MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2011
Volume 10 Issue 246
Santa Monica Daily Press
WASTE ON THE SHORE SEE PAGE 6
We have you covered
THE READY FOR SCHOOL? ISSUE
Back-to-school traffic returns BY COLIN NEWTON Special to the Daily Press
SMC Santa Monica College will be opening its doors today for the fall semester, and all Santa Monica public schools will open Tuesday. For residents in some areas, that means one thing: traffic. The schools don’t normally open at the same time. “It’s one of the first times it’s happened in about 20 years. It’s very unusual,” said Genevieve Bertone, director of sustainability at Santa Monica College. The synchronized start date is part of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s plan to give students more time to study for AP and mandated exams. SMC shares Pearl Street with John Adams Middle School, and is near Grant Elementary and Will Rogers Learning
Community. Santa Monica High School is down Pico Boulevard. The college always participates with traffic authorities to facilitate traffic in the neighborhood, Bertone said. City road signs have already been placed on Pico warning travelers to expect delays starting Monday. “We know the extra traffic’s going to be a burden to people coming into Santa Monica, to residents in Santa Monica,” said Santa Monica Police Department’s Sgt. Jaime Hernandez, supervisor of neighborhood resource officers. To help the college prepare for the congestion, police trained college personnel to provide traffic control, Hernandez said. SMC personnel will cover the corners of Pico and Pearl. For the first two weeks, police will be
Stephanie Salvatore news@smdp.com
READY TO WAIT? A temporary traffic sign on Pico Boulevard alerts locals of potential traffic
SEE SCHOOL PAGE 9
delays as Santa Monica College's fall semester commences this morning.
Legislature under pressure over secrecy JULIET WILLIAMS Associated Press
SAY IT IN SONG
Stephanie Salvatore news@smdp.com St. Monica High School student singing group, ‘Rainbow Riders,’ kick off the church’s 125th Anniversary Celebration on Friday.
SACRAMENTO Their decisions affect every Californian, from how much money the neighborhood public school receives to whether their taxes will go up to pay for new roads. But since 1975, California lawmakers have operated under a shield of secrecy that has allowed them to avoid releasing basic information about how they do the people's business, including how much they spend on office staff, where they fly at taxpayers' expense and how they spend their time outside legislative sessions. Now that shield is showing signs of cracking. What began as an internal political feud over a budget vote between the powerful Assembly speaker and a fellow Democrat has SEE STATE PAGE 7
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