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 - December 10, 2015 Lawndale High’s Girls’ Basketball Wins Lawndale High’s girls’ basketball team celebrates winning the Redondo Battle at the Beach Gold Division Tournament by topping Torrance 37-34 last Saturday. More on page 3. Photo by Joe Snyder. Mayor-Elect Alex Vargas Sworn In to Office, Council Addresses San Bernardino Incident by Derrick Deane For the first time in almost a month, the Hawthorne City Council convened for the first of their bimonthly meetings with a new face sitting on the council. Out went former mayor Chris Brown and mayor pro tem Olivia Valentine and in went Hadir Awad who won one of the councilmember seats during last month’s elections. Joining Awad were councilman Nilo Michelin who officially won re-election and newly sworn in mayor Alex Vargas. This will be the first time that a mayor will be elected to a four year term instead of two years in Hawthorne. Vargas’ seat will be filled by shortly from a pool of candidates who turned in applications earlier this week. There will also be a special forum this Saturday for the public to ask questions of potential candidates for the open seat. Brown and Valentine left after the new council was sworn in. Councilmember Angie Reyes English was previously excused from the meeting. In a sign of city-wide apathy though, in a population of more than 86,000 people, only 4,628 votes were cast, including absentee ballots. “We have about 36,000 plus registered voters in the city of Hawthorne and I think it’s a travesty that only 4,600 votes were cast,” city treasurer L. David Patterson said. “I would love to see our city do something to increase voter engagement.” The attention quickly turned to the mass murder attack in San Bernardino last week. During the public speaking portion of the meeting, a seventh grader from a local Muslim school recounted the story of how a woman was yelling and cursing at the children at the school, telling them to, “go back to your home country.” Mahmoud al Ahmad from the Al-Huda Islamic School told the council, “She threatened to come back with others and I got really scared. What happened in San Bernardino was a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to all of the victims and their families, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just a seventh grader going to school.” He continued saying that, “This is my home country. I was born and raised in America. This is the only home I know. There are over 1.57 billion Muslims in the world which is almost 23 percent of the human population. It is not fair to paint us all with the same brush. All I want is to live in peace and to give peace to everyone around me.” The council also spoke on the matter during their closing statements. Patterson choked up when addressing the issue saying, “Continued stories of hate and prejudice perpetrated against the innocent because of religious faith and ethnicity, honestly, really hurts me.” “My heart goes out to those that experience that on a regular basis, for whatever reason,” Patterson continued. “My heart goes out to all the victims of terrorism around the world as well as the innocent members of our society that are blamed for those actions. I have a number of feelings for racial profiling or discrimination in any form and I hate to hear young children having to experience that in our city.” Patterson stated that he hoped the council and the city as a whole would continue to work together to, “let people who choose to behave that way that their behavior is not welcome in our city.” Michelin added that they would adjourn the meeting with prayers for the victims and people of San Bernardino. “We feel their pain and our prayers are with them,” Michelin said. Vargas echoed his sentiments saying, “we definitely sympathize with them and we’re in solidarity with all members of our community. The Islamic Center has been an active member of this community. They played in my basketball tournaments, they have opened their house to the community and an example of that is going to come up this weekend where they’re going to join with St. Joseph’s and other denominations within the city of Hawthorne to be in solidarity and also denounce terrorism because it’s there. Let’s not ignore that, folks.” “We all stand with the Islamic Center and they stand with us,” Vargas continued. “We’re just one big happy family, I hope.” Vargas closed the meeting stating that he was looking forward to working with his fellow councilmembers to getting the city back on track. “We proceeded through the meeting. We had a lot of business we needed to catch up on. I think we had some business that we postponed in the previous meeting, but I’m glad we ran through everything,” Vargas said. The new mayor-elect added that the council and audience members should not hesitate in asking questions, good-naturedly saying, “No matter how long it takes, we need to make sure we come to the right decision. No matter if people in the audience are antsy. Go home and watch on TV in the comfort of your bed, because we’ll still be here at 12 or 1 if we have to.” “The city of Hawthorne’s future is at stake and I’m ready to work with my colleagues,” Vargas concluded. • Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................6 Classifieds............................2 Film Review..........................2 Food.......................................5 Hawthorne Happenings....2 Legals................................ 6-7 Police Reports.....................2 Sports....................................3 Weekend Forecast Friday Mostly Sunny 63˚/48˚ Saturday Sunny 66˚/48˚ Sunday Sunny 64˚/52˚ “My heart goes out to all the victims of terrorism around the world as well as the innocent members of our society that are blamed for those actions.”
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