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For Immediate Release Los Angeles, CA October 18, 2006 |
Press Contact: David Sommers Phone: (213) 974-1095 Fax: (213) 626-6941 |
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Marina del Rey, Westchester, LAX Chamber Breakfast
Facilities contemplated for the upcoming Design Control Board’s October 26 night meeting include:
County is currently considering proposals for:
Under the dock have been
placed circulators designed to improve circulation of the water
around the beach basin to improve water quality.
During the first half of
the new year, improvements will be made to the stormwater system
that will divert urban runoff away from Marina Beach.
I am committed to doing
all we can to improve to water quality at Marina Beach to make it
safe for all users.
Several public meetings
have been held regarding Marina Beach improvements and we will
continue to involve the public.
Comments have been taken
and are being incorporated toward further refinement of the plan and
development of a final design.
The public will next
have an opportunity to comment on the plan in its current state in
early 2007, likely either January or February.
Also, the County and a
newly joined Santa Monica Windjammers Yacht Club/Pacific Mariners
Yacht Club are in negotiations for development by the County of a
community yacht club facility that Santa Monica Windjammers/Pacific
Mariners Yacht Club will have use of.
This matter is to come
back to the Board in the next 30 days.
I want to make it
crystal clear that I support our yacht clubs – they are the back
bone of the Marina.
An initial staff report
was issued in May 2005 and because not enough time had been given
for County or community review of the report prior to its
consideration at the June 2005 Coastal Commission meeting, Coastal
staff recommended that the matter be continued until a later date.
Based upon informal
comments made by County staff, as well as comments received from the
public, a revised report was issued by Coastal staff in July of this
year. It is now my understanding that the coastal commission may hear this matter at its
January 2007 meeting.
This project and an
Admiralty Way Widening project are the subjects on an EIS/EIR, which
is expected to be completed late 2007.
The Department of Public
Works received input from members of the public, organizations and
government agencies on the scope and content of the information to
be included and analyzed at three public scoping meetings held at
Chace Park in May of this year.
Neither the Board or I
will be taking a position on these projects until after the EIR is
completed. A completely restructured weekend water shuttle service was launched for this year’s
summer season. Ridership
in 2006 neared 18,000 – an 80% increase from the prior year.
The U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers (Corps) is contracting to dredge clean sand out of the
Marina's north harbor entrance between December 2006 and March 2007.
The sediment will be
placed just offshore of Dockweiler State Beach (adjacent to its main
entrance at Imperial Blvd.) in water approximately 15 to 30 feet
deep.
Local wave action will
gradually move this sand onshore along Dockweiler.
The Corps is estimating
that a total of $3 million will ultimately be needed for this
dredging project, but the Corps has only about $1.4 million
available.
The Department of
Beaches and Harbors has, thus, already received informal Board
support for a $1.6 million appropriation, which the Department will
be bringing to the Board for formal approval in November.
The Department will be
cooperating with other agencies (i.e., Harbormaster, Lifeguards) to
notify mariners, residents, businesses and visitors to both the
Marina and Dockweiler of the upcoming dredging project, which will
run 24 hours a day from six to seven days a week.
We will also be working
closely with the Lifeguards to take all necessary safety precautions
at the beach, including the temporary closure of beach areas, if
necessary.
I was pleased to once
again enter a motion to waive the fees associated with this event.
SCRAA -- As part of the
LAX Settlement Agreement, Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa has agreed
to seek a regional solution to the ever expanding air traffic in
Southern California, and has agreed to participate in the
reactivation of SCRAA – the Southern California Regional Airport
Authority. First meeting of SCRAA was last week.
Key to reactivation was
City of LA agreeing to participate and appointment of Councilman
Rosendahl.
We face regional
challenges at our airports and we need regional solutions to solve
those challenges.
“Career Pathways”
program—I helped kick-off this pilot program at area refineries
several months ago. It provides training and high income job
opportunities to foster youth, dislocated workers, and disadvantaged
adults—guaranteed a job upon graduation at area oil refineries.
