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Second of two parts.  Re: “Mayor’s Notion of Idol Worship”  Forty-eight hours on, Mayor Jim Clarke rates the City Council’s historic Strategic Planning Retreat an A-plus. “We were able to spend the day together discussing issues, and we really had good exchanges,” the mayor said. “At the end of the day we were able to come up with five long-term, … Read More

Stung by a losing streak of three straight court defeats, perceived parking-plagued residents of the 10700 block of Farragut Drive sustained a fresh setback yesterday when the long-awaited 59-page parking study was released. Neighbors on this block have felt put-upon for years by members of around-the-corner Grace Lutheran Church, who park on Farragut. The gloomy predictions of block leader Les … Read More

Second in a series.  Re: “Water for Sale – for the Future” In his untiring attempts to convince Culver City residents to stock up on sizable containers of water in case of a disaster, community activist Dr. Ira Diamond recently was relating a story he hoped would serve as a warning to skeptics. Dr. Diamond was speaking on the eve … Read More

Second in a series.  Re: “Why El Marino Stands Alone at the Top”   The Culver City mother of three students who wondered yesterday why there isn’t a rush to emulate El Marino Language School’s status as the academic powerhouse of the community, remarked about other unchanging data in the state test scores. Black and Latino students continue to trail their … Read More

Elsy Villafranca is the new principal of Culver City Middle School. Ms. Villafranca has been an assistant principal since 2015. She has helped guide student and teacher excellence in academics and achievement across a wide variety of programs. Previously, Ms. Villafranca was an intervention coordinator and English Language Learner coordinator at Palms Elementary, as well as a special education teacher … Read More

Re: “El Marino Champ Again – Arnold Weighs Test Scores”  “Even if you didn’t know anything about Culver City schools,” a mother of three students was saying, “when the state test scores were released last week, you could see that El Marino has reasserted itself as the No. 1 school in the District. “By a wide margin.” None of her … Read More

Mayor Jim Clarke went into this morning’s all-day, open-to-the-public Strategic Planning Retreat at the Kirk Douglas Theatre convinced that his City Council colleagues are capable of ferreting out background information for developing ordinances. “No need to automatically direct research to (city) staff,” the mayor said. “We can work with staff, but we can do a lot of the outreach.” At … Read More

El Marino Language School, Culver City’s blue ribbon campus, enhanced its historic reputation as the community’s academic champion when statewide test scores in English and math were reported this week. Farragut Elementary was a respectable runnerup. Digesting Culver City’s final scores in the context of the state scores, Dr. Josh Arnold, rounding out his first week as vigorous new superintendent … Read More

Third in a series.  Re: “Mayor Is a Do-It-Yourself Kind of Guy”  The mayor of Culver City, Jim Clarke, has been a genuine populist from the start of his political career four decades ago. His public life has not been spent on a lofty pedestal, declaiming to the people below. A man of the people, he mingles daily with constituents, … Read More