MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2012
Volume 11 Issue 232
Santa Monica Daily Press
REPUBLICANS STRUGGLE SEE PAGE 3
We have you covered
THE COOL BREEZE ISSUE
New foundation looks out for young adults with special needs BY MELONIE MAGRUDER Special to the Daily Press
When actress Kym Karath, who played the youngest Von Trapp child in the 1965 film “The Sound of Music,” moved to Malibu seven years ago with her special needs son, Eric, she was at the end of her
rope. Eric, who first suffered a stroke at the age of three weeks, had been lost in an educational system in Greenwich, Conn., that had never been able to accommodate his special learning requirements. Eric’s godmother is Karath’s “Sound of Music” co-star Heather Menzies-Urich, who was married to the late
actor Robert Urich. Little did Karath know that the caring tutelage of Malibu High School special education teacher Lisa Szilagyi would lead not only to hope for the future for her son, but a new nonprofit foundation to serve an oftenoverlooked community of physically and mentally challenged adults who age out of a
state support system. “Walking into Lisa’s class at Malibu High literally saved my life and Eric’s life,” Karath said. “It seems like she was the first teacher to truly understand that brain damage is as individual as the brain that is damaged.” SEE FOUNDATION PAGE 7
College president looks to the future SMC strong, but needs state support BY ASHLEY ARCHIBALD Daily Press Staff Writer
JUST CHILLIN’
Brandon Wise brandonw@smdp.com People relax on the grass at Stewart Street Park on Sunday during the weekly installment of the Jazz on the Lawn concert series.
Pilot dies in small plane crash in West L.A. ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES The pilot of a small plane has died after crashing into a West Los Angeles neighborhood two miles northeast of the Santa Monica Airport. Federal Aviation Administration
spokesman Ian Gregor says the pilot of the single-engine Cessna 210 declared an emergency before the plane crashed Friday evening. Gregor didn’t know the cause of the emergency. He says the pilot was approaching the airport for a landing when the crash occurred.
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Los Angeles Fire spokesman Brian Humphrey says the crash lit a palm tree on fire. Television footage from a news helicopter showed the charred wreckage on a street corner and a broken wing on the ground. The FAA and the NTSB will investigate the cause of the crash.
PICO BLVD It’s not an easy time to lead a college in California, but Dr. Chui Tsang says he’s still having fun. It’s not the circumstances that thrill him. The state has taken $800 million from community colleges since 2008, forcing Santa Monica College to cut 1,100 class sections since the 2008-09 school year. Things will only get worse if voters refuse to pass Proposition 30, an increase to wealthy Californians’ income taxes and a quarter of one percent increase to the sales tax, which supporters say will make it possible to maintain current funding levels. Very few community colleges in the Los Angeles area could afford to offer summer school, and the other two public higher education systems in California — the UC and CSU systems — have announced tuition increases in recent years. SMC’s solutions to the state funding problems have come under fire, particularly a program called contract education that would have allowed students to take classes in the summer if they paid the full cost of the SEE SMC PAGE 11
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