The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo Herald Publications - El Segundo, Torrance, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 106, No. 17 - April 27, 2017 Inside This Issue Calendar of Events.............2 Certified & Licensed Professionals.....................18 Classifieds............................4 Crossword/Sudoku.............4 Entertainment......................6 Legals............................ 16,17 Pets......................................19 Police Reports...................16 Real Estate.....................9-14 Sports.................................5,7 Weekend Forecast Friday Partly Cloudy 79˚/61˚ Saturday Sunny 79˚/59˚ Sunday Sunny 79˚/59˚ ES High Choir Sings Anthem at Pearl Harbor Memorial The El Segundo High School Choir sang the National Anthem at the USS Missouri Battleship Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii during their recent spring tour of music and culture in Oahu. They performed in front of United Nations flags representing the places the USS Missouri traveled. All veterans and active military present during the ESHS Choir’s performance stood at salute during the National Anthem. Photo Provided by El Segundo Unified School District. City Using Key Performance Indicators to Track Services By Brian Simon In developing a three-year strategic plan last summer, the El Segundo City Council committed to achieve five major goals. The list includes enhancing customer service and engagement; supporting community safety and preparedness; developing as a choice employer and workforce; developing quality infrastructure and technology; and championing economic development and fiscal sustainability. Under the umbrella of “enhancing customer service and engagement” are objectives for the City to be “transparent regarding services and performance” and to “report City-wide performance indicators.” With that in mind, staff last month began to provide monthly reports of key performance indicators (KPI) to track how the City is doing in various areas ranging from public safety response time to filling both potholes and personnel vacancies. City Manager Greg Carpenter cautioned that the endeavor will take some time to bear fruit, as staff is still creating baselines for metrics that will more accurately measure the organization’s performance over the long haul both here in town and in comparison to other municipalities. “It’s still early in the process—it’s like driving to San Francisco, but we’re in the San Fernando Valley,” Carpenter said. Still, some early numbers provide an interesting initial snapshot now that the City can make its first month-to-month progress notation. For example, the total number of plan checks run through the City rose from 51 in February to 63 in March. Department review of said plan checks took 15.8 days last month as opposed to just 13.6 days in February. The reports also figure in the amount of full-time employee (FTE) hours devoted to each plan check, with March El Segundo School Board Approves Comprehensive Campus Safety Plans By Duane Plank Fifteen days after a special education teacher and two of her young students were shot by her estranged husband in her classroom at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, the El Segundo School Board unanimously approved comprehensive safety plans at El Segundo Unified School District’s four campuses. The plans, updated on an annual basis, serve as a guide for faculty and staff in dealing with emergency on-campus situations that might arise. The plans typically first receive input from interested members of the public, are then crafted, and if necessary updated- -incorporating suggestions from school safety committee members prior to review by law enforcement officials. The next step in the process is usually the adoption of the safety plan by the school site council, with the last step Board approval. Prior to approving the safety plans, the Board members recognized standout District employees for sterling contributions. The Board feted educators of the year, including Marcos Bolanos (El Segundo High School), Scott Garinger (El Segundo Middle School), Renee Hoover (Center Street Elementary School), and Celia Plotkin (Richmond Street Elementary School). Longtime District instructor Daphne Moote, currently teaching Kindergarten at Center Street and set to step down from her position as the President of seeing the numbers grow to 7.9 per FTE versus 6.75 in February. However, the statistics can’t be judged in a vacuum, according to Finance Director Joe Lillio who attributed the time upticks to the fact that staff received “more complex reviews” the second month. In the City Clerk’s office, turnaround time to process all City contracts decreased from eight days in February to 6.9 days in March—with the number of contracts also up from 14 to 39. The City also processed six film permits in February and four more in March with an average turnaround of 48 hours. More people visited the library in March, with 16,612 stopping in compared to 12,386 in February. Attendance at programs also jumped considerably, from 333 up to 619. This despite a slight decrease in library card holders (19,586 down to 19,223). In some encouraging news for January and February, the El Segundo Police Department indicated that Part 1 crimes dropped by 25 percent. The main drivers were declines in theft and larceny incidents. The number of Priority 1 (requiring immediate police response) calls decreased from 155 (with 6.5 calls per FTE) down to 112 (4.7 per FTE). On the Fire Department side, the amount of time for dispatch to arrive at the scene for See City Council, page 7 See School Board, page 16
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