Safe Surrender
Program—allows for mothers to leave their babies at a fire station
within 72 hours of birth with no questions asked—46 babies saved to
date that might otherwise have been abandoned to die. Most recent
surrender was last week in Covina.
Our County budget for
the current year is nearly $20 BILLION.
Bolstered by a strong
real estate market that is expected to increase property tax
revenues by 8.5 percent
New budget focuses on
increasing funding in four areas: public protection, health,
critical children’s programs and homeless services.
$557 million in new
revenue is expected in 2006-07, $392 million of which is from
property taxes.
County must continue its
conservative budgetary approach because a sharp slowdown in the
resale housing market presents a risk.
Property taxes, which
account for 21 percent of the overall revenue and 65 percent of
locally-generated revenue, is the County’s most important source of
funding.
In July 2001, I
introduced a motion that provided for the implementation of a
Consolidated Risk Management Program – designed to find ways to
cutback skyrocketing workers compensation costs in LA County.
Now we are starting to
see the fruits of this labor
In 2004-2005, the County
budgeted $414 million for Workers Comp costs. We were able to reduce
that 34 percent. This saved taxpayers $141 million in unnecessary
costs.
Because of our reforms
that estimate is now 400 million – a projected savings of $700
million dollars to taxpayers in 2010.
Last month, the Board of
Supervisors approved a plan that allocates an unprecedented ONE TIME
$80 million to homeless shelters and social service programs
throughout Los Angeles County.
The money is part of the
$100 million ``Homeless Prevention Initiative'' approved by the
board in April as a way to help the county's nearly 90,000 transient
residents.
The next step is for
county officials to return to the board in 120 days with contracts
that allow cities and community groups to apply for funding.
We have always been and
will always be well prepared simply by nature of the number of
natural disasters we have faced in this region.
The Terrorism Early
Warning group established in October 1996 to develop intelligence
and early warning for terrorism and emerging threats.
LA County was way ahead
of rest of the nation – opening TEW years before anything similar
anywhere else in the nation. TEW brings together law enforcement, fire, health and emergency management in order to prevent, counter and respond to terrorism and emerging threats.
Currently ~26 TEWs at
various stages of development in US.
Joint Regional
Intelligence Center Opening - July 27, 2006
Fuses FBI, LAPD, LASD,
TEW and Department of Homeland Security.
Tsunami Panel
I recently hosted a
Tsunami preparedness panel, along with the Redondo Beach Chamber,
focused on our Beach Communities.
Panel of experts spoke
on how tsunamis, occur, what our potential threat level is and how
the County is working with cities to prepare.
As much as we have a
high-tech early warning system – we also must have low-tech
solutions - our communities must understand and know how to act.
Public awareness and preparedness are just as important. Time Warner recorded the panel and is rebroadcasting it on the local cable systems this month – in case you wanted to watch it.
We are moving forward
with a plan that uses the strengthens of the regional health system
by utilizing all of the DHS resources to preserve critical services
on the King/Drew site and specialized services at the Harbor-UCLA
Med Center.
This plan is one option
presented by federal regulators to regain federal funding.
A partnership with
Harbor/UCLA is ideal because other options have major drawbacks: Continued attempts to make incremental improvements have not worked. Appeals to
CMS take many months and
are seldom successful.
The option of
contracting with a private hospital organization who shares the
County’s values of preserving critical services on the MLK site
remains an option. These negotiations take considerable time and the
department is working under a tight deadline.
The new entity on the
current KDMC site would be called Harbor-Martin Luther King Jr.
Community Hospital.
This is difficult work
that will depend on the cooperation of Harbor-UCLA staff and state
and federal support.
Despite the CMS
findings, there are many capable employees and physicians who work
at KDMC.
The King/Drew Medical
Center remains open for business during this transition and the
focus remains on patient care. Knabe.com
Brand-new website from
the ground up.
Rather than rebuild our
old site, we scrapped it and built everything new with one goal in
mind: a website that provides outstanding constituent services.
Visitors can learn about
my legislative priorities.
Constituents are also
able to access unique pages for each of the dozens of cities and
unincorporated communities I represent.
I urge you all to visit
the new knabe-dot-com.
There are so many other
issues I could spend all day ### |
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