March 7, 2013
Local News & Culture. Marina del Rey
Westchester
Free S a n ta M o n i c a
P l aya d e l R e y
P l aya V i s t a
M a r V i s ta
Del Rey
VenicE
Tower Power Could Go Out In April
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•This Week•
Writer, rocker, teacher and troubadour Peter Case will perform at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 9.
Photo by Jorge M. Vargas Jr.
By Gary Walker Although Washington, D.C. is nearly 3,000 miles away, the potential after-effects of the federal sequester could stretch all the way to the coast of Santa Monica. The air traffic control tower at Santa Monica Airport is on a list of airport facilities released by the Federal Aviation Administration March 1 – the day the sequestration officially began – that might be closed soon due to potential furloughs of airport personnel, including air traffic controllers. Nearly 100 air traffic control towers at airports with fewer than 150,000 flight operations or 10,000 commercial operations per year are on the endangered list as sequestration moves past its first week of implementation, and from headlines into real life. Sequestration is a budget cutting mechanism that was agreed upon by President Barack Obama and Congress last year following the battle over raising the debt ceiling. It mandates $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years, with $85 billion coming in the remainder of the 2013 fiscal year. Santa Monica Airport Director Robert Trimborn is uncertain when or if the tower will be shut down.
Santa Monica Airport’s air traffic control tower is on a list of facilities that is slated for closure due to sequestration.
Election Results Bonin victorious in City Council bid; Zimmer wins second term on school board By Vince Echavaria and Gary Walker After years of serving as a chief deputy to Los Angeles City Council members, Mike Bonin won his own seat on the council March 5, avoiding a runoff with a convincing victory in the primary. Bonin, the chief of staff to Councilman Bill Rosendahl, won his bid for his boss’ 11th District seat by tallying 17,566 votes, or 61.2 percent of the vote, with 100 percent of precincts reporting. Rosendahl chose not to seek reelection to a third term to focus on his battle with cancer. Bonin’s closest competitor in the race for the coastal district, which includes communities such as Venice, Westchester and Playa del Rey, was city prosecutor
Tina Hess, who received 5,155 votes, or nearly 18 percent. Two other candidates, community advocate Frederick Sutton and teacher Odysseus Bostick, finished with 3,343 and 2,639 votes, respectively, according to unofficial results. With his significant margin of victory, Bonin, who previously served as deputy chief of staff to former Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and chief of staff to former Rep. Jane Harman, avoided a potential runoff election in May. “I feel overwhelmingly grateful by the victory and tremendously humbled by the margin of victory,” Bonin said the day after the election. Bonin said he was hopeful, but did not expect to avoid the runoff, noting that surpassing 50 percent of votes is particu-
larly challenging with four names on the ballot, all of whom were first time candidates. Election results show that slightly more than 16 percent of registered city voters went to the polls. Bonin, who received the most votes among City Council candidates, said that despite the low turnout, the 11th District had the highest number of voters. When Rosendahl announced that he would not enter the race, he immediately tapped Bonin, who has served as the councilman’s chief of staff throughout his eight years in office, as his preferred successor. Bonin won the support of numerous elected officials and community groups in his first campaign for council. (Continued on page 9)