SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2002
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Volume 1, Issue 113
Santa Monica Daily Press Picked fresh daily. 100% organic news.
School district settles out of $25M lawsuit
Worth every ounce
Judge finds no fault by school district in child’s tragic pool accident BY ANDREW H. FIXMER Daily Press Staff Writer
Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press
Baja Fresh’s manager, Carlos Cortez, explains to the Mexican grill’s employees (from left) Angel Zepeda, Victor Camacho and Jesus Rodrigez, how to calculate just the right amount of ingredients so customers get every bit of their money’s worth.
Oscar nods at local director ANDREW H. FIXMER Daily Press Staff Writer
Freida Lee Mock public funds for the arts continually shrink. “It makes you think about what we’re losing when you see what these children can do,” said Mock, as she frantically raced around town Friday to find a dress and jewelry for the awards ceremony. “We thought they were symbolic of what is going on across the country — all these community-based organizations trying make up for a public policy that defunds the arts,” she said. “These same efforts are being made in communities across the country.”
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Hollywood’s Oscar has his eye on a Santa Monica documentary filmmaker. Freida Lee Mock has been nominated for her fifth Academy Award. If she wins Sunday it will be her second time taking home the film industry’s highest honor. Her film, Sing!, has been nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject — which honors documentaries under 45 minutes long. Mock and her husband Terry Sanders — who live and work in Santa Monica — own and operate the American Film Foundation, which has made more than a dozen films and won three Academy Awards and an Emmy. The couple’s daughter, Jessica Sanders, was the film’s producer and could win an Oscar for her work on the film as well. Sing! begins with children auditioning for the Los Angeles County Youth Choir and tracks several students as their talents evolve through hard work and training from dedicated teachers to become part of one of the most highly regarded musical youth ensembles in the country. The film also shows how the community-based choir struggles with the financial weight of running its organization as
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District recently settled out of a $25 million lawsuit that accused the district of being partly to blame for an accident that paralyzed a student. Even though Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Richard Neidorf late last month found the school district was not at fault because the accident occurred at a graduation party that was held on private property, attorneys for the school district still agreed to pay $85,000 to be released from the lawsuit. At the party, 12-year-old David Cueva was injured while playing in James B. Upchurch’s Georgina Avenue swimming pool during a graduation party held last June. According to the lawsuit’s complaint, Cueva suffered severe brain damage, neurological defects, injury to his vision, hearing and balance. He was rendered a quadriplegic. There were several adults and up to 30 children present when the accident hap-
pened, according to court records. The children had gathered for Karaoke in the guest house when a parent went to get an item outside and noticed something at the bottom of the pool. Upchurch jumped in and pulled Cueva out, said an attorney involved in the case. Cueva’s family is suing for $2 million in medical bills and $23 million in pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of quality of life, and past, present and future medical and hospital related expenses. The lawsuit now targets Upchurch and other adults at the party. Mark A. Gottesman, who had just dropped his daughter off at the pool party, will appear in court on April 8 to convince Judge Neidorf to release him from the lawsuit. “We do not feel he was involved,” said Gottesman’s attorney, Tim Walker, “and now they are trying to bring his wife into the case as well and she wasn’t even there.” The school settlement clears the district from any future claims stemming from the incident. “We didn’t have to pay anything because the court agreed with us that we had no liability,” said John W. Allen, a school district attorney. “That settlement was reached simply to buy our peace, but the district had absolutely no liability.” Jay Willinger, Cueva’s attorney, said it
and remodeling. Now, in a trend affecting urban settings across the nation and world, but especially in California, more people are choosing the ambiance, architecture and diversity of city centers. Few changes are as dramatic as Venice, just south of Santa Monica. A quiet oceanside town during the 1950s and 1960s’ Venice turned to drugs and crime during the 1970s and 1980s. Just inland from tourists and beachgoers, gunfire dominated the night and drug trafficking kept families inside. Now former drug houses sport adirondack chairs on front porches. Those who endured that turbulent period can hardly See NEIGHBORHOODS, page 6 swing
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