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Photo from the 1965 Sculpture Symposium at Cal State Long Beach See page 7
Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and the City of Signal Hill
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
VOL. 37 NO. 15
Controversial fire department pilot program to end quickly CJ Dablo Staff Writer
It was a million-dollar gamble. The City of Long Beach now has just a couple of weeks to wind down the controversial Rapid Medic Deployment (RMD) Pilot Program, now that LA County has given the non-negotiable order to end it by Oct. 1. According to Fire Chief Michael DuRee, ending the program means that the number of rescue ambulances will be reduced from 11 to eight, and it will also affect how the fire engines are staffed. DuRee told the Long Beach City Council at their meeting on Sept. 1 that they currently have a firefighter-paramedic on every fire engine in the city, and now they are planning to reduce that number to nine engines in the city. The impact to the budget has been estimated to be $1.4 million, according to budget manager Lea Eriksen. According to her report last week, the City will track the first-responder fee revenue that will be collected in the 2016 fiscal year to help reduce the additional cost to the department, and the fire department will be expected to make other adjustments to their budget in order to minimize the impact. Eriksen also noted that usually at the year end, there are savings in the budget, and she recommended that the fire department reserve $1.4 million out of any savings from the fiscal year-end 2015. Although it took a while to become a reality, the RMD program has only been implemented since 2014, according to a presentation by DuRee. Long Beach initially submitted the pilot project proposal in 2013, and it was vetted by various committees, stakeholders and the Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) of Los Angeles County. One of the major changes that the fire department made under the pilot program involved how paramedic and non-paramedic personnel were deployed and whether they would be on a fire engine or an ambulance. see RMD page 15
September 11, 2015
Long Beach choral group celebrating its 50th year with full year of special events Cory Bilicko Managing Editor
Looking back, it appears that the mid-1960s was a time that brought some enduring artistic endeavors to Long Beach, and two local institutions are preparing to celebrate a half century of contributing to the local arts scene. The first international sculpture symposium in the United States took place at Cal State Long Beach in the summer of ‘65. (See story on page 7.) The following year, the late Dr. Frank Allen founded a vocal arts ensemble called the Camerata Singers. The now 80-voice choir will soon premiere a new work commissioned for the milestone and engage in an artistic partnership with the Long Beach Symphony. The 2015-16 season will include four performances by the choir, as well as four other events that are part of its annual Long Beach Bach Festival, of which three are free of charge. However, it will all kick off when the choral organization honors former Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill, for her achievements in musical education and contribution to the arts, during a gala on Thursday, Oct. 22. The event will take place at Virginia Country Club, 4602 Virginia Rd., beginning at 6pm. Tickets for the event start at $150 and may be purchased at longbeachcameratasingers.org . Also as part of celebrating its 50th anniversary, the organization will offer a series of musicianship classes taught by see CAMERATA page 14
File photo The Camerata Singers’ 2015-16 season will include four performances, as well as four other events that are part of its annual Long Beach Bach Festival, of which three are free to the public.
LBCC students cooking up new possibilities in renovated facility Denny Cristales Editorial Assistant
Courtesy LBCC (Left to right): LBCC Culinary Arts professor Haley Nguyen, Culinary Arts Department Chair Pierre Jues and Culinary Arts students Joshua Cooper, Kimberlee Wareing and Katherine Fenrickson in one of seven instructional kitchens in the new facility.
Weekly Weather Forecast Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Partly sunny and very warm
Sunshine & patchy clouds
Warm & sunny
Sunny & humid
Warm with plenty of sun
Lo 75°
Lo 72°
Lo 71°
Lo 69°
Lo 73°
87°
87°
83°
see CULINARY page 11
September 11 through September 15, 2015
Friday
92°
Students at Long Beach City College are now cooking up their meals in style this fall semester with a newly renovated culinary arts kitchen. The facility went through an overhaul, introducing “state-of-theart” equipment, and giving students much more room to work with, removing all traces of the literal bumping of elbows amongst the chefs, according to Pierre Jues, department chair of the program at LBCC. The project has been a decade in the making, according to Jues, and the students couldn’t be happier. “Now, after three weeks in the new facility, I can see that our students are really feeling empowered
90°
This week’s weather forecast sponsored by: camoves.com/terry.rogers
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