Hawthorne Press Tribune The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - May 26, 2016 Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................5 Classifieds............................3 Hawthorne Happenings....3 Legals................................ 6-7 Pets........................................8 Police Reports.....................2 Film Review..........................2 Sports....................................4 Weekend Forecast Friday Mostly Sunny 70˚/57˚ Saturday Mostly Sunny 70˚/57˚ Sunday Mostly Sunny 70˚/57˚ Hawthorne High School Engineering Students Receive a Donation from Chevron Chevron donates $25,000 to Hawthorne High’s School of Engineering and their project Lead The Way Engineering Lab. Joining Lily Craig of Chevron, are CVUHSD Superintendent Dr. Gregory O’Brien, Coordinator-School of Manufacturing and Engineering Lucas Pacheco, PLTW Director of School Engagement Karen Latuner as well as other teachers and students of the program. Photo by Margaret Zalabak New Electronic Billboard Coming to Crenshaw Blvd., Hawthorne Mall Revival Moves Forward By Derrick Deane If you thought Hawthorne didn’t have enough electronic billboards, get ready because the City Council discussed a new, larger electronic billboard that will be built on Crenshaw Boulevard. “This is going to be a digital billboard that is larger and taller than the one we currently have on Hawthorne Boulevard,” city manager Arnie Shabehr explained. “The reason we chose Crenshaw Boulevard is because it is our busiest street. It has the highest average daily traffic throughout the city.” Building a digital billboard on the busiest street in the city makes sense to Shadbehr as he points to the potential revenue from ads that can be brought in to the city annually. “There will be many others as long as our ordinances allow,” Shadbehr said in response to a question posed by Councilwoman Olivia Valentine on whether the new billboard will show the same ads and announcements as the one on Hawthorne Boulevard adding that, “with the upcoming football stadium in Inglewood, it can be a great opportunity for us to sell ads.” “I want to be modest about it,” Shadbehr continued. “I don’t want to generate imaginary revenue, but I want to say comfortably that it will be more than $100,000 a year, but it has the potential to be more.” Shadbehr says that more than half of the construction for the new billboard will be covered up front. He added that the process would be similar to the construction of the billboard that currently sits on Hawthorne Boulveard. “When we went in to agreement, we received a $200,000 offer that covered much of the $270,000 cost,” Shadbehr said of the Hawthorne Boulevard billboard. “So yes, we can recover up front almost 70 percent of the cost [for the new billboard on Crenshaw Boulevard].” Mayor Pro Tem Angie Reyes English expressed concern for city approved events and programs that are being advertised adding that she doesn’t care for how the process currently operates. “As elected officials representing the constituents here in our city, when we have functions or events that benefit the community and they’re in collaboration with the departments such as mine with the Service Provider Fair, whether its organizations or groups like the pancake breakfasts, whether it’s our police officers being honored, I can go on and on and on, there is something wrong when it comes to us not being able to advertise on those boards,” English said. English mentioned that her Service Provider Fair wasn’t advertised before getting into a brief back-and-forth with Shadbehr who claimed that it had. “I drive that boulevard every night and I did not see it and I was told that I couldn’t post it,” English said to which Shadbehr said he personally marked it for advertising. “Arnie, I love you for that, I really do, but put a directive for it because I’m going to discuss it and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” English said then turned to Mayor Alex Vargas to say, “I didn’t see yours up there either.” The mayor brushed the matter aside saying that, “I found other ways of bringing people to my event,” before responding to the issue. “I think you’re right to a certain extent, but let me just tell you one thing; it just depends on what we’re trying to promote and what kind of synergy are we trying to create,” Vargas said. “We have Space X right there. Sure we want to promote our events but when you’re trying to promote Space X and their Hyper Loop competition and the rockets that are just being built and the major developments in the city, the advertising and the marketing has to flow correctly.” English answered back asking if the Service Provider Fair which “provides information to our constituents isn’t worthy of being posted on the billboard?” Vargas said he would, “vote for that exception,” and was followed by Councilman Nilo Michelin who backed up Shadbehr saying that, “I believe the City Manager when he says that he placed it on there.” English continued,” All I’m saying is that we need to take another look at that because I get a lot of folks telling me the same thing. Yes, Space X is great. They need us to help them move forward with what they need for the Hyper Loop and everything else that they’re asking for. It’s a city sponsored event too in a sense. Right?” Vargas concluded the discussion saying that he understood English’s concerns. “The points are well taken and it makes sense. We all have our passions here,” Vargas said. Speaking of passions, the revival of the Hawthorne Mall took another step forward with the city directing the Planning Staff to prepare a change of zone ordinance. “The Hawthorne Mall has been vacant for nearly twenty years and I would like to expedite the Hawthorne Mall Project and I would like Planning Staff to concentrate only on the mall project for right now, rather than work on other projects that might be time consuming at this time. We need to take this seriously and we need to more forward at lightning speed.” •
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