September 2009 Archives

Nearly 350 hotel workers and housekeepers and women leaders, students, community and clergy leaders will make a one-mile pilgrimage from the Hilton Long Beach to the Hyatt Long Beach, carrying a 7 feet wide by 60 feet long "Hope Quilt" and launching the 7-city nationwide "Hope for Housekeepers" National Tour.

Maria Elena Durazo, L.A. County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Tonia Reyes Uranga, City Councilmember, District 7, Alexandra Torres Galancid, Executive Director, Women in Non Traditional Employment Roles (WINTER) and more than 300 hotel housekeepers, religious leaders, students and community members are expected to attend.

Cerritos resident Kim Morrow will serve as an honorary ambassador at Easter Seals' eighth annual Walk With Me fundraiser  on Saturday, Oct. 3.

Presented by sponsors CVS Caremark, Amway Global, Century 21, Mass Mutual, Pat and Oscar's, Wells Fargo, Kohl's, City of Santa Ana and Friends of The Santa Ana Zoo, Walk With Me benefits those with disabilities who have boosted their independence through Easter Seals.

Born with borderline intellectual functioning, Morrow came to Easter Seals Supported Employment Service in 1993 when she couldn't find a job. Her job development coach took her into the community to help her learn how to use public transportation and find paying work, go through job interviews before being  hired  at the Artesia Christian Home in 1994.

"It's like a family and I've been here more than 15 years!" she said. "It has changed me in ways that I never expected. Before I went from job-to-job, but this is the first place I've stayed. I think this was my calling."

Registration is $25 and walkers are encouraged to register at www.walkwithme.org/socal and use the online tools to raise money for Easter Seals services.

Downtown Long Beach Associates and the Long Beach Police Department tonight are organizing a hybrid Neighborhood Watch Program for downtown businesses and residents in an effort to boost public safety for those living and working in the area.

The meeting is tonight at 7 p.m. at The Cellar, 201 East Broadway. Visit the DLBA's Web site here or call (562) 436-4259 for more.

The Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation is being honored by the American Red Cross today, Sept. 30, for providing large donations to help aid and give relief to victims of 9-11 attacks, the massive wild fires in California in 2005, Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti and China disasters of 2008.

Carol McDonough from the national American Red Cross office in Washington, D.C. will make a presentation at the Bingo Club, 21900 Norwalk Blvd. in Hawaiian Gardens.

Sample local cuisine from a dozen downtown restaurants and take in some live music on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at the first Taste of Downtown on Pine Avenue.

The event will feature food from L'Opera, Alegria, George's Greek Café, King's Fish House, Hooters, Café Sevilla, Smooth's Sports Grille, Shannon's on Pine, Taco Beach, Buono's Pizzeria, Alondra Hot Wings, It's A Grind, Mabel's Gourmet Pralines and Aladdin.

The Downtown Long Beach Associates-produced event will run from 6 to 9 p.m. on Pine Avenue between 1st and 4th Streets.

Tickets for food and/or drinks at participating establishments are each $1 or $10 for 12 tickets.

Call 562-435-4259 or visit www.downtownlongbeach.org for more.

Folk singer Ben White and Clancy Cramer of Tiger Tank Euphoria will perform at 4th Street Vine at 7 p.m. Friday. Cost:  No cover

4th Street Vine 2142 E. 4th St. Long Beach, California 90803

The City of Paramount's Recreation Department recently netted two grants for educational programs from retail giant Target.

Target gave $2,000 to Success Through Academics and Recreation, an after-school program collaborative between the city and the Paramount Unified School District.

STAR, a state-funded program that operates daily in each PUSD elementary and middle school with a capacity for 100 students per campus, will use the Target grant to purchase books.

Target also gave $1,000 to the city's Little Learners Program, a pre-school operating out of Progress and Spane parks for three- and four-year-old Paramount children.

Little Learners, which teaches education fundamentals such as colors, numbers and patterns, will use the Target grants to buy books to enhance the current libraries for both preschools.

On Wednesday, Sept. 23, T. Boone Pickens, the 50-year oil and gas developer and architect of the Pickens Plan, will be speaking at the Solid Waste Association Of North America's WASTECON 2009 at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Pickens will give the event's keynote address and discuss the Pickens Plan for energy reform.

For the fourth consecutive year, the city is a finalist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.'s Most Business Friendly City Award in the county for cities with a population of more than 60,000, it was announced today.

