SIGNAL
“Alive–3” photograph by Kim Hak
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Vol. 36 No. 21
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october 24, 2014
SERVING BIXBY KNOLLS, CALIFORNIA HEIGHTS, LOS CERRITOS, WRIGLEY AND THE CITY OF SIGNAL HILL
SH Council considers code of conduct aer vice mayor’s ‘offensive’ remarks to resident
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
As the plots thicken
Dead men– and women– to tell tales at cemetery tour
Sean Belk Staff Writer
Signal Hill Vice Mayor Larry Forester has publicly apologized for making “offensive” remarks to a resident at a local restaurant last July for being critical of an adult charter school proposed in the city. In response, Mayor Ed Wilson has asked city staff to create a “code of civility and conduct” for elected and appointed officials that the Council discussed at its meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 21. During the Council meeting, Andrea Webster, a Signal Hill resident and business owner who is black, spoke at length about the incident that she said took place on July 18 and involved an exchange regarding a charter school proposed by the Conservation Corps of Long Beach. Last month, the Conservation Corps suspended its plans to open a second charter high school for adults age 18 to 25 at an office building at 1982 Obispo Ave. in Signal Hill. The charter school, which requires a zoning-ordinance amendment and a conditional-use permit to operate, would be offered to adults who have dropped out of traditional high school and are pursuing high-school diplomas and workforce training. During public workshops, some residents expressed concerns that the charter school, which would be located near a new high school see COUNCIL page 13
Photos by Ron Sylvester
Denis McCourt directs Zadie Cannon as Effie Sanders during the Oct. 18 rehearsal of the Historical Society of Long Beach’s annual cemetery tour, which is now in its 19th year. Heidi Nye
Culture Writer
Not all ghosts are fixated on frightening mere mortals. Some are no different than the living: they simply want to tell their life story to someone who’s really listening. Such are the ghosts of Long Beach past who inhabit Sunnyside and Municipal cemeteries. On Saturday, Oct. 25, you can hear 13 of them relate their tales of success and failure, joy and tragedy, acceptance and rejection– the very stuff of our own lives but set in another time. Now in its 19th year, the Historical Society of Long Beach’s (HSLB) annual cemetery tour bills itself as a pre-Halloween event at which “every plot has a story.” HSLB co-president and tour project manager Roxanne Patmor said that, though this year doesn’t have an overarching theme, the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I and the 85th anniversary of the Long Beach Playhouse figured prominently
when she and other society members selected five of the “tour guides.” Steven Dean Lauria, who was in the original Broadway production of the musical Hair, plays Donald Erickson, a Marine who fought in a battle that shifted the course of the war, while actor Zadie Cannon tells of her ghost brother Otto’s service in the Navy. Bob Fetes rehearses as Capt. Billy Graves for the Historical Society Cannon, in a salmon-colored sun hat, of Long Beach’s cemetery tour, which will take place on Saturday, matching earrings and green ‘40s-style Oct. 25 at Long Beach Municipal and Sunnyside cemeteries. dress for the Oct. 18 rehearsal at HSLB’s museum, 4260 Atlantic Ave., said she metaphorically buried again to make way for felretired as a city auditor and immediately took up low plot dwellers. When Effie materialized previously, however, acting: “I left on a Thursday, and on Monday I she told her own story; this time she’s speaking was on set.” Though she mainly does TV commercials, she is thrilled to be playing Effie for the entire Gilmore family, who were “trail Sanders once again. This is unusual, since, to the blazers,” Cannon said, being a few of the 150 best of her knowledge, her character is the only African-Americans who resided in Long Beach ghost who has made a second appearance. Once in 1920. “The people who are buried here are not they’ve told their story, the deceased are see CEMETERY TOUR page 9
Woman shot by Signal Hill police officer had fake gun, LA County sheriff ’s officials say
Sean Belk Staff Writer
Screenshot from SH City Council video
Signal Hill Vice Mayor Larry Forester publicly apologized during the Council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 21 for making “offensive” remarks to a resident at Delius Restaurant in July.
A Signal Hill police officer shot and injured a woman on Cherry Avenue near Pacific Coast Highway on Tuesday morning after calls reported that the female suspect was holding a gun that was later discovered to be fake, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department (LASD) Homicide
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Bureau officials. LASD officials said on Wednesday that a “weapon” was recovered at the scene. LASD Det. Steve Blagg confirmed with the Signal Tribune on Thursday that the weapon was a “replica firearm.” Details of the incident were unavailable, pending the results of an independent investigation being conducted by LASD’s Homicide Bureau and
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the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office at the request of the Signal Hill Police Department. At about 8:15am on Tuesday, Oct. 21, numerous calls came in to the Long Beach Police Department of a “white woman with a gun” seen at the corner of Cherry Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway, said LASD Lt. Holly Francisco on Tuesday.
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Callers also reported that the woman was “holding a sign,” police officials confirmed. A Signal Hill police officer heard the call and responded to the 1800 block of Cherry Avenue in Long Beach, locating a female who matched the description, she said. The woman, whom police have described as a suspect and whose see SHOOTING page 12