Love Thy Neighbor
About seven years ago my husband and I were fortunate enough to become permanent residents of Seal Beach.
We have lived in Southern California all of our lives but only discovered this little corner of the world recently. I can truly say that, of all the towns we have lived in, Seal Beach is a community like no other. Here I know almost all of my neighbors, and their dogs, by their first names. I always look forward to being outside so that I might chat up someone during my chores.
Recently, my husband and I went through a traumatic experience. These are the times when you know who your friends truly are.
We have two very special neighbors (these ladies know who they are) that had my back every day. They cooked for us, walked our dog … did anything and everything they could to make my burden seem lighter. I know that everyone has roadblocks in their lives and these women are no exception but they put my troubles before their own and I couldn’t have gotten to this point without them.
My life is almost back to normal and I thank the Lord for everyday…and for my two guardian angels down the street … bless you.
Stephanie Sweeney
Seal Beach
Torn up road at Shops At Rossmoor
On Tuesday, Feb. 21, The Shops at Rossmoor contractor Near-Cal and its owners (Carl & Dwight Johnson) evidently decided to tear up the 200 feet of ancillary road (West Road) leading into the six-months-away opening of Toys R’ Us. This is a private mall road so the County wasn’t notified, nor the City, nor the library or the North Seal Beach Community Center. Not even the Shops own tenant, Draper’s & Damon’s.
Neither were some 40 senior citizens who come to the NSCC each day, Monday through Friday, for nutritious, low-cost lunches. Without notice seniors in wheelchairs and walkers had to transverse a three-foot wide single sidewalk some four times farther from the front door then in the past. The handicaped buss carrying some 15 seniors daily has to drop off it’s clients the same 300 feet farther away now. This is the same sidewalk used daily by 10 to 15 volunteers carry industrial strength coolers back and forth to pick and deliver food to Rossmoor and Seal Beach shut-ins under the Home-Delivered-Meals Program.
The lunch staff was told it would only take a week and the road would be back to normal on Feb. 28. Since the original four-hour work crew tore up the road, the contractor has worked four more hours on Feb. 28 and about an hour on March 2 when Near-Cal workers broke a water main. Since Feb. 21, there have been 14 workdays or “could-have-worked-days.” The contractor has worked nine hours of proactive work and four hours of fixing the water main they broke.
At this rate, the seniors in walkers and wheelchairs will be trekking over uneven grass-covering-large-tree-roots area or slim sidewalk until well past Easter. Volunteers will be competing for sidewalk space to get in and out.
The main delivery truck pushes seven-foot catering cabinets over the same ground.
Is this really the first impression AEW Capital Management, the new Shops owners, Near-Cal Contractors and/or Toys R Us wish to make? Financially it is best to wait and asphalt the entire new Toys R Us foundation/parking lot at one time in a few months, but it is it worth it?
Come on AEW/Near-Cal/Toys R Us, bite the bullet and get this 200 feet done now.
William “Bill” George Stine
Seal Beach
Dumping on Rossmoor
There’s no way in hell that Seal Beach’s affordable housing will be within five miles of the pier and their beloved Main Street. They dumped their Target Center on Rossmoor several years ago leaving us to deal with the additional traffic while they reaped the tax dollars. Next they’ll do the same thing with the affordable housing. I’m sure all of the city’s officials and most of the residents wouldn’t want to sully their Mayberry-by-the-Sea reputation with something so unpleasant as affordable housing with ocean views. Thanks for being such good neighbors.
Tom Kaczmarek
Rossmoor
Interdistrict transfer change
There is a big controversy brewing over in the Los Alamitos Unified School District. The school board is in the process of changing Policy 707, which is their enrollment policy.
The Los Alamitos Board of Education voted to approve the first reading of a new interdistrict transfer policy. The change could upend the current order of preference about who gets into district schools. The current policy states “Because Weaver has no attendance area, interdistrict and intradistrict transfer students who have siblings at Weaver School are placed first. Intradistrict transfer students are placed next. Finally, interdistrict transfer students are placed.” The new policy would put new intradistrict transfer students (residents) ahead of interdistrict transfer student siblings, thus breaking up families and placing students of the same family at two (or more) Los Alamitos elementary schools.
The parents that transferred the children to Weaver did so under the belief that they would be allowed to have all of their children attend Weaver, as per Policy 707 – and as told by the principal Mrs. Kominsky. These transfer students and families have helped to build Weaver to what it is today – the #1 elementary school in Orange County! When Weaver opened, there weren’t enough residents interested in the school to fill the seats, so the transfer students have kept the school open…and are currently in the neighborhood of 40 percent of the population. Now that the transfer students are no longer needed to fill these seats, the policy is being changed…but, the board is denying any responsibility to the families that were told they would have priority for their younger children.
The new policy makes transfer student siblings fourth priority. If the needs of Los Alamitos residents change, then the Board needs to make appropriate changes to their policies. However, the new Policy 707 is unfair to the families that came to Weaver with the assurance that all our children would attend Weaver.
We want the changes to be implemented slowly, so there will be little impact on our children. We want to be “grandfathered” in. (not with their “grandparent clause” that doesn’t protect anyone because it is not part of the policy and can be applied “at will”). How can one parent take two (or more) kids to two different schools at the same time and not be late everyday? Year-round versus traditional calendar years? Or worse, two different districts?
There is lots more to this story. Many viewpoints and family stories.
The next LAUSD board meeting was Wednesday, March 13, at 6:30 p.m., with a “workshop” meeting prior (no time set yet). Please write a story and help us get the word out. This would be be the final vote on the policy change.
Kristen Lockridge
Long Beach
Leisure World’s smart meters are worrisome
What a relief to see Mr. Dan Schaeffer and Southern California Edison representatives touting that our Smart meters are within safety guidelines.
We all know they wouldn’t lie so I feel so much better, don’t you? Oh, wait a minute. SCE said our bills would go down and they’ve gone up. Did they lie? Maybe someone doesn’t know the difference between up and down? And if they don’t know the difference between up and down, should we trust them with our health and lives?
Smart meters are not “UL” approved; they’re certified by the FCC because they’re radio transmitters.
The World Health Organization recently classified microwave radiation frequency and electro-magnetic fields that power smart meters as a Class 2B possible human carcinogen in the category of DDT, diesel fuel, gasoline, and lead.
A single electric smart meter transmits an average of 10,000 radiation pulses per day and has 1 watt of transmitting power at 900 MHz; a “radio-on” device working 24/7. And these numbers don’t factor in the collector meters, which act like smart meters on steroids, collecting data from up to 6,068 smart meters.
One smart meter has 100 times more cumulative radiation exposure than a single cell phone, but the California Public Utility Commission would have us believe we have no choice. We do have a choice if we choose to exercise it.
Shalla Callahan
Seal Beach Leisure World
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