Grand prize winners will be announced at the 14th Annual Eddy Award Ceremony on Nov. 12. (The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. will also be honoring The Boeing Co. at the event as well.)

"Long Beach continues to demonstrate an outstanding commitment to creating a business-friendly environment," said Bill Allen, president and CEO of LAEDC.  "The ability and commitment of our local governments to attract and retain good jobs is absolutely essential if our region is to regain its economic vitality and sustain our quality of life. For the fourth straight year in a row our judging panel was very impressed with the economic development efforts made by Long Beach."

"We're delighted that we have once again been honored as a finalist," said Robert Swayze, Manager of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs for the City.  "We've worked closely with the LAEDC on many initiatives, and to be again named as a finalist by this premier organization is a great honor all by itself.  Of course," said Swayze, "we hope this year Long Beach can be the bride, not the bridesmaid."

A manager at the popular Belmont Shore cafe said today that the business is opening a second Long Beach location on Pine Avenue, in the space that currently houses Hooters, the restaurant chain known for its well-endowed servers.

La Creperie Cafe plans to open downtown early next year, after Hooters moves from its 10-year location at 130 Pine Ave. to a space at the Pike at Rainbow Harbor sometime in December.

Kohl's Department Stores on Sept. 30 will celebrate the opening of 37 new stores this fall, including 12 in the Los Angeles area.

These new locations, which include Cypress and Downey, will create approximately 1,800 new local jobs, more than 4,200 new jobs in California and more than 5,200 new jobs nationwide. Thirty-five of the new Kohl's stores are former Mervyn's locations. These 12 new stores are among 30 opening in California, marking the largest number of Kohl's stores to open in a single state on the same day, bringing the total number of Kohl's stores in California to 121.

Check 'em out:

Cypress - 10201 Valley View St.

Downey - 300 Stonewood St.

Fullerton - 3204 Yorba Linda Blvd.

Huntington Beach South - 9811 Adams Ave.

Monrovia - 504 W. Huntington Dr.

Northridge - 8800 Corbin Ave.

Redondo Beach - 1799 Hawthorne Blvd.

Sun Valley - 8501 Laurel Canyon Blvd.

Tustin - 18182 Irvine Blvd.

Upland South - 233 S. Mountain Ave.

Westchester - 8739 S. Sepulveda Blvd.

Whittier - 15602 E. Whitwood Ln.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason today ceremoniously opened its doors in Long Beach at 7th Street and Nebraska.

During the celebration, which included Vice Mayor Val Lerch, the WomenShelter of Long Beach received a $1,000 donation from Fresh & Easy for its commitment to the neighborhood.

"The tremendous support we have received here in Long Beach has really helped us as we scout more locations for our stores," said Mason. "We look forward to bringing more high-quality, affordable groceries and even more good paying jobs to neighborhoods throughout this great community."

The WomenShelter of Long Beach was selected by the store staff from neighborhood nominations made through Fresh & Easy's Web site. The mission of WomenShelter of Long Beach is to eliminate domestic violence through compassionate intervention, education and personal empowerment.

"The WomenShelter of Long Beach is very grateful for the support from Fresh & Easy. This money will go to help victims of domestic violence at our agency, and comes at a time when we are seeing both an increase in the need for our services and diminishing resources to help us address the increased need," said WomenShelter of Long Beach's executive director, TuLynn Smylie.

I come across all sorts of deals for Long Beach dining, including the $3 glasses of wine every Thursday nights at Fourth Street Vine and the $10 dinners at Frenchy's Bistro, because hey, we're in a middle of a recession. It's good to know these things.

The latest deal comes from La Strada in Belmont Shore with its $5 Tuesday meals and wine.

Check out the eatery's promo here:





 

Judge Aviva Bobb (Ret.) of the Los Angeles Superior Court, Judge Kim Hubbard of the Orange County Superior Court and representatives from financial institutions, law enforcement, social service agencies and legal professionals will be part of Elder Financial Protection Network's "Call to Action 2009: Southern California" an event that raises awareness of elder financial abuse and exploitation.

The event, which is taking place from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 16, at Hyatt Regency Long Beach downtown, features a half-day conference with speakers, luncheon and awards ceremony.

A master plan to make the city bicycle-friendly and the ensuing event that kicked off that effort were key components in garnering a major award for a non-profit group representing nearly 1,800 downtown business and commercial property owners.

