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New Year’s Resolution: We will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word. ~Goran Persson
Winner of Fourteen LA Press Club Awards from 2012-2018.
Serving Cerritos and ten other surrounding communities • December 31, 2021 • Vol. 36, No. 5 • loscerritosnews.net
New Organics Recycling Program to Start in Area Cities By Tammy McDuff In September 2016, Governor Brown signed SB 1383 establishing methane emissions reduction targets in a statewide effort to reduce emissions. Following this law, all jurisdictions must provide organic waste collection services to all residential and commercial customers by January 1, 2022, to ensure organic material is diverted from landfills. Organic waste includes food scraps and green waste, such as landscaping and pruning waste. Examples of “food waste” include fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood, shellfish, bones, rice, beans, pasta, bread, cheese, and eggshells. Food waste also includes food-soiled paper, such as compostable paper plates, paper coffee cups, napkins, pizza boxes, and milk cartons. Starting at the beginning of the year, CR&R Environmental Services and the City of Bellflower will launch the new Organics Recycling Program. Resident’s will put food scraps in the green waste container in addition to yard waste. An organics decal will be placed on the lid of your container outlining acceptable materials. The collected organic material will be delivered to one of CR&R’s compost fa-
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Cerritos Soccer Star Talks World Cup By Brian Hews Marcelo Balboa grew up on the streets of Cerritos, attending college here before going on to achieve great things with the US Men’s National Soccer Team. That included helping them to their first World Cup appearance in forty Marcelo Balboa years, a record only broken by failure to qualify for Russia 2018. The defender made 127 appearances spanning 12
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USS IOWA: Centenarian Machinist Mate Recalls His Service Our Democracy HOW GOP IS SEIZING ELECTION POWER: ‘SLOW-MOTION INSURRECTION’
THE ENGINE ROOM aboard the USS Iowa inspected by USS Iowa staff volunteer. By Tammye McDuff Freeman Johnson was a Machinist’s Mate First Class aboard USS St. Louis during the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. A year or so later, he was assigned to Brooklyn Navy Yard and USS Iowa. He was with Iowa for her first commissioning and the entirety of her WWII service. The 101-year-old veteran revisited the Iowa on December 16. He was full of fascinating stories and details about the war and it was an absolute thrill to allow this remarkably-agile centenarian to visit his old duty station at the bottom of Boiler Room #4. On the trip down to Boiler Room #4, Johnson had no issues shimming down the ladder, “On the St. Louis at Pearl Harbor, I was assigned to Boiler Room #3,” said Johnson, “We were in the Navy yard to repair #3.” Johnson served on the St. Louis until 1942. Because he had to crawl into tight spaces, he said he didn’t see a lot of what happened, but he also said it probably saved his life. Originally, Johnson joined the Navy when he was 19. “I was a very small cog in a very big machine,” he said. “We had just finished breakfast.” Johnson remembered the moment that he felt the vibration of the machine gun on the deck above him. “That was the first sign we knew something was wrong,” he said. Johnson recalled that he and his fellow mates snuck off the Iowa to go home for the Christmas holidays, “There were only six of us in a 40-man bunk room, I didn’t see any officers around our lead said I’m going home and left; and we left too!” The Iowa was commissioned in 1943, and Johnson was aboard for that before setting off to Tokyo Bay. “I don’t remember much about that day. After Okinawa I remember soldiers not giving up. We were happy that President Harry Truman dropped the bomb.”
Johnson called Truman the best thing to ever happen to this country, “I admire his politics. He was backed up by politicians who were as crooked as they come. He never did what they told him to do; he had a mind of his own.” The Boiler Room is pretty much as it
FREEMAN JOHNSON was aboard the USS St. Louis during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He then served on the USS Iowa.
was in Johnson’s day. Some new controls and gauges were added, the ship now burns diesel fuel, but for the most part, it is still outfitted with 1942 steel. “Look at that,” Johnson declared, “the bilge is dry!!” It was a moving journey to travel back in time with Johnson as he described his daily duties. He inspected the packing and the escape hatches saying “We had about half a second to decide if a torpedo came through the ship, whether we were going to go through the escape hatch or try to climb up the ladder. Fortunately, we never had to make that choice.” Johnson said General Douglas McArthur was a showman, he recalled the choppy waters of San Francisco Bay and his time in the South Pacific seeking enemy submarines. “They call it the fog of war,” remembered Johnson,” It’s not a fog; you just do your job the best way you can.”
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Donald Trump has been clear about his intentions: He is seeking to oust statewide officials who stood in his way and replace them with allies. By Associated Press In the weeks leading up to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, a handful of Americans — well-known politicians, obscure local bureaucrats — stood up to block then-President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attempt to overturn a free and fair vote of the American people. In the year since, Trump-aligned Republicans have worked to clear the path for next time. In battleground states and beyond, Republicans are taking hold of the once-overlooked machinery of elections. While the effort is incomplete and uneven, outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a “slow-motion insurrection” with a better chance of success than Trump’s failed power grab last year. They point to a mounting list of evidence: Several candidates who deny Trump’s loss are running for offices that could have a key role in the election of the next president in 2024. In Michigan, the Republican Party is restocking members of obscure local boards that could block approval of an election. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled legislatures are backing open-ended “reviews” of the 2020 election, modeled on a deeply flawed look-back in Arizona. The efforts are poised to fuel disinformation and anger about the 2020 results for years to come. All this comes as the Republican Party has become more aligned behind Trump, who has made denial of the 2020 results a litmus test for his support. Trump has praised the Jan. 6 rioters and backed primaries aimed at purging lawmakers who have crossed him. Sixteen GOP governors have signed laws making it more difficult to vote. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed that two-thirds of Republicans do not be-
See ELECTION page 6