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 - June 4, 2015 Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................6 Classifieds............................2 Film Review..........................2 Food.......................................8 Hawthorne Happenings....3 Legals....................................7 Looking Up...........................2 Pets........................................4 Police Reports.....................3 Sports....................................5 Weekend Forecast Friday Partly Cloudy 70˚/55˚ Saturday Partly Cloudy 73˚/57˚ Sunday Partly Cloudy 81˚/63˚ Students Win Camp Scholarships Nine Hawthorne School District middle school students were awarded the American Association of University Women Tech Trek Science Camp Scholarship during the most recent Hawthorne School Board Meeting. The winners of this year’s scholarship are: Jacqueline May, Shannon Sukantri and Shelbie Nguyen from Bud Carson Middle School; Shemiah Nesbeth and Yamileth Sanchez from Hawthorne Middle School; and Isabella Cruz, Valeria Iniguez and Amy Johnson [not present at the board meeting] from Prairie Vista Middle School. The girls will spend a week at a summer camp designed to provide hands-on activities in math and science in order to increase awareness and develop interest in said fields. Photo by Steve Tabor. Public Works Continues Focus on Capital Improvement Projects By Brian Simon Arguably the most unsung of municipal departments with usually the least amount of fanfare or community recognition, Public Works has its hands in virtually every aspect of a city’s operations. Areas of focus include such integral items as streets, sewers, storm drains, water distribution, sidewalks, parkway trees, vehicle fleets and more. The City of Hawthorne’s Public Works Department includes four divisions: Engineering, Airport, Equipment (the vehicle fleet), and Maintenance. Up until last year, Public Works also encompassed Recreation and Community Services, but the latter is now its own department. The Engineering Division handles administrative duties as well as plan checks, encroachment and construction permits, and field surveys. It develops design drawings and specifications, manages construction projects, and administers contracts for various public improvement projects. It also administers street lighting and energy conservation projects. Most notably and for the purposes of this article, Engineering oversees capital improvement projects critical to Hawthorne’s infrastructure. “The City maintains an active Public Works capital improvement program that includes street projects, facilities upgrades, and infrastructure maintenance,” said Public Works Director/City Engineer Arnie Shadbehr, who has served in this capacity for the past decade. “In 2014/15, the City’s biggest project was the $13.5 million Hawthorne Boulevard Mobility Improvement project. This project reconstructed Hawthorne Boulevard between El Segundo Boulevard and Rosecrans Avenue, including the addition of bike lanes, eight new traffic signals, storm water infiltration chambers, landscaping, new sidewalks and curbs, and a complete reconfiguration of center medians and parking areas.” The plan to revamp Hawthorne Boulevard was long in the making, with only occasional upgrades made over the previous decade. Shadbehr noted that last year’s project was a huge step forward in transforming the community’s most traveled thoroughfare into a more pedestrian-friendly environment that includes outdoor dining options. Public Works also completed an upgrade of its air traffic control tower at the Hawthorne Municipal Airport, thanks to a $1.2 million competitive grant from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). That project allowed local and airport officials to breathe a sigh of relief since Hawthorne’s tower was on an initial shortlist of facilities nationwide considered for FAA closures in 2013 in the wake of sequestration. The agency ultimately spared Hawthorne from the chopping block, but did shut down 11 other towers at small airports in California including those in Fullerton, Riverside and Palmdale. As part of an annual maintenance quota, Public Works also completed $230,000 in sidewalk repairs plus replacement of over 1,000 feet of sewer lines. “This month, we also embarked on a new $1 million local street improvement project that includes reconstruction of the Memorial Center parking lot as well as seven aging residential streets,” Shadbehr said. Additionally, Public Works staff are currently in various phases of preliminary engineering activities for major highway improvement projects. These include an Inglewood Avenue traffic signal upgrade funded through a competitive Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) grant, an Aviation/Marine widening project to be paid for with Measure R monies, and El Segundo Boulevard and Prairie Avenue improvement projects subsidized by a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) competitive grant. “These projects are all funded in part by grants from the MTA and other State and Federal funding sources totaled at $20 million,” Shadbehr said. “These grant applications were won through a competitive application process and were developed and submitted by the Public Works Engineering staff.” Portions of Inglewood Avenue previously underwent reconstruction with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) ramps and landscaped center median islands, restriped traffic lanes, and improved traffic signals on the stretch between Rosecrans Avenue and Imperial Highway. Crews wrapped up Phase I of the Aviation/ Marine project last year by relocating federal property facilities on Marine east of Aviation. “This phase of the project was carried out after completing nine months of negotiation with the Federal Department of General Services and obtaining 13,500 square feet of Federal land for the roadway widening purposes,” Shadbehr said. “Relocation of 11 high-voltage transmission poles is currently underway and we are in the process of executing cooperative agreements with the cities of Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach public works departments to include their portions of intersection widening at Aviation and Marine into one comprehensive project with the City of Hawthorne as the lead agency.” Upcoming capital projects include a retrofit of 500 of the City’s catch basin inlets at an estimated cost of $1 million; street treetrimming (continuation of an ongoing, threeyear schedule); and traffic signal upgrades and spot widenings on Inglewood Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard. Shadbehr explained that the catch basin inlet retrofit was mandatory due to a new statewide NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit that went into effect in late 2012 in an effort to reduce coastal pollution and endangerment of marine life. Despite so much activity in Engineering, Shadbehr also singled out the Maintenance Division’s role in another vital, ongoing infrastructure project. “Last but not least, Public Works’ Maintenance Division is responsible for year-round maintenance activities for our 90 miles of sewer pipelines and asphalt patch works as well as graffiti removal and maintenance of the City’s traffic regulatory signs,” he said. •
Hawthorne_060415_FNL
To see the actual publication please follow the link above