Belmont Beacon
MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2014 - DECEMBER 14, 2014
belmontbeacon.com
Record-Breaking Storm Still No Relief for California’s Drought by jennifer schlueter
VOLUME 1, NO. 32
Focus on Student Success Leads CSULB Alumna to Be Named 2015 California Teacher of the Year By Ken Swisher
time. The investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to contact Long Beach Police Homicide Detectives Mark McGuire and Greg Krabbe at (562) 570-7244. Anonymous tips may
Amy Laughlin, an alumna of California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and a teacher at Hansen School in Anaheim, has been named a 2015 California Teacher of the Year by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. She was among five outstanding educators as a 2015 California Teachers of the Year. Laughlin has been teaching for 16 years, 13 of them at Hansen School—and the last six as a Title I Intervention Specialist there. In her role she ensures that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education. Her class, called Husky Time, is an intensive reading intervention program she created for struggling students in all grade levels. “I am honored to receive this award. I share this with the colleagues I collaborate with and the thousands of hard-working California teachers who are just as passionate about making a difference as I am. The courses I took at
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Monrovia residents brace for the storms with K-rails and sandbags near the Madison Fire area.
Last week, drought-stricken California finally received some much needed rain for two straight days along with delayed and canceled flights, traffic chaos, destroyed power lines, and mudslides. The subtropical storm that emerged south of Hawaii broke December 2 records of the past 50 years in “downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles International Airport, Long Beach Airport and communities such as Antelope Valley, Palmdale and Camarillo,” meteorologist Eric
Bolt from the National Weather Service told Voice of America (VoA). In Glendora and other mountain communities, residents and city departments feared mudslides resulting from desolated hillsides due to previous wildfires. A few evacuations were issued; though, soon lifted because the slides weren’t as bad as expected and cities and residents were well prepared with barricades and 18,000 distributed sandbags. However, despite last
- Photo by Terry Miller
week’s downpour, California is still experiencing a severe drought. “We certainly hope that the rainfall we have now pushes us toward normal — but we’re still below normal.… We’re just trying to get to average,” said spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources to the Los Angeles Times. Whereas downtown Los Angeles normally receives 15 inches of rain per year, 2014 only recorded a meager 5.89 Please see page 4
Young Man Shot; Motive and Suspect Unknown On Wednesday, November 26, 2014, at approximately 11:30 p.m., Long Beach Police responded to the 1500 block of Sherman Place regarding shots fired. When officers arrived, they discovered a male adult victim down on the street near 15th Street and Stanton Place who had sustained injury from gunshot
wounds. Long Beach Fire Department paramedics responded and transported the victim to a local hospital where he was later pronounced deceased. The victim has been identified as 18-year-old Elias Daniel Aguirre of Long Beach. The motive for this shooting is still unclear and no suspect is in custody at this