Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Signal Hill with 30,000 issues every Friday
VOL. XLI NO. 13
Your Weekly Community Newspaper
www.signaltribune.com
‘They fight us with a bullet, we fight back with love and compassion.’
In this issue NEWS
March 22, 2019
LB City Council OKs agreement with CSULB Foundation for downtown classes
Faith, political leaders gather at local mosque to spread messages of love to Muslim community in wake of New Zealand mass shooting.
Council also increases $40,000 in appropriations for digital-inclusion roadmap.
Cory Bilicko
A ‘Spark’ for the midtown community
Staff Writer
Among the numerous discussions and presentations at the four-hour March 19 Long Beach City Council meeting were a proposal to move university continuing-education workforce-development courses to downtown, an update on the City’s digital-inclusion roadmap and a conversation on how the City can work with traffic- and navigation-app companies to reduce the prevalence of cut-through traffic routed through residential streets.
County, city officials celebrate groundbreaking of affordable-housing facility on LB Boulevard. Page 5
COMMUNITY
Heather Kern, MADE’s creative director, said that it stems from taking pride in being a woman-owned and -managed business. “We were thinking of iconic female symbols and recalled hearing about Elinor Otto,” Molina said. “The fact that there is a tie into Long Beach history sealed the deal.” Molina and Kern added that their building at 240 Pine Ave. is 12,500 square feet but only 8,000 was being used by the five-year-old MADE’s art galleries, shop and event space. “It made sense that we would add a beer and wine bar to the alley entrance adjacent to our event/music space, Nuts N’ Bolts,” Kern said. Located at the back of the building, Elinor was formerly MADE’s loading dock, and its atmosphere is somewhat industrial, with its alley entrance, cement
CSULB downtown The city council authorized an agreement with the California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) Foundation to provide continuing-education workforce-development classes in downtown Long Beach, in an amount not to exceed $1 million for a period of 10 years. “There has been a proposal that the City and the university have been working on for the last couple of years, and that has been to bring the university to downtown Long Beach,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “As we know, when universities go to downtowns, the downtowns thrive, and the students also open themselves up to incredible opportunities and experiences.” He added that the proposal includes many parts and that one large component of it is to provide housing for students and faculty in the downtown area. During the staff report on the agenda item, Nick Schultz, executive director of the Workforce Development Bureau, explained that the goal is to include classes in the city’s primary area of business, which is adjacent to the Metro Blue Line. “The proposed 10-year agreement of $1 million to the Cal State University Foundation will provide the university with a portion of the resources necessary to establish 16
see ELINOR page 10
see COUNCIL page 13
Lissette Mendoza | Signal Tribune
Chairman of the Long Beach Islamic Center Tarek Mohamed, left, and Rabbi Steven Moskowitz of Temple Israel, right, embrace at an emergency meeting held on Friday, March 15, the day after the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 50 people were killed.
Sláinte!
see MOSQUE page 15
Queen Mary organizers host first St. Patrick’s Day Eve Pub Stroll. Page 7
Toasting a Long Beach icon
New bar at MADE by Millworks named after Elinor Otto, 99, an original ‘Rosie the Riveter.’ Anita W. Harris Staff Writer
W
Welcoming spring, bidding farewell to winter
CSULB Japanese Garden organizers host event that showcases immersive art, live demonstrations. Page 3
omen’s History Month is a fitting time to raise a glass to the powerful women who’ve helped shape us. Now, there’s a new place to do that. Yesterday, MADE by Millworks in Long Beach– a female-owned-and-operated art gallery, local-crafts shop and event venue– added Elinor to its operations: a bar named after one of the city’s original “Rosie the Riveters,” 99-year-old Long Beach resident Elinor Otto. MADE owner Michelle Molina said that the bar honors barrier-breaking women like Otto. “Men break barriers all the time, too,” Molina told the Signal Tribune. “But women have to work twice as hard to get there.” As to their choice of the bar’s name, Molina and
Signal Hill Community Foundation
Saturday, May 4, 2019 • 8 am – 12 pm eeds All proc ard y e from th to o g le sa Senior s! Program
Signal Hill Park • 2175 Cherry Avenue For more information, please call 562-989-7330.
Space sa availa re ble for the yard s ale!
This ad is generously donated by Signal Hill Petroleum