The Downtown Long Beach Associates received the International Downtown Association's Pinnacle Downtown Achievement Award, considered its highest honor and one of six awards given to organizations in the country. The awards "celebrate and communicate the most successful and innovative efforts in worldwide downtown development," according to the association's Web site.

The DLBA's entry focused on Long Beach's efforts to revive the Bicycle Master Plan -- which seeks to encourage the use of bicycles through education and infrastructure -- and the Long Beach Grand Prix Bicycle Festival and Bicycle Race, which drew hundreds of pro- and amateur cyclists and bicycle enthusiasts to the two-day event downtown and East Village.

The DLBA, which boosted the number of events it was sponsoring or producing to draw more visitors, stepped in as an event producer, investing about $30,000 into the weekend event.

"We had a short timeframe to put the festival together and the folks at DLBA and city events services worked really hard at it," said Festival and race director Mark Bixby, who flew with DLBA President and CEO Kraig Kojian to Milwaukee to accept the award at the association's 55th annual conference Sunday. "It was a great cooperative effort and I'm pleased to see that our efforts were recognized."

In a statement, Mayor Bob Foster said the "prestigious recognition by the IDA speaks volumes" of the community's efforts to make Long Beach the nation's most bicycle-friendly urban city.

About 140 patients on Tuesday will be transported from the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower facility to the new hospital in Downey.

The $390 million Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center, which opens Tuesday, will replace the 44-year-old Bellflower facility as the main facility for the region.

The new six-story, 352-bed facility meets earthquake building standards and includes operating rooms equipped with high-definition cameras, digital radiology, an industry-leading electronic health record system, a full-service emergency department and 24-hour pharmacy.

My colleague Kelly Puente will have more details in the Press-Telegram on Tuesday and Wednesday.

An F-18 fighter jet will conduct two operations, arrivals and departures, from the Airport on Sunday, Sept. 13, according to the Long Beach Airport.  The aircraft will arrive in the morning and depart about an hour later.  The aircraft will return to the Airport for refueling in the early afternoon and then depart after 1:00 p.m.

Dr. Jerry Finklestein, medical director of the Jonathan Jaques Children's Cancer Center at Miller Children's Hospital, has been recognized as a top pediatric hematology-oncology physician by his peers in Consumers Checkbook Magazine's 2009 "Consumer's Guide to Top Doctors," the hospital announced today.

Published annually, the guide provides a state-by-state listing of medical specialists who have been most frequently mentioned by their peers in a survey. Finklestein, who has worked with pediatric hematology-oncology patients for nearly 40 years and is the founding medical director of the cancer center, is the only pediatric hematology-oncology physician in Los Angeles county on the list.

"When we first opened the Jonathan Jaques Children's Cancer Center more than 25 years ago, we did so with the intention of providing our young patients with a holistic treatment approach to meet their complete medical, emotional, scholastic and social needs from the time of diagnosis to treatment and beyond," said Finklestein, created the hematology-oncology service at Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach in 1976. "Through this innovative and compassionate care, we're able to see a patient throughout their entire lifetime. There is simply no greater joy in life than watching a patient, diagnosed with a serious illness at a young age, walk down the aisle on their wedding day."

Finklestein attended McGill University in Montreal Canada, and completed his pediatric training at the Montreal Children's Hospital and hematology-oncology training at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.

Eight years after opening Enrique's Mexican Restaurant at Loynes and Pacific Coast Highway, owners Enrique and Michelle Perez have expanded their business to include something a little unexpected from a Mexican eatery: a small Italian takeout spot called K Pasta.

Enrique, who has 12 years of Italian food experience under his belt and was a chef at Prego Ristorante in Irvine, had been eyeing the bakery location a few doors from his restaurant for some time.

"He's always wanted that little spot," said co-owner Michelle Perez, Enrique's wife of 15 years. "He just thought, 'That would be so cool to have a tiny little takeout pasta place.'"
In July, the bakery owners wanted to close and offered the couple the 800-square-foot space.
Enrique seized on the opportunity, quickly putting together a menu filled with homemade pastas, sauces, dressings and desserts, and opened K Pasta -- a laid-back space "that's pretty much all kitchen" with six tables and takeout counter -- about two weeks ago to great response, Michelle said.

The Seared Ahi dishes and the K Linguini with sauteed chicken, pink peppercorn, wine cream sauce are favorites, she said.

As for the name origins of K Pasta, Michelle laughed.

