Friday, May 18, 2012
If Metro decides to route a subway under Beverly Hills High School, it will be faced with a lawsuit to prevent tunneling under the campus.
Geologists hired by the Beverly Hills Unified School District argued Thursday that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is using flawed studies to support a subway route that requires tunneling under Beverly Hills High School to reach Century City. The controversial route is part of the proposed Westside Subway Extension, an expansion of the Purple Line to Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood and the Veterans Administration Medical Center. The allegations that Metro is relying on faulty data were made during a public hearing before Metro's Board of Directors. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who chairs the board, said the purpose of the hearing was to allow Beverly Hills the chance to present evidence and testimony regarding …
Thursday, May 17, 2012
In a post titled "Jimbo and Me—In Search of the Elusive Professor Dolan" on CityWatch, Mirisch calls on Metro to be more forthcoming with its scientific data.
The following post first appeared on the website CityWatch and is being republished with permission from the author. WHAT’S METRO HIDING? - James Francis Dolan, PhD. Professor of Earth Sciences at USC’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. The guy may be tone-deaf, for all I know, but he is literally one of the region’s true geology rock stars. The go-to guy when it comes to faults, tectonics and all that jazz. I have no idea if his friends call him “Jim” or “Jimmy” or “J. F.” Somehow with all his contagious enthusiasm and dry sense of humor, I imagine that he’s a Jimbo, but it’s just a hunch. Jimbo Dolan, USC rock star. His rock star qualities became apparent at Metro’s Oct. 19 presentation when, as a member of a panel paid …
Beverly Hills city and school officials want to stop Metro from routing a subway under the city's high school.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors will hold a public hearing at 1:30 p.m. Thursday to review the objections that Beverly Hills city and school officials have to a subway tunnel going under Beverly Hills High School to reach a station in Century City. The hearing will take place at the Metro Board Conference Room, One Gateway Plaza, 3rd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Patch will be there to live blog the event. The board last month approved plans for the first phase of the $5.6 billion Westside Subway Extension, an expansion of the downtown L.A. Purple Line, but delayed action on the next two segments so it can consider Beverly Hills' objections to the route. A roughly 3.9-mile extension from Wilshire Boulevard and …
Patch editors Sara Fay and Marie Cunningham updated this article live throughout the public hearing.
Editor's note: The live blog is no longer being updated. Thanks for participating and we will have a wrap-up story published later this evening. If you want to follow the latest from the Metro public hearing on the location of the Century City subway station, set a bookmark for this article. Patch editors Sara Fay and Marie Cunningham will keep you posted on the news from the meeting and the commenters. The meeting began at 1:30 p.m. Click the image above to see our live updates. You can also participate in the conversation! We'd love to hear from you. Once we start the live blog, you can enter comments and questions into the live feed. In the meantime, read up on the Westside Subway Extension by clicking here.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The average residential water bill is expected to rise by about $12 a month.
City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday to raise water rates in Beverly Hills by 7 percent for fiscal years 2012/13 and 2013/14. The city estimates that the average residential customer will incur an increase of $12 a month or 40 cents a day. Commercial customers are expected to see an increase in their monthly bill of 5 percent or less. The increase will cover the cost of higher rates charged by the Metropolitan Water District, and also help pay for ongoing replacement and retrofitting of Beverly Hills' aging infrastructure, according to a statement from the city. By the end of 2013, Beverly Hills plans to have replaced or retrofitted most of its reservoirs and deteriorating water manes. The dissenting vote on the matter was cast by Vice Mayor …
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-118.399886
City Council
455 N Rexford Dr, Beverly Hills, CA
/articles/council-approves-water-rate-increase-4e73563f
231696
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At the request of Beverly Hills, a public hearing on the location of the proposed Century City subway stop will be held.
