Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
BEVERLY HILLS VOLUME: LV
NUMBER 11
www.bhcourier.com
SINCE 1965
March 15, 2019
BHUSD Aims To Be Nation’s Most Secure School District
TEAM BEVERLY HILLS GRADUATES – Last week, members of the 23rd TEAM Beverly Hills celebrated their graduation from the City’s unique civic education program. Pictured: Mark Babst, Cynthia Baseman, Neal Baseman, Magali Bergher, Celina Bojorquez, Issac Boudaie, Susan Choueke, Judith Douglas, Ariana Escalante, Martin Frank, Jena Frankel, Jordan Friedberg, Douglas Galen, Jodi Galen, Denise Geller, Sabrina Gordon-Gilardian, David Hakimfar, Sheri Hirschfeld, Louis Ignarro, Fori Kay, Barbara Linder, David Maltzman, Alex Melamed, Nick Melamed, Jennifer Okhovat, Jonah Okum, Mahin Rastegar, Jesus Rodriguez, Kelli Schatz, Amie Sherry, Dean Sherry, Sheryl Spigel, Oreet Smith, Jonathan Swerdlow, Deborah Termeie, Archna Tuli, Sid Turkish, Stephanie Vahn, Cameron Weisfeld, Debbie Weiss and Allyson Wittner. This year had 41 graduates, the largest class ever. The six-month leadership and educational program provides a hands-on look at how local government works through nine class sessions and interactive experiences with all the City Departments. To learn more about Team Beverly Hills please visit www.beverlyhills.org/teambeverlyhills or call 310-285-1023. The next application period will be summer 2019.
THIS ISSUE
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held for Teuscher Chocolates at its new Camden Drive home. 4
A judge ordered portions of 901 Strada Vecchia to be torn down. 10 •Schools •Health & Wellness •Birthdays
12-13 16 18
George Christy, Page 6 After A Stopover In London To Dine With Michael And Shakira Caine, Wendy Goldberg And Son John Mirisch Flew To Israel To Join The 30 Mayors From Five Continents At The 33rd International Mayors Conference.
CLASSIFIEDS • Announcements • Real Estate • Rentals • Sales • and More
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Four Years Later, City Plants Trees On Lot 13 By Victoria Talbot This week, residents were treated to a rare sight as 51 trees, most of them between 25-50 feet tall, were transported from the flatbeds they arrived on by a massive crane, suspended momentarily above the ground awaiting placement. The City of Beverly Hills is finally planting trees on the south side of Parcel 13. It was spring 2017 when former Assistant Director of Public Works Trish Rhay presented a tree-
management plan to care for the 83 trees on the City’s 20-foot easement. The plan began with the care and maintenance of the trees, neglected over a 50-year span. Since then, the City embarked on an aggressive campaign to bring the trees back to health and to fill in gaps in the canopies where trees had failed. The property, owned by the Beverly Hills Land Company, constitutes approximately five acres, encompassing Lot 12 and Lot 13 (see ‘LOT 13’ page 10)
School Board Looks To Tackle ‘Bullying Epidemic’ By Laura Coleman As everyone knows, kids are no slouches when it comes to building themselves up at the expense of others. To that end, Beverly Hills Unified is looking to get a handle on the issue of bullying that continues to plague its schools. In addition to launching two behavior programs designed to curb bullying, on Tuesday the Board of Education discussed creating a Behavior Modification Leadership Committee in order to more fully get a handle on the situation. “I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss convening a committee that could leverage the resources of the community with the intention of supporting and assisting BHUSD in an ongoing
effort to address the bullying epidemic in our community,” said board member Tristen WalkerShuman. Shuman, who previously served as a member of the district’s Future Focused Schools Committee, which ultimately provided a recommendation to the board to create a dedicated middle school, likened the creation of this new committee to the one she previously sat on. The two new initiatives, spearheaded by Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Laura Chism, with the support of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation, are Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and the Olweus Anti-Bullying Program. (see ‘BULLYING’ page 20)
By Laura Coleman Come fall 2019, Beverly Hills Unified School District may well be the most advanced public school district in the nation when it comes to safety. Following the hire of iXero last summer to create a comprehensive school safety and security plan to harden the campuses to intruders while protecting students within, the school district is slated to start the next school year with a state-of-the-art fusion center. The intelligence hub, which has yet to be named, will be modeled off the one at Disneyland. While high-level threats are far and few between
throughout the City, according to Beverly Hills Police Chief Sandra Spagnoli, increasing the level of safety is unequivocally positive. “We’re very proactive. We want to make sure that when we receive threats we’re still in front of them,” she said. BHUSD will be the first district in the nation to have a fusion center of this type, which will be staffed 24 hours a day, ensuring that intelligence information is shared in real time. In addition to hiring private armed security through Calabasas-based Nastec International, Inc. last year, bringing the total number of (see ‘SAFETY’ page 20)
Beverly Hills Resident Among 50 Named In College Admissions Scam By Victoria Talbot Los Angeles awakened Tuesday morning to the shocking news of a nationwide college admissions conspiracy with dozens of individuals across the country involved in alleged cheating on college entrance exams, bribing athletic coaches, tax fraud and money laundering. The scandal hit home when a prominent Beverly Hills resident was arrested. Jane Buckingham, founder and President of a boutique marketing firm, was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Buckingham is the author of The Modern Girl’s Guide series, including ironically, The
Modern Girls’ Guide to Sticky Situations. Amazon’s bio says, “Jane Buckingham is the president of Trendera, an innovative marketing and media consulting firm with numerous Fortune 500 companies as clients. She is a contributing editor to Cosmopolitan, a regular guest on Good Morning America and The View and was recently named by Elle as one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, bestselling business author Marcus Buckingham, and their two children, Jack and Lilia.” She is one of dozens of individuals named in a scheme to guarantee their high school (see ‘ADMISSIONS SCAM’ page 27)
THE GANG’S ALL HERE — They crowded the Dolby Theater to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. The laugh-a-lot series had a run from 1968 to 1973 and won two Emmy awards for director/producer George Schlatter who attended with a passel of stars that included Ruth Buzzi, Snoop Dogg, Lily Tomlin who performed her Edith Ann and Ernestine characters. Also in the crowd were Billy Crystal, Michael Douglas, Jay Leno, Neil Patrick Harris, Rita Moreno, and others celebrating the tribute. For more photos, see George Christy’s column on page 6.