"The K is short for Kique, which is a nickname for Enrique," she said. "But it's a little joke between us. When Enrique was at Prego, I used to say, 'Hey, K Pasta!' because he was working pastas."

K Pasta is at 6218 E. Pacific Coast Highway. Call 562-494-8500.

Vendors are invited to bring their wares to the 2009 Southern California Fire and EMS Equipment Expo on September 10, 2009 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Cerritos Sheraton, the County of Los Angeles Fire Museum Association has announced.

Vendors will be able to showcase their products and services to only a select group of key Southern California fire and EMS officials and buyers at the one-day event.

Participation fee of $500 includes a 10' x 10' booth with a table and electrical hook-ups. Also included is access to an exclusive post-event mixer immediately following the event.

Call 562.547.8919 or oldschoolfd@aol.com for a registration packet or more info.

While many spent the Labor Day weekend on vacation, Bellflower business owners and residents Sunday delivered food to workers at the Station Fire.

Donors included Atlas Loan, Johnny Rebs', Schnablegger Appraisals, Eclipse Cafe, Quiznos, Salazars, State Farm - Mike Chai, Subway - The Cheema Family, Cogburn Miller Realty, El Pollo Loco, Maxwell Plumbing and many others.

"It was a real community effort and doing what Bellflower does best, pulling together when needed and rising to the top," said Bellflower resident Robin Snow. "They were pleased with the delivery and very happy to see us and know that the citizens of Bellflower responded to the need."

Twenty-seven area family practice residency training programs are getting a financial boast from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, which today announced it was awarding more than $2.7 million in awards administered through OSHPD's Song-Brown Program.

Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and Downey Regional Medical Center will each get $51,615 to improve healthcare workforce training programs.

"The Song-Brown funding to family practice residency programs is invaluable in training California's next generation of physicians to practice and serve in the State's underserved areas," OSHPD Director Dr. David Carlisle said in a statement.

Family practice programs receiving awards are:
Stanislaus Family Medicine, $206,460
UC Davis, $206,460
Ventura County Medical Center, $206,460
White Memorial Medical Center, $206,460
Loma Linda University, $154,845
Scripps Mercy Hospital in Chula Vista, $154,845
UCSD Combined Family Medicine - Psychiatry, $154,845
USC-California Hospital Medical Center, $154,845
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, $103,230
Kaiser Permanente in Orange, $103,230
Mercy Medical Center in Merced, $103,230
Natividad Medical Center, $103,230
UC Irvine, $103,230
UCLA, $103,230
Contra Costa County Health Services, $51,615
Glendale Adventist Medical Center, $51,615
Mercy Medical Center in Redding, $51,615
Northridge Hospital Medical Center, $51,615
Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, $51,615
Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital, $51,615
San Joaquin General Hospital, $51,615
San Jose - O'Connor Hospital, $51,615
Santa Rosa Family Medicine, $51,615
UCSF-Fresno, $51,615
UCSF-San Francisco General Hospital, $51,615


The Song-Brown program was established by the Health Care Workforce Training Act to increase the number of family practice physicians, family nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and registered nurses being trained in the state to provide needed medical services to Californians. More than half of the family practice physicians trained in Song-Brown funded programs practice in underserved communities upon completion of their Family Practice residency program.  

Workers and community leaders will organize a press conference in front of the Long Beach Hilton on Thursday (Sept. 3) and ask the community to boycott the hotel "until management agrees to honor the workers' rights to decide whether to form a union in a manner," according to United Here! Local 11, the group representing the workers.

Steve Neal, 9th District City Council candidate and executive director of the Labor Community Services Food and Emergency Program is expected to be at the event.

Five of Long Beach's top producing Realtors will be spotlighted at a Long Beach/South Bay Women's Council of Realtors Leadership Luncheon on Sept. 14.

Marna Brennan, John Dumke, Sheri Schuster, Sharon Verdoorn and Richard Daskam will be on a panel moderated by Allison Van Wig of Keller Williams Realty and Eddi Rucker of Teamwork Escrow.

"We choose these agents because year in and year out they are always listed among the top producing agents in the area," said the chapter's president Nanette McConnell. "With the real estate market going through some major changes, this forum offers agents a chance to hear about and ask questions on how these agents stay productive."

The event will be at 11 a.m. at the Grand, 4101 E. Willow. Admission is $20 for members and $30 for non-members. For more information on the luncheon, go to www.wcrlongbeach.com or contact Nanette McConnell at 562-756-1968.