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Santa Monica Daily Press TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2015
Volume 14 Issue 72
VIDIOTS SAVED SEE PAGE 3
ROP courses, City Hall seeks to regulate ride-sharing apps teachers on chopping block BY DAVID MARK SIMPSON Daily Press Staff Writer
BY JEFFREY I. GOODMAN Daily Press Staff Writer
CITYWIDE When she started high school, Ariana Lopez couldn’t envision giving a presentation in an English class, let alone being on stage in front of hundreds of people. Her involvement in the Regional Occupational Program’s (ROP) dance class helped her out of her shell. “Dance was my escape, my therapy, my safe zone,” she said. For the recent alumna, as well as for scores of students in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the ROP courses have provided technical skills and career development training that they don’t receive in traditional academic classes. But the program is once again on the chopping block, a reality that drew students, teachers, parents and alumni to the school board’s Jan. 20 meeting to voice support and urge officials to continue financing the supplemental courses. The school board is scheduled to discuss the matter at its Thursday meeting in Malibu, but major cutbacks appear imminent. “It is the opinion of this Board of Education that it has become necessary to reduce or discontinue particular kinds of services in the District’s ROP program,” reads a resolution that could be approved. Concerns arose when the county education office, which handles ROP funding for a consortium of districts, notified officials several weeks ago that it would exercise its Local Control Funding Formula options and retain the funds. “Districts then have to decide to pick up these programs in their own general funds,” ROP director Rebel Harrison said. “But it becomes a financial challenge (for
CITY HALL Popular ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft may face regulation in Santa Monica. City officials plan to ask City Council to address the regulation of vehicles-for-hire when council discusses the expiration of the taxi franchise system later this year, City Hall’s Business Operations Manager
Salvador Valles said last week. “Currently, there are none that exist,” he said of car-for-hire regulations. “Pretty much anyone can show up in Santa Monica today, get a business license, and as long as they are operating within the city of Santa Monica — the moment they cross jurisdictional lines they would need licensing from the state — but as long as they don’t, they can slap a sign on their car,
and they can drive around town, and they can pick you up. So we’re a little uncomfortable with that, for obvious reasons.” Valles was addressing Downtown Santa Monica Inc., the public-private company that manages the Downtown for City Hall. “One of the things that we think would help discourage some of these fly-by-night, wild west operations — which as we continue to
get busier and denser in the Downtown area, we start to see more of these operations wanting to come here — so we’d like to impose minimum insurance requirements and an operating permit of some kind that puts a few restrictions on exactly what they can do,” Valles said. Cabbies have long been at odds SEE RIDE PAGE 7
Infants quarantined following confirmed measles case at Samohi day care BY JEFFREY I. GOODMAN Daily Press Staff Writer
SAMOHI Fourteen infants at Santa Monica High School’s childcare center will be quarantined for 21 days after a baby who attends the
center was diagnosed with measles, a district official said. The room of the facility that serves infants 12 months and younger will be closed indefinitely, said Gail Pinsker, spokeswoman for the Santa Monica-Malibu
Unified School District. The room for toddlers will be closed through Thursday and could reopen Friday. The quarantines and closures come as the county public health department investigates the ongoing outbreak of the contagious disease.
Public health officials will work closely with the district in the coming weeks and provide guidance to the families of the quarantined infants. The disease can be particuSEE MEASLES PAGE 7
‘Rolled Sleeves Bandit’ arrested BY LAURA EIMILLER Special to The Daily Press
SAMOHI Multiple bank robbers have
CIVIC MINDED
Matthew Hall matt@smdp.com
Residents gathered for a two-day workshop last week to discuss the future of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Participants had an opportunity to use an interactive tool to plan the building’s future. Residents who were unable to attend can still access the program through Feb. 14 at www.smgov.net/departments/ccs/civicauditorium.
been arrested and charged federally, according to David Bowdich, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, and Stephanie Yonekura, the United States Attorney in Los Angeles. In one case, a Newport Beach man was arrested for bank robbery after being identified as the suspect in a series of bank robberies linked to the “Rolled Sleeves” Bandit. Damian Loren Newhart, 38, of Newport Beach, was taken into custody in Inglewood, on Jan. 29 by officers with the Santa Monica Police Department who were acting on a tip developed through a joint investigation. Following news coverage of the alleged Rolled Sleeves Bandit earlier this week, investigators received
SEE ROP PAGE 6
SEE BANDIT PAGE 6
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