EL SEGUNDO HERALD November 4, 2021 Page 3
Protect Our Planet,
Protect Our Puppies
By Kiersten Vannest
What happened to the pandemic puppies?
As pet adoptions and fosters rose while shelters
emptied, some wonder what happened
with the animals that were adopted during
the largely work-from-home era. According
to spcaLA president Madeline Bernstein, not
much has changed.
Despite some press reporting that pet returns
have been spiking, Bernstein reports that that
statistic is slightly skewed, as many of the
animals were in a foster program. Those that
were adopted are by and large staying with
their newfound families.
Madeline heads the animal rescue organization
spcaLA, which is a separate entity
from the ASPCA and specifically serves Los
Angeles-based cases. As she explains, the
mission of the organization is the prevention
of cruelty to animals, which runs the
gamut of species, from cats and dogs to
pigs and rabbits.
“We really get everything…between our
law enforcement work, our disaster work,
and kinds of other stuff,” she says. Personally,
Bernstein has rescued tortoises from the
organization and has dealt with cases involving
horses, guinea pigs, snakes and more.
One program in particular Bernstein talks
about is something started by her organization
in the 90s called Animal Safety Net.
This program works with domestic violence
shelters to help eliminate the barrier of pet
involvement. Sometimes victims are hesitant
to leave because of shared animals or fear
of repercussions.
Bernstein cites one case in which the abuser
threatened to throw the dog out the window
if the victim didn’t come back home. When
they didn’t return, he threw the dog out the
window. Animal Safety Net aims to prevent
these scenarios by providing shelter for animals
while victims get sorted out with the next
steps, and on occasion, rescue pets from the
home if the victim didn’t get to take them.
See Madeline Bernstein, page 19
How We Re-invented the
Orient Express and Found
Dracula Along the Way
Article by Ben & Glinda Shipley
The authentic Paris-Istanbul Orient Express
ran from the 1880s until the 1930s on a
southern (Serbian) or northern (Romanian)
route, depending on the latest Balkan War.
After voracious reading of Agatha Christie,
Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, and Ian Fleming,
we were dying to take the Most Romantic
Train Trip in The World, but found nothing
but imitations and so-called alternate routes,
at more than $3,500 a pop.
So, one of our all-time-favorite adventures
started with the bright idea of booking all
of the legs on our own, country by country,
with each national railway. It took weeks of
research and wrangling, but we ended up with:
Bruxelles-Liege (SNCB Belgium).
Liege-Cologne (Deutsche Bahn).
Cologne-Vienna (ÖBB Austria).
Vienna-Budapest (Railjet).
Budapest-Bucharest (EuroNight Ister).
Bucharest-Istanbul (Bosphor-Express).
All for less than $1,000.
The original Orient Express stopped for
a luxurious spa night in Budapest, so we
did too. We took another three days off
in Bucharest to drive up into Transylvania
in search of Dracula (Vlad really is dead,
although we never saw a body). Which left
three overnight sleeper trains on the Vienna,
Bucharest, and Istanbul legs.
Neither of us had ever ventured east of
Yugoslavia, so we had no real idea what was
coming. The Russians were gone and had
taken their ideology with them, but we had
no way of knowing what kind of hangover
they’d left behind.
Which came to mind when we alit in
Budapest on a cold, moonless night to find
a gravel path instead of a platform and no
street lights anywhere. It was a black-andgray
scene straight out of Schindler’s List,
with silent, exhausted crowds trudging into
the station and out to the street. One of
the few times in our travels when we were
genuinely intimidated.
The trains ranged from the Germans and
Austrians (ugly, but efficient) to the Romanians
and Turks (ornate, friendly, and falling
apart). The farther east we travelled, the more
the Communist past came to life, in massive,
decrepit, concrete stations filled with loiterers
who never seemed to climb onto a train.
But the cities were clearly making up for
lost time, with vibrant art scenes, wonderful
hotels and spas, boisterous night lives, and
hordes of high-performance German cars.
The food was another matter. After Viennese
Schnitzels and Sachertorten, the cuisine
steadily deteriorated until an abrupt reversal
in Istanbul. The Ottomans have invaded—or
been invaded by—nearly every country on
the planet. Their former capital is truly the
Culinary Crossroads of the World.
We have an ironclad rule about never eating
at a restaurant with an English or tourist
menu, and the Turkish script in the docks
and alleyways where we ventured proved
impenetrable. But the Turks are a friendly
See Travel, page 12
Cologne: The famous glass roof and windows of the post-war reconstructed Hauptbahnhof.
City Council Weighs Costs,
Fees of Aquatics Programs;
Finds Way to Reduce Fire
Dept. Budget By $1 Million
By Liz Spear
On-street parking in Smoky Hollow, eliminating
$1 million from the fire department
budget, coyotes in residential neighborhoods,
and the costs of the City of El Segundo
operating its public pools were a few of the
topics heard by the El Segundo City Council
at its regularly scheduled meeting the evening
of Tuesday, November 2.
The Aquatics Fee Study and Cost Recovery
Policy (all pools were evaluated based on 12
months of fully operational historical data)
garnered a lot of discussions. According to
the report, it was undertaken to help City
Council determine pool fees in the future since
many pool use fees have not been changed
in several years to keep fees “constant” to
benefit residents and non-residents. City staff
and a revenue cost consultant analyzed the
city’s three pools: Hilltop, the Aquatics Center,
and “The Plunge,” more properly known as
Urho Saari Swim Stadium, and presented
costs that, for the first time included “fully
burdened costs,” a category of costs that an
El Segundo City Council had not previously
been apprised. Direct costs were categorized
by staffing and utility, maintenance, and all
overhead and replacement costs. The city’s
Chief Financial Officer, Joseph Lillio told the
city council that previous discussions of the
City of El Segundo Wiseburn Unified School
District Aquatics Center had not included
overhead costs. “I think it’s a perspective
council needs to see,” he told the council
Tuesday night during his presentation.
Fully burdened costs to run the Aquatics
Center were listed as $2,105,903. The Plunge
came in at $1,313,076, and Hilltop Pool
numbers were listed as $180,956. Programs
at the Aquatics Center brought in $583,896
in revenues, which ultimately when fully
burdened, translated to the city recovering
53.1 percent.
At the Aquatics Center, school district revenues
were $80,000, and 44.8 percent were
recovered when fully burdened. Water polo
use revenues brought in $84,626 and 29.7
percent when fully burdened. Swim/private
rentals brought in $474,248 and translated to
87.4 percent fully burdened. In the direct costs
category, direct costs are primarily staffing,
salary and benefits that are assigned to each
specific location. Miscellaneous operating
and maintenance costs and do not include
utilities, chemicals, and other operational and
maintenance costs required to maintain the
pools/facilities. According to the staff report,
the Aquatics pulls in 114 percent of expenses
recovered and 94.1 when maintenance costs
See City Council, page 13
Travel