HEWS MEDIA GROUP
Winner of Fourteen LA Press Club Awards from 2012-2018. Serving Cerritos and ten other surrounding communities • January 7, 2022 • Vol. 36, No. 4 • loscerritosnews.net
PUNKED: California Redistricting Further Isolates Hawaiian Gardens By Brian Hews
Photo by Brian Hews
LET IT SNOW THE SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS received over four feet of snow from the last storm to hit Southern California. This picture was taken this past Sunday from a street in the city of Orange.
Commerce
Mother Honored for Bringing Awareness to the Dangers of Street Racing By Tammye McDuff In 2014, Lili Trujillo got the phone call every parent dreads. Her 16-year-old daughter Valentina was killed in a street racing crash. Wanting to prevent other kids and parents from going through that horrible pain, Trujillo started a nonprofit organi-
zation to bring awareness to illegal speed racing called ‘Speed Racing Kills’. The City of Commerce recently honored Trujillo and her friend Lori Argumedo, who lost a 23-year-old niece to street racing, for their advocacy to prevent street racing at their December City Council meeting. Trujillo made it her mission
Crash Kills Reckless Driver in Cerritos
to do all she could to prevent another parent from losing a child and by mentoring and creating awareness among the youth of Commerce of traffic safety and the dangers of street speeding and racing. The organization actively speaks and holds presentations at high schools, colleges, and
On December 8, 2021, the California Redistricting Commission drew a draft map of the Congressional districts, placing tiny Hawaiian Gardens, 78% Hispanic, with affluent White and highly Asian Orange County cities in the new 45th Congressional District. The Commission used the same twisted logic in the Senate and Assembly Districts. "Are you kidding me?" said Hawaiian Gardens Councilwoman Myra Maravilla. In the beginning, the Commission set its guidelines stating it wanted to put groups of Californians living in "communities of interest" on equal footing with cities and counties when it came to drawing the lines. The Commission also stated it wanted to follow the Voting
Rights Act and empower voters in communities that have been historically discriminated against. They did neither with the one-square-mile City of Hawaiian Gardens, approving districts that appear punitive and that further isolate the City and its residents. Communities of interest? The 45th Congressional District has cities that do not match Hawaiian Gardens; highly Asian communities of Buena Park, Fountain Valley, Westminster, and Garden Grove. Voting Rights Act? The racial makeup of the Congressional District is only 23% Latino, which would dilute the level of representation that Hawaiian Gardens will have in Congress. Access to bilingual resources and topics that matter most to
See HAWAIIAN GARDENS page 16
Are You Unknowingly Being Tracked by an Apple AirTag?
See RACING page 12
Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count Resumes By Tammye McDuff
A MANGLED CAR with a blanket covering the dead driver is among the carnage at South and Bloomfield. The city's COW bus was also slightly damaged.
One person was killed when a FedEx box truck and several other vehicles crashed Wednesday morning in Cerritos. The crash was reported at about 10:30 a. m. near Bloomfield Avenue and South Street. A driver split lanes and rear-
ended the delivery truck, according to the sheriff’s department. About six vehicles were involved in the collision, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. At least one person was trapped in wreckage.
Every year, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority [LAHSA] compiles and analyzes the data that hundreds of volunteers collect within their own communities. Even as housing placements reach new heights, 2020 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count showed an unprecedented rise in homelessness. Just a few years into a decade-long investment with Measure H, LA’s homeless services system is preventing and ending homelessness for more people than ever before, but the housing crisis, economic disparities and the never-ending pan-
See HOUSING page 12
By Brian Hews Ever heard of an Apple AirTag? An AirTag is a 1.26-inch disc with location-tracking capabilities that Apple started selling earlier this year as a way “to keep track of your stuff,” users attach it to their keys, wallet, purses and backpacks in case they misplace or lose them. The device is a puck-shaped gadget that's 0.31 inches in height. All-in-all, it's about the size of a piece of Mentos candy. It will be able to fit into most wallets, although it won't fit as nicely as if it were as thin as quarter or the shape of a credit card. The device is equipped with
Bluetooth technology and emit a digital signal that can be detected by devices running Apple’s mobile operating system. Those devices then report where an AirTag has last been seen. The device is connected to Apple’s location-tracking network, called “Find My,” trigger alerts to unknown iPhones they travel with. Privacy groups sounded alarms about the coin-sized location-tracking devices when they were introduced. Now people are concerned those fears are being realized. In recent months, people have posted on TikTok, Reddit and
See AIRTAG page 11