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MONDAY, APRIL 5, 2010
Volume 9 Issue 124
Santa Monica Daily Press SEAS IN TROUBLE SEE PAGE 6
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THE HELLO, MONDAY ISSUE
BBB donates ad space to foundation BY NICK TABOREK Daily Press Staff Writer
BBB HDQTRS The Big Blue Bus is helping out in an effort to raise money for arts programs at local public schools. In a new campaign to boost donations to the Santa Monica Malibu Education Foundation, City Hall’s bus system is donating valuable advertising space on the sides of 25 buses that the foundation is selling off for $5,000 each. Donors can run ads featuring a company logo or family name and can write the expense off on their taxes. The ads will be displayed for 10 weeks from May 3 to July 11. The Ed Foundation estimates each bus ad will be viewed 230,000 times. After the cost of printing and installing the ads, all the money will go to support arts education in local schools, said Linda Gross, the foundation’s executive director. She said the foundation still has 15 ads to sell with less than two weeks left in the promotion. The deadline to buy a bus ad is April 12, she said. Gross said the new partnership with the BBB is a pilot program the foundation hopes to repeat. “With all of the budget cuts and things being as difficult as they’ve been we were just trying to get creative,” she said. “If we’re successful in this campaign we’d like to take another 10-week block in the year and benefit academics. Eventually we could do a round for athletics.” Donations to the Ed Foundation’s arts and academic endowments have decreased by about 50 percent in the past year and a half, Gross said. The BBB did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the promotion Friday afternoon.
GOT ONE!
Brandon Wise brandonw@smdp.com Young children search for Easter eggs during the 16th Annual Peter Rabbit Day at Douglas Park on Saturday.
nickt@smdp.com
County seeks new, improved child welfare computer system THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES A review of computer systems around the nation has revealed ways to share information that might help Los Angeles County’s troubled child welfare system, but officials say key options would
require changes in state law, according to a report published Saturday. Contenders to replace the county’s computer system include a Web-based portal called the Family and Children’s Index being developed for use in New York state, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Gary Limjap
But that system would violate California’s Welfare and Institutions Code, which limits the information that can be shared by social workers, doctors, schools and others. “The county is held back by a system that combines aged technology with laws focused more on shielding government from liability
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than protecting children from abuse or neglect,” county Supervisor Mark RidleyThomas wrote Friday in a memo to county Chief Executive William T Fujioka, whose office led the review that also included sys-
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