment pollution running off the site.
The purpose of the new permit is to allow construction activity without damaging California’s water quality. The permit regulates storm water pollution by controlling discharges from construction projects that disturb an acre or more of land. Residential, private and public construction projects would be affected by the proposed rules, which are aimed at protecting California waterways. To do that, pollution-like sediment, chemicals, cement, and trash-is kept out of storm drains and waterways that lead to lakes, bays or the ocean.
The regulations were developed by State Water Board staff, with input from stakeholders at public workshops.
Construction activities over an acre may present a risk to damage waters both during the actual construction and afterwards, stemming from the change in runoff caused by altering the landscape. The permit also features requirements to conserve water and to keep pollution out of storm drains after construction is completed. Such low impact development features could include the planting of trees and vegetation, redirecting gutter-downspouts to planter beds, and the installation of rain barrels, green roofs and porous pavement. The permit can be viewed under “Item 10” online at www.waterboards.ca.gov/board_info/agendas/2009/sept/090109_agenda.pdf
-Laura Tate