A public hearing requested by Beverly Hills on the placement of a subway station in Century City will be held Thursday at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters. The meeting begins at 1:30 p.m. in the third floor boardroom at One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90012-2952. The Metro board held off approving the entire Westside Subway Extension plan at its April 26 meeting after the Beverly Hills City Council requested a public hearing on the placement of the Century City subway station a few days before the vote was to take place. Instead, the Metro board voted to approve three more subway stops from Wilshire and Western to Wilshire and La Cienega. The board postponed a vote on the other proposed stops in Beverly…
Members discuss options on how to proceed with plans to upgrade park facilities and replace the Roxbury Park Community Center.
Following the Recreation and Parks Liaison Committee's recommendation, the City Council on Thursday directed staff to study options for building a new facility to replace the existing Roxbury Park Community Center and make other park improvements. The existing community center building was constructed in the 1960s and could cost the city more to maintain in the long-run than a brand new structure. Many elements of the facility don't meet current building-code standards and are in need of repair. The council's main objective at this point in the planning process is to come up with a viable cost estimate as determined by a qualified architect to compare with the $6.1 million projection for renovating the current community center. "I agree …
34.073033
-118.399886
City Council
455 N Rexford Dr, Beverly Hills, CA
/articles/council-considers-replacing-roxbury-community-center-with-new-building
231696
/locations/7035297
Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget revision could end up cutting billions in education funding.
With a plea to voters to accept tax hikes, Gov. Jerry Brown proposed steep cuts across a variety of programs Monday to close a nearly $16 billion state budget deficit. Public education from kindergarten though college could see billions in cuts, pending voter approval of tax hikes this November. The fiscal year starts July 1. "We're going to have to cut deeper," the Democratic governor said in Sacramento while releasing his annual budget revision. "I'm linking these serious budget reductions—real increased austerity—with a plea to the voters: Please increase taxes temporarily on the most affluent and everyone else with a quarter-of-a-cent sales tax." Brown said the state's budget deficit ballooned to $15.7 billion since January, when it …
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Is JMB Realty, which donates to L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's political efforts, slated to make money off the Westside Subway Extension's plans to tunnel under Beverly Hills High School?
The website of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and political commentator who died in March, has published an article that draws an alleged connection between Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, building contractor JMB Realty and plans to tunnel under Beverly Hills High School as part of the Westside Subway Extension. Should the Metropolitan Transportation Authority go through with plans to run the subway under BHHS, it would have to purchase land from JMB Realty to reach a stop in Century City, according to the website. Villaraigosa chairs the Metro Board of Directors, the body tasked with approving the final Westside Subway Extension route. The article on breitbart.com reads: Also mentioned in the article is We Do Our Part …
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-118.4121
Beverly Hills High School
241 S Moreno Dr, Beverly Hills, CA
/articles/website-draws-villaraigosa-jmb-realty-and-westside-subway-extension-link
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Friday, May 11, 2012
The cost is for structural improvements only.
An evaluation of the Roxbury Park Community Center reports that it would cost about $6.1 million in renovations to bring the existing facility up to current California safety code standards. The estimate was conducted by construction management firm C.W. Driver. It lists a price of $6,132,000 for structural, electrical, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, sewage, drainage, kitchen and roofing upgrades, as well as improvements to restrooms, doorways and entrances to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The estimated cost of renovations pertains only to structural elements of the 17,753-square-foot building. After holding multiple public meetings over the past few months, the Recreation and Parks Commission Liaison…
34.057869
-118.405679
471 S Roxbury Dr, Beverly Hills, CA
Roxbury Park Community Center
/articles/construction-firm-estimates-6-1m-for-basic-roxbury-community-center-upgrades
/locations/6989064
Donna Flade
4:16 pm on Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Vice Mayor Mirisch is the only one who sticks up for the residents as far as taxes and fees go...I know a few elderly who are barely able to afford to stay in their homes..yet the MWD spends thousands on "dog and pony shows" to Team BH members by paying for flights, hotel rooms and meals to present their informercials...Once again...thank you John Mirisch!!!! more ›