Saturday Is National Dog Day!
BEVERLY HILLS VOLUME: LII
NUMBER 34
www.bhcourier.com
SINCE 1965
August 25, 2017
Study Finds Beverly Hills School District Derives Little Value From JPA
THIS ISSUE
Puppy Alexis is this issue’s Adoptable Pet of the Week. 4
Monday’s Walk With The Mayor included a glimpse at the eclipse. 4 •Real Estate •Sports •Letters to the Editor
10 16 27
George Christy, Page 6 High Praise And Gratitude For The Jules Stein Eye Institute That Is Celebrating 50 Years … Carrie Fisher’s Will … The Friday Night Plane To Moscow
CLASSIFIEDS • Announcements • Real Estate • Rentals • Sales • and More
21
Renters, Landlords Give Final Input To Professor Singh By Victoria Talbot Landlords and tenants held their seventh and final meeting Sunday to negotiate towards a consensus on the Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO). Professor Sukhsimranjit Singh, director of the Straus institute for Dispute Resolution and assistant professor of Law at Pepperdine University, facilitator for the discussions, will include their comments in a report to be delivered to the City Council at the Sept. 5 meeting. It is expected that his report will serve to steer the Council’s
decisions on the future of the RSO. Currently, the RSO holds rent increases to three percent per year, creates a rental registry and provides relocation fees in the event of a no-cause eviction. The rental registry forms were sent to landlords on July 10; the completed forms are due back to the City on Sept. 22. Through the meetings, the two parties found agreement on several points, while inching closer on others, a departure from the rigid positions that had permeated (see ‘BEVERLY HILLS RENT’ page 19)
Robinson Gardens’ Annual Gala To Honor Lisa Greer, Ellisa Bregman 2By Laura Coleman Once again, the Virginia Robinson Gardens will be the setting for the magical Friends of Robinson Gardens Patron Gala, coming up on Saturday, Sept. 9. Set to the theme “The Loveliest Night Lisa Greer Ellisa Bregman of the Year,” in homage to the dreamy the 6.5-acre property that is home Mario Lanza song where he to Beverly Hills’ first estate, the croons about the joy of being in legendary onetime home of Harry love beneath twinkling stars, this and Virginia Robinson, is widely year’s gala will honor Beverly regarded as one of the City’s most Hills residents Lisa Greer and spectacular fundraisers. Ellisa Bregman. For 35 years, the Beverly Hills The evening cocktail soiree gem has been a public haven for and dinner, which takes place on (see ‘ROBINSON GARDENS’ page 15)
pared to discuss fully the report with the district,” she later added. To justify the school district’s request to increase the JPA by 39 percent, from $9.7 million to $13.5 million, the City requested that the BHUSD provide a cost analysis of the JPA to the school district. To that end, last month the school district entered into a not-toexceed $59,830 contract with performance auditing firm Moss Adams to provide the BBHUSD with a financial assesment of the JPA. The completed 21-page report–which the City received last week–found that the costs to operate and administer the JPA increased cumulatively by (see ‘JPA’ page 15)
Safety Concerns At School Forefront After Beverly Hills High Power Outage By Laura Coleman Beverly Hills Unified School District leaders got a double dose of worry Thursday after a power outage at Beverly Hills High School left students in the dark and a neighborhood disturbance near Hawthorne prompted the principal to confine students to classrooms as a precautionary measure. “It was really orderly [and] everybody was fine,” BHUSD Chief of Facilities David Jackson confirmed to the Courier following both incidents. It also happened to fall on the same day as the deadly terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain.
Celebrity Photo Agency/Scott Downie
ONLY ON RODEO – Mayor Lili Bosse met with Los Angeles’ premier social media influencers Saturday at Ladurée Beverly Hills for a light bite and a walk down Beverly Hills’ BOLD streets after hours. Joining the group was surprise guest Tori Spelling. The group posed at the photo booth at Two Rodeo. Pictured are back row, from left: Rodeo Drive Committee President Kathy Gohari, Melissa Meyers (@melissameyers on Instagram), Eden Passante (@sugarandcharm), Beverly Hills BOLD Influencer Dawn McCoy (@iamdawnmccoy), Stuart Brazell (@stuartbrazell), Dee Murphy (@murphydeesign), Carly Anderson (@lipglossandcrayons) and front row, AGENC CEO Cara Kleinhaut (@carakleinhaut), Francesca Garcia (@classyverse), Beverly Hills Mayor Lili Bosse (@lilibosse1), Jill Salama (@jillsalama), Cassydy Gavin (@wewonderandwander) and Natasha Minasian (@natashaminasian).
By Laura Coleman Contract negotiations between the City of Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Unified School District for a new Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) hit a snag Tuesday night when City officials unexpectedly cancelled the following morning’s scheduled CitySchool Liaison meeting. “The City needs some time to review the financial report that was provided to us by the district last week,“ the City’s Director of Community Services Nancy Hunt-Coffey emailed the Courier. “The City’s auditing firm will be reviewing the report, which will take a few weeks. As soon as the City has had a chance to review the findings of the auditor, we will be pre-
And while student safety was assured at the administrative level, not all members of the community felt certain that Beverly Hills students would remain safe in the face of a more serious threat. On Tuesday BHUSD parent Chris Harris took the Board of Education to task for failing to adequately communicate to students just what was going on at the high school. “I was greatly concerned about [my daughter’s] safety as well as the safety of the entire campus,” he said. Further, he added, such events where students are left in the dark (in this case both figuratively and literally) can (see ‘POWER OUTAGE’ page 15)
DEJA VU — Debra Messing and Eric McCormack return in NBC’s revival of their hit series Will and Grace. They joined the stars who are appearing in the network’s fall season during the NBCUniversal Summer TCA Press Tour at The Beverly Hilton. For more photos, see George Christy’s column on page 6.