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S erving B ixBy K nollS , C alifornia H eigHtS , l oS C erritoS , W rigley Vol. 33 No. 17
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Your Weekly Community Newspaper
S ignal H ill September 30, 2011
LB councilmembers become early contenders for new Assembly District 70 CJ Dablo Staff Writer
So far, two Long Beach city officials have said that they will be running for the newly created Assembly seat, and both of them are casting themselves as candidates with crossparty appeal. Democrat Gerrie Schipske announced this month that she’ll be running against fellow Democrat Patrick O’Donnell for the 70th district that covers Long Beach and San Pedro in the June 5, 2012 primary. Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal, who currently represents
much of Long Beach, has said that she plans to run for the State Senate in 2012. Both council members have acknowledged a few things that they have in common: strong ties to unions and emphasis on job growth and educational reform. But beyond the fact that they are both serving on the City Council, the two candidates have very different backgrounds. O’Donnell, who is currently serving his second term as councilmember for Long Beach’s fourth district, emphasized his background as a high-school and middle-school
teacher. He currently teaches government in high school and has prioritized K-16 education. “I’ll be a very loud voice for funding when education comes up,” O’Donnell said in a telephone interview Monday. When asked about job growth, O’Donnell emphasized support for manufacturing, the port industry, and the arts. Schipske is also an educator. Schipske teaches courses on healthcare law and human resources at California State University Long see CANDIDATES page 14
Fourth District Councilmember Patrick O’Donnell
Fifth District Councilmember Gerrie Schipske
Cal Heights home tour highlights a signature At West LB Association meeting, stained-glass door, rare roses and restored furniture former EPA chairman updates was actually moved in from Signal Hill roofing and electrical system. A bigger to the California Heights area, situating than expected reconstruction budget residents on rail yard pollution the yard to the side of the house as equated to a smaller budget allotted for Stephanie Raygoza Staff Writer
Small move-in home grows big in popularity and style There is a petite, Colonial Craftsman down Olive Avenue that every neighbor recognizes and agrees can be summed up in a few words– the house with the stained-glass door. Through the years, the house has gained popularity because of its artistically crafted door allowing it to stand apart from the rest of its neighboring homes on the block. The house, originally built in 1924,
opposed to the back. Measuring only 960 square feet total, the house is perfectly made for Ferdinand Arcinue and Nicole Burik. The married couple had seen the house many times while walking down the block and put an offer in the first day it came up for sale, managing to snag the house before anyone else did. What sold them on the house was its historic nature, along with the look and character of it. Although small in appearance, the house needed extensive work done, especially to the kitchen,
interior decorating. Burik, a savvy shopper when it comes to decorating on a dime, furnished the house with online and antique finds, giving the home its perfectly blended look of old and new designs. The living room is modestly kept, with Asian-inspired paintings adorning the walls. The dining room is decorated with Filipino sculptures, one given by Arcinue’s mother, and other culturedominant pieces such as a Chinese
see CHNA page 14
Athena Mekis Staff Writer
The West Long Beach Association (WLBA) hosted UCLA professor and scientist Dr. John Froines at the Silverado Community Center Sept. 22 to discuss his team’s new findings on air pollution. The meeting is in response to the Burlington North Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway Company’s proposal to build a second rail yard called the Southern Californian International Gateway (SCIG), which will be located near PCH, the 710 Freeway and the 405 Freeway. “There will be two-and-a-half million more trucks going through our back yard,” said John Cross, vice president for the WLBA, in opposition to the proposed rail yard. According to the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Resources Board (ARB) website, from 1991 to 1998, Froines acted as chair of the Department of Environmental Health Services, which concluded that diesel exhaust poses strong cancer risks. The new, two-year research finding, titled “Toxicologic Pathways of Rail Yard Emission Exposure on
Non-Cancer Health Impacts,” confirms that fossil fuel combustion, which occurs at sites such as the Wilmington/Carson oil refineries, the Long Beach and Los Angeles shipping ports, airports, freeways and railways, causes particulate matter which then causes cardiovascular disease, asthma, birth defects and much more. “The real impact comes from the ultrafine particles,” Froines said at Thursday’s meeting. Ultrafine particles enter deep into the lungs of all people but mutate and bond with the lungs’ cells in children, causing persistent health problems until old age, according to Froines. According to the ARB website, people who live within 500 feet of the BNSF Railway suffer from higher rates of asthma because their lungs do not fully grow. Hudson K-8 School, which is located about 700 feet from the BNSF rail yard, has the highest asthma rates of all Long Beach schools, the ARB reported. Froines said that Los Angeles’s air pollution settles in Riverside, where it has mutated into the strongest type of pollutants. see EMISSIONS page 4