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APRIL 3-4, 2010
3w10.442.1651 ww.andrewthurm.com Volume 9 Issue 123
Santa Monica Daily Press THREE MORE YEARS OF KOBE SEE PAGE 12
We have you covered
THE THANK YOU JESUS ISSUE
O’Connor gets warning from state for filing campaign statements late BY NICK TABOREK Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL Following a local gadfly’s urging,
the panel for a vote on Tuesday, would grant additional permit exemptions in order to allow students entering 10th, 11th and 12th grades to keep their transfer permits and remain at their current high schools. Under Cortines’ original plan, only high school students entering their senior year would have been allowed to remain at their out-of-district schools. (Cortines’ plan also allows students entering 5th and 8th grades to remain at their current schools. Those exemptions would not be changed under the proposal before the school board.) “It was our feeling that high school stu-
California’s Fair Political Practices Commission has officially warned Mayor Pro Tem Pam O’Connor she will be fined in the future if she fails to file campaign disclosure statements on time. The written warning dated March 23 from the FPPC stated that O’Connor failed to file a semi-annual campaign statement for the second half of last year in a timely fashion. “Failure to comply with the provisions of the [Political Reform Act] in the future will result in monetary penalties of up to $5,000 for each violation,” the letter, which was obtained by the Daily Press, stated. O’Connor filed her most recent campaign disclosure forms more than six weeks after the Feb. 1 deadline. She was not fined for her tardiness by the City Clerk’s Office after she submitted a letter asking for leniency because she had recently undergone knee surgery. The FPPC’s investigation occurred at the behest of Pro Se, a longtime Santa Monica City Council gadfly who notified the commission O’Connor had missed the filing deadline. In an interview on Friday, he said he felt compelled to report O’Connor’s tardiness to the commission in part because he felt City Hall’s decision not to issue a fine revealed a “double standard.” He said he ran for City Council in 2002 and was told that he would have to meet filing deadlines despite being confined to a wheel chair and experiencing “extreme pain.” Denise Anderson-Warren, an administrative analyst in the City Clerk’s Office, denied the department plays favorites. “I’ve been here for 15 years and [City Clerk Maria Stewart has] treated everybody exactly the same,” she said. “She’s been fair and equitable with everybody the entire time I’ve been here.” Pro Se said even though the FPPC opted not to fine O’Connor, his complaint would benefit Santa Monica’s political culture. “The good thing out of this is it’ll give a warning to all elected officials in Santa Monica that there’s someone who will bring to the attention of the commission their
SEE PERMITS PAGE 8
SEE WARNING PAGE 9
EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS
Brandon Wise brandonw@smdp.com Shoppers attempt to retrieve their share of the 20,000 nickels glued to a sign from ARCO gas company on the Third Street Promenade on Friday afternoon. Written on the sign, a publicity stunt, was the sentence, ‘It's a proven fact that people like a few extra nickels.’ It took a little over three hours for people to take all of the nickels on the sign.
Proposal would let more permit students stay BY NICK TABOREK Daily Press Staff Writer
SMMUSD HDQTRS More kids who attend local public schools on inter-district permits could be allowed to stay put if the Los Angeles Unified School District board approves a proposal next week to modify the district’s strict new permit policy. In an attempt to net $51 million in extra state education funding, LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines in February said the district would stop issuing permits to most students who live inside its boundaries but go to school in neighboring public school systems including the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified
School District. The policy shift was expected to require about 10,000 of the 12,250 students who receive out-of-district transfer permits from LAUSD to return to their home district. At SMMUSD, more than 1,200 students receive transfer permits from LAUSD. Cortines had said the district would boost its enrollment by making it more difficult to get permission to transfer. But under a proposal supported by two LAUSD board members, additional permits would be issued, decreasing the new policy’s impact on districts like SMMUSD that stand to lose hundreds of students next school year. The proposal, which will come before
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