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Motor over to pages 8 and 9 for our special automotive section
Photo by Matt Sun
VOL. 34 NO. 4
SERVING BIXBY KNOLLS, CALIFORNIA HEIGHTS, LOS CERRITOS, WRIGLEY AND THE CITY OF SIGNAL HILL
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
Documentary filmmaker using nonprofit support group as her subject revealed as Secret Millionaire Ariana Gastelum Editorial Intern
The New Hope Grief Support Community, a Long Beach nonprofit, will be featured on ABC’s Secret Millionaire on Sunday, July 8. Secret Millionaire is a reality program that matches wealthy donors with deserving charities by following some of America’s most successful businesspersons as they work with people and organizations while assuming hidden identities. New Hope has served more than 7,000 people in 12 years, providing grief support groups, educational resources, seminars and family grief camps at no cost. Their biggest desire is to have a greater awareness and, in founder Susan Beeney’s words, “strike the hearts of every person on Earth.” Hilary DeCesare, CEO/co-founder of Everloop.com, whose mission is to provide an age-appropriate social media experience for children, visited New Hope while posed as a filmmaker producing a documentary on how nonprofits help keep America stable
Courtesy New Hope
New Hope Grief Support Community founder Susan Beeney giving some extra support to camper Natalie at one of the nonprofit’s family events
Court rules that WRD cannot stop pumping water to Signal Hill see NEW HOPE page 14
Michelle Lecours Staff Writer
The Water Replenishment District (WRD) has been rejected for the fourth time in court for its repeated effort to shut down water wells in Signal Hill and neighboring cities for non-payment of assessments. Earlier this month, Judge Ralph Dau rejected the WRD’s fourth request to shut down water wells in Signal Hill, Cerritos, Downey, Bellflower and Pico Rivera because those Cities have refused to pay what they call an “illegally levied assessment.” The legal battle between the Cities and the WRD is complicated and contentious. Last year, the Cities alleged that the water agency overcharged them and violated the California Constitution by illegally raising assessments in 2010-2011. As a result, the Cities have ceased paying the $244-per-acre-foot assessment to the WRD because there is no legal way to shell out what they’re calling an unlawful fee.
“Our Cities have stopped paying these illegal assessments, because doing so would constitute a gift of public funds,” stated John Oskoui, Downey Director of Public Works, in a June 18 city press release. Groundwater is replenished by the WRD to cities relying on it to supply local residents and businesses with drinking water. To clarify the measurement of an “acre-foot,” WRD Board Vice President Lillian Kawasaki, whose jurisdiction includes Signal Hill, describes it the following way: “If you looked at a football field and filled that up with one foot (of water), that’s an acre-foot.” That is enough drinking water to supply approximately three families for a year. Signal Hill gets about 2,000 acre-feet of groundwater a year, according to Signal Hill City Manager Kenneth Farfsing. That price increase is still competitive and less than half the price of imported water, says WRD General Manager Robb Whitaker. “Because a lot of (our own) cost increases are due
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to the cost of imported water that we have to buy the replenishment assessment and the cost of groundwater continues to be about a third of the cost of imported water,” Whitaker said. “We’re buying imported water for over $1,000 an acre-foot right now. “Our assessment (and) any increases that we’ve had over the past five or ten -years, (have) a direct impact over the water costs being charged to us by the agencies we buy water from,” Whitaker said. Those agencies include the Central Basin Municipal Water District. “They’ve had some huge increases.” The court ruled the WRD assessments were subject to Prop 218, which was passed in 1996. To recoup those overcharges from the WRD, the Cities filed a damages lawsuit, however, there is still no court date set. As a result, the Cities have not been ordered to pay past assessments until the damages suit is settled. see WRD page 15
Signal Hill graphic designer discovers creative outlet through writing, self-published novels
Adam Buchsbaum Editorial Intern
Bill Zeilinger’s aunt lived in the Philippines when the Japanese occupied that country. She had a romance with a Philippine Air Force pilot, who was soon to be her fiancé; the war separated the pair. Several years after the war, she briefly met the man again. Each had already settled down and married someone else. They never spoke again. The day of the pilot’s funeral, she was home and received a package; inside it was a scarf she once gave him, along with their would-be engagement ring. She told Zeilinger’s wife the story while visiting America for heart surgery. Zeilinger and his wife decided together to write his aunt’s story of war-torn love. The husband and wife decided to visit the Philippines to gather more details, but she had died. This was the ’90s. “So we got started on that story of my aunt, which we still haven’t published yet...and that got us inspired to write. We took novel-writing classes at Long Beach City College, we joined writers groups, we got online and talked to other published authors,” Zeilinger said.
Courtesy Bill Zeilinger
Bill Zeilinger began exploring writing with his wife after hearing his aunt’s story about her war-torn love affair during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.
Weekly Weather Forecast June 29-July 3, 2012 Friday
78° Partly cloudy Lo 62°
BUD’S
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
79°
79°
79°
80°
Partly cloudy Lo 63°
Partly cloudy Lo 62°
Partly cloudy Lo 62°
Partly cloudy Lo 62°
This week’s Weekly Weather Forecast sponsored by: Auto Upholstery Sunroofs
Beach Cities
June 29, 2012
www.budsrestyling.com
2637 St. Louis Ave. Signal Hill
562-595-6370
Courtesy Bill Zeilinger
Graphic designer Bill Zeilinger discovered writing fairly recently in life. His most recent self-published novel, Something’s Cooking at Dove Acres, chronicles the story of young Maddie Van der Wald and her entanglements as she lives on a fictionalized version of Catalina Island.
“And I never pictured myself as a writer. By profession, I’m a graphic designer.” Zeilinger and his wife now both write. Zeilinger has authored two self-published books under the moniker Will Zeilinger. He describes each as “summer reads.” His first, The Naked Groom, is a romantic comedy in which would-be chef Richard Grainger secretly moonlights as a nude artist model to pay for the ritzy honeymoon he promised to his fiancée Tiffany– only to become enamored with fellow nude model Clarise. “It’s not like Fifty Shades of Grey or something. It’s PG-rated. It’s a romantic comedy, but it’s told from the male point of view,” he said. His latest book, Something’s Cooking at Dove Acres, is a comical young-adult novel. In it, Maddie Van der Wald inherits her deceased great-aunt’s mansion on a fictionalized version of Catalina Island. However, Maddie finds herself entangled with rumors of ghosts and buried treasure, a property debacle with the residents and local darling Luke Garrett. “Her plan in the book, which I can say without giving it away, was to convert this estate, perhaps into a bed-and-breakfast with a restaurant that she could make see ZEILINGER page 5