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Volume 8 Issue 219
Santa Monica Daily Press A STEP CLOSER SEE PAGE 13
We have you covered
THE WELCOME TO TOWN ISSUE
Special ed gets new leadership BY MELODY HANATANI Daily Press Staff Writer
SMMUSD HDQTRS A Seattle native with 25
Matthew King. “The misconception is that they’re left by careless people in the immediate vicinity, but in fact the majority get in through storm drain systems.” Jose Aguilar, Downtown maintenance crew leader, estimated that his team cleans up between 1 million and 1.5 million cigarette butts each year, mostly from side streets and alleyways. Those numbers, he said, have decreased noticeably due to recent city ordinances — most violators are tourists — and he doesn’t see it as a huge problem. “It’s part of routine maintenance,” he said. Another issue is fire — Aguilar said that a trash can catches fire in his district about once every two months. One solution to the littering could be to install more receptacles, as Tabb suggested.
years experience working in special education has been tapped to lead the same program in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District where officials are still repairing a department whose relationships with parents have suffered over the past several years. The Board of Education on Thursday confirmed the appointment of Sara Woolverton whose contract as the special education director for the Everett Public Schools in Washington had expired at the end of June, replacing former director Ruth Valadez who resigned in February after more than two years on the job to take on the same position at Lynwood Unified School District. Woolverton’s long resume begins in 1984 as a special educator in Seattle Public Schools where she was responsible for both general and special education in an inner city self-contained K-3 classroom. About five years later, she became the special educator for Edmonds School District, working on Individualized Education Plans (IEP), which outline the services that students receive during the school year. Along the way Woolverton received her masters in special education and doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies from the University of Washington, where she was also an instructor and educational researcher. In 2000, Woolverton returned to the Seattle Public Schools as the principal intern for an alternative elementary program, moving on a year later to become the special education program supervisor for the same district and later manager. In 2006, she became one of several special education directors for Everett Public Schools. Facing budget cuts, one of the positions was slated to be eliminated. Having the least seniority on staff, Woolverton began looking for jobs in Northern and Southern California where her daughters live, hearing about an opening in Santa Monica-Malibu. Following the interview with a panel of parents, teachers and administrators,
SEE SMOKING PAGE 11
SEE SPECIAL ED PAGE 10
Maya Sugarman news@smdp.com
BURNING ONE DOWN: Liz, who currently lives in Hollywood, lights a cigarette while walking along Fourth Street on Friday afternoon.
Smoking ban still a burning issue BY EMMA TROTTER Special to the Daily Press
CITYWIDE In the Santa Monica Pier parking lot, cigarette butts littered the ground around the feet of Bubba Gump employee Julie Tabb as she smoked Wednesday. “There should be more places to throw these away,” she said, admitting that she will occasionally flick away a butt if she carries it too far without seeing a receptacle. This time, though, Tabb walked about 30 feet and disposed of her cigarette in a trash can. Not everyone is so conscientious. “There are more important issues than cigarette butts,” said a smoker as he pushed his butt through a metal grate in the sidewalk covering a water meter off the Third Street Promenade. “You’ll never see that again.” Over the last decade, City Hall has
passed numerous ordinances driving smokers farther away from main attractions and into alleyways and side streets, where ashtrays such as those formerly available in outdoor dining areas and patios are absent. Concerns about littering — and whose responsibility it is to combat that problem — remain unaddressed. The number of butts that find their way onto the beach alone is one testament to the need for something more. According to Heal the Bay’s Web site, which has a comprehensive database about beach debris from the last 10 years, volunteers have collected 4,606 cigarette butts — more than a quarter of all trash pieces — during 22 clean-ups since last July. “Bits of Styrofoam and cigarette butts are by far the most prevalent items found at clean-ups,” said Heal the Bay spokesperson
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