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Santa Monica Daily Press MONDAY, JULY 6, 2015
Volume 14 Issue 202
MINIMUM-WAGE WARS SEE PAGE 4
Local softball players heading to Italy SANTA MONICA REBELS, AREA COACH CHRIS DRUCKMAN TO REPRESENT U.S. OVERSEAS
BY JEFFREY I. GOODMAN Daily Press Staff Writer
They’ll go, they’ll see and maybe they’ll even conquer. Members of a local club softball team are heading to Italy next week for 10 days of international competition, sightseeing and camaraderie. Seven players from the Santa Monica Rebels will become athletic ambassadors on the trip, which will pit them against Italian teams in three sets of double-headers in Padua, Rome and Florence. “They’ll get to represent America,” said Rebels coach Chris Druckman, who was chosen as a coach for the Italy-bound squad. “It’s an amazing opportunity for these girls.” The trip is organized by America’s Team, a company that offers sports-centric travel opportunities to young athletes from across the country. The journey was arranged after the company reached out to Druckman, whose local players will join athletes from Kentucky to create a full roster. The Santa Monica contingent includes recent Pacifica Christian graduate Emma Miller, who will attend University of Puget Sound in Washington state, and three other area products: former Palisades High stu-
Photo courtesy of Gianassi Photography
RUNNIN’ REBELS: Coached by Chris Druckman, several members of the Santa Monica Rebels will travel abroad later this month to face softball teams in three Italian cities.
dent Sydra Gianassi (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo) and Los Angeles-Hamilton alumnae Viveka Cousins (Wesleyan) and Emily Kalbrosky (Oregon). The Italy-bound 19-and-under roster also features Santa Monica High junior Makensey Druckman, Palisades senior Daisy Jones and Los Angeles Center for Enriched
Outgoing planning commissioner honored for ‘depth of expertise’ BY DAVID MARK SIMPSON Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL Jim Ries, who
joined the Planning Commission in 2007, left the dais as a commissioner for the last time, urging future commissioners to reach across the aisle. Ries was up for a third term — therefore requiring five City Council votes rather than the usual four — but was ultimately replaced by longtime Landmarks
Commissioner Nina Fresco. Jason Parry was reappointed and council will fill the seat of Carter Rubin, who is not seeking reappointment, later this year. “We will all miss him,” Commissioner Richard McKinnon said before Ries’ last meeting, “and the depth of expertise and intelligence and application he’s brought to us has, on many nights, saved this commission from
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SEE RIES PAGE 9
Studies junior Dani Pechthalt. Their overseas trip is part of a busy summer of softball. Recently, the girls and their Rebels teammates earned a silver medal in what Druckman called a “nail-biting” district championship game in Rancho Cucamonga. The second-place finish qualified the Rebels
for a state tournament July 10-12 in Lancaster. The day after the state competition ends, seven players will fly to Italy. And when they return from abroad, they’ll rejoin their Rebels teammates to compete in national championships in Spokane, Washington. The Rebels have represented Santa Monica at the district, state and national levels every year since 2012, when they splintered from another Santa Monica-based softball club to play in more competitive games and leagues. Last year, they took second in districts and third in state to qualify for the national championships in Wyoming. Druckman, a longtime softball coach in the area who has helmed Brentwood School’s varsity program, was hoping to take more Rebels players on the Italian excursion. “It came down to finances for a lot of the girls,” said Druckman, who is still raising money through crowdfunding website Piggybackr. “That was my first goal — to give the same opportunity to everybody. A few had to drop out because they couldn’t afford it, and we couldn’t raise enough money.” The girls who make the trip will do much more than play softball. They’ll also meet foreign players, sample local food and visit cultural and historical sites like Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum and Vatican City. JEFF@smdp.com
Local nonprofit finds a matching outfit THREADS SECURES PARTNERSHIP TO EXPAND CLOTHING DONATION EFFORTS
BY JEFFREY I. GOODMAN Daily Press Staff Writer
Contrary to what her garage might suggest, Suzanne Goldman isn’t a hoarder. The boxes and boxes of clothing she’s collected represent the work of the nonprofit she and fellow school parent Jake Wachtel started a couple years ago. But Santa Monica-based Threads has outgrown its temporary storage space.
Indeed, the success of the cofounders’ efforts to clothe needy students in Santa Monica and Malibu has led to a major turning point: They no longer have room to house the clothing they’ve rounded up over many months, and they’re now entering a partnership with a larger nonprofit organization to expand their reach and impact. The group’s clothing will be placed at area thrift shops run by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women, where local low-income students and their families can use vouchers to acquire clothes for free. It was part of Threads’ vision all along, Goldman said, to allow children
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to select their own clothes instead of being handed items that don’t fit well or that don’t mesh with their style preferences. “They’re going to be able to shop and pick out any type of clothing — not just things we’ve collected,” Goldman said. “People can go in and shop for what they want. Families with vouchers can go to an actual store, go through the racks and get what they need.” NOTICING A NEED
The idea for Threads came about when Wachtel and his daughter, then a SEE THREADS PAGE 4
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