BHCourier E-edition 030218

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Good Luck To The BHHS Girls Basketball Team In Saturday’s CIF Final!

BEVERLY HILLS NUMBER 9

THIS ISSUE

The Drowsy Chaperone caps off its season at Beverly Hills High next week.

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SINCE 1965

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Eloise is a 2-year-old malitpoo looking for her forever home. 4

By Laura Coleman At Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting, Beverly Hills Police Chief Sandra Spagnoli unveiled the police department’s latest plan on how to best protect the City’s five public schools. The newly-minted “Adopt-a-School Program” is slated to begin rolling out on March 9, she confirmed. In addition to increasing patrols around the school, which are already in effect following the Parkland, Florida school shooting on Feb. 14, the plan calls for a patrol officer to be stationed at each school, as well as having

two Security Resources Officers and two juvenile detectives allocated specifically for all five schools to share. The program also relies on the department’s efforts to strengthen the crucial three prongs responsible for ensuring student safety; schools, parents and police. “I’m really here today to assure that our Adopt-a School Program...is far superior to the older SRO (Security Resource Officer) model used in the past,” Spagnoli said. “We are partners with your school team on safety.” The school district currently has one BHPD SRO and one

juvenile detective who divide their time between all five schools. In addition to the enhanced on-campus police presence, Spagnoli said that BHPD would also be working to implement additional measures to augment safety, including holding town hall meetings, creating an anonymous text platform, and strengthening safely alerts, to name a few. She also highlighted how the new Joint Powers Agreement between the City and the school

Hawthorne was designated as a “School to Watch” by 18 the state.

Serena Williams got some practice in this week at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. 19 10 22 31

Oscar Time, And The Out Of Town Nominees And Presenters Are Checking In To Our Beverly Hills Hotels, Where Designers Are Arriving With Their Creations For The Actresses. The Academy’s Requesting They Not Wear Black

CLASSIFIEDS • Announcements • Real Estate • Rentals • Sales • and More

THE COURIER ON RODEO – Executive Director of The Jerry Pace Agency in Beverly Hills Pierre Patrick and some of their hottest clients were Beverly Hills Courier readers Sunday at the Runway to Rodeo celebration. Joined by Mayor Lili Bosse and Bataglia manager Samuel Marland, the actors read the Courier while sporting Battaglia’s latest fashions from Italy. Battaglia celebrated 57 years on Rodeo Drive in the beautiful architectural masterpiece designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The actors were in a perfect position to watch the action for Runway to Rodeo, a celebration of over 50 years of world-class fashion on the iconic street.

Attention Voters: $385M School Bond Slated For June Ballot

George Christy, Page 6

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(see ‘SCHOOL SECURITY’ page 2)

BHUSD To Fence Beverly High By Spring Semester By Laura Coleman On Tuesday Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education student board member Jonathan Artal shared clearly what students wanted in terms of security at the high school: a closed campus. (see ‘BHHS FENCE’ page 2)

GeoKinetics Report Shows Errors, Mistakes In Handling Of Loma Linda Project

The Oscars are Sunday! Make your picks with our official cut-out ballot. 18

• Real Estate • Birthdays • John Mirisch Guest Editorial

March 2, 2018

School Board Vows To Shore Up Security In Tandem With Increased Police Presence

By Laura Coleman In its latest effort to upgrade the ailing Beverly Hills Unified School District infrastructure, the Board of Education unanimously voted Tuesday to bring a $385 million construction bond to the electorate by placing a bond measure on the June 2018 ballot. “This is a first. This really is a hallmark moment; a Kodak moment; all the moments combined,” extolled Board of Education President Lisa Korbatov about the board’s shared support of asking the community to continue supporting its construction program.

In November 2016, Beverly Hills voters failed to pass the $260 million school-building Measure Y bond with 63.85 percent of the electorate casting a vote to support the measure, narrowly missing the two-thirds vote needed to pass it. However, because all five members of the board approved bringing this new bond measure to the ballot (as opposed to just three last time), only 55 percent of the electorate needs to vote in support of the bond for it to pass this time. “The quicker we can go ahead and conclude our construction program, the cheaper it will be for (see ‘$385M BOND’ page 11)

By Victoria Talbot On Wednesday evening, Beverly Hills residents received the anxiously-anticipated GeoKinetics assessment of grading quantities proposed for the developments at 1184 and 1193 Loma Linda Drive. Once again, the developer’s engineer, LC Engineering Group, appears to have overestimated fill and underestimated cut, which is good news for the residents - because the project at 1193 Loma Linda Drive can’t go forward without a discretionary hearing on its nine retaining walls. The LC Engineering report showed that on 1193 Loma Linda Drive, the total export would be 1,427 cubic yards of soil, under the 1,500-cubic yard-threshold that would trigger an R-1 Permit review. GeoKinetics reports the total export at 1,925 cubic yards. For 1184 Loma Linda Drive, LC Engineering reported 1,009 cubic yards of exported

Alfred Knopf Archives

VOLUME: LIII

soil, and GeoKinetics reports 1,149 cubic yards of export. Auditing from the environmental engineering firm GeoKinetics shows a difference in calculations of more than one-third for a second time, calculation mistakes that were only caught because of the due diligence of neighbors who spent their own money and time to investigate suspected substantial overages on soil export estimates that crossed the 1,500-cubic yard threshold for an R-1 Permit Review. GeoKinetics’ engineers will meet with residents and their experts 9 a.m. Friday morning at City Hall to review their results, and with the developer in a separate meeting. GeoKinetics was enlisted by the City Council in January to provide a peer-review of the estimated soil export by the developer, Loma Linda Trust, (see ‘LOMA LINDA’ page 21)

N O B O D Y  B E T T E R  T H A N TOM — Roasting billionaire David Geffen during his 75th birthday celebration at David’s estate in Beverly Hills, Tom Hanks was as good as it gets, provoking laughter from the celebrity crowd. Tom has authored a collection of short stories, Uncommon Type, that became an overnight bestseller. For more photos, see George Christy’s column on page 6.


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