(Click here for a PDF map of Culver City schools.)
This is like a prom date for the fledgling parent union known as United Parents of Culver City.
Their heavily promoted post-Newtown safety forum tonight at 7 at the Vets Auditorium will be watched, initially, as closely for the trimmings – the size of the crowd, the names that belong to faces in the audience – as for the contents program itself.
Is the UPCC an evolving, maturing force that will be a player?
Is there enough room for two gunslingers in this here town, the PTA Council and United Parents of Culver City?
Will they duel for communal space, not to mention loyalty?
Do they practice separate types of clout, especially since they are dipping into the same pool?
Answers may be delivered this evening.
If the turnout is large and enthusiastic, will that obliterate the above ruminations?
In recent days, this broad-ranging speculation has been fueled by rumblings, or is it grumblings, from parents who prefer not to be identified.
As for Tonight
Meanwhile, as this evening’s precise format takes shape, George N. Laase, one of Culver City’s most vocal school activists, has spent considerable time thinking school safety.
He said a prior commitment will prevent him from participating, but not from searching for answers to elusive questions.
One of the talked-about questions the past five weeks has been the time it takes first responders to arrive, and it was Mr. Laase who provided the school map that appears in the pdf at the bottom of this story.
Police Chief Don Pedersen – who will be on tonight’s program – last week told the Culver City Democratic Club his officers can respond to every campus in two minutes.
When does the time start? Mr. Laase asks.
“Response times vary,” he says, “because different places use different yardsticks to gauge the times.”
His map measures the gap from the Police Dept. to each campus –
- Lin Howe Elementary, a quarter-mile.
- La Ballona Elementary, one mile.
- El Rincon Elementary, 1.9 miles.
- El Marino Language School, 2.1 miles.
And then there is the jackpot, the four-school campus:
- Culver City High School, Culver City Middle School, Culver Park High School and the Office of Child Development, 1.1 miles.
Mr. Laase’s conclusion:
“The distances of all campuses are within the realm of protection.”
Emphatically, he does not want guns (by officers) on campuses.
“Heavens no,” he said. “These are places of learning. Even if a school was shot up, which, of course, would be terrible, I still would not want them.”
