Slots For Forty Students Who Want to Attend the New San Pedro High Annex Should Apply Now 

By Diana L. Chapman

San Pedro students -- who must be local residents -- should apply now to see if they can hit the jackpot  and have their name pulled in an April lottery to attend the newly built, $80 million high school  annex.

School officials said that 40 slots remain open at the John M. and Muriel Olguin Campus. 

Those are designated specifically for San Pedro residents after some locals fought bitterly, but failed to halt the building of the environmentally designed school. It's one of many concessions the Los Angeles Unified School District made in order to build the campus, wedged between Alma and Gaffey Streets on a bluff top above the sea.

Applications for entering one of the small learning communities at the annex must be turned in by noon March 29. Ninth through 12th graders can apply.

"Sorting day," as one school official called it, will be held at 4 p.m. April 9 at the San Pedro High school auditorium.

Expected to be one of Los Angeles Unified's gems, the annex sits on a former military site. The land was later donated to the school district and is surrounded by a myriad of facilities that can provide academic, hands on exploration. 

"I'm looking forward to the opportunities that will be afforded to both residents of San Pedro students and magnet students on the Olguin campus," said Sandra Martin-Alvarenga, the magnet coordinator.

 "We're looking forward to partnering with the Angels Gate Cultural Center, the Marine Mammal care center and others."

Built at the Fort MacArthur Upper Reservation in the area of Angel's Gate, the school will open Aug. 14 with two small learning communities -- the Police Academy and the Marine Magnet. Those houses currently have 460 students combined.

To attend, students in the lottery must select one of those houses as one of their number one choices.

"The Marine Magnet has a rigorous math and science focus," said San Pedro High School principal Jeanette Stevens, who will oversee both schools. "Students will take math and science each year they attend the Marine Science program. The Police Academy has a partnership with LAPD and includes four years of physical training, similar to the academy."

Not all classes will be available at the annex, so students will be shuttled to San Pedro High for some of their courses, Martin-Alvarenga explained.

All 500 students, including those that win the lottery, will be bussed via Gaffey Street after residents living along Alma Street across from the school complained profusely that the road is already dangerous and should not be used to enter the school.

A shuttle will also take Olguin students back to San Pedro High  for some classes not offered at the new school, administrators said.

 The school's development strained relations between school officials and many residents, who contended the campus-- intended to relieve overcrowding at San Pedro High -- would mar the serene beauty of the park- like area.

School officials, however, see an area peppered with educational discoveries, such as the Marine Mammal Care Center, the International Bird Rescue, the Fort MacArthur Museum and the Angels Gate Cultural Center. Local artists, many of whom visit Los Angeles Unified schools to teach, also have studios in the area.

 29 Minutes of Your Life Can Help Change the World, Starting With the Horrendous Atrocities in Uganda

Make a difference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Mike Kulin and his son, Alex,  at a Beach Cities Football Practice. Mike went as long as he could to see his son in action.

A Community-Oriented Family Man Teaches Lessons About Life and Death

By Diana L. Chapman

Pulling me aside at the hospital, my friend told me this about her husband:

It was late at night and everyone had left, she said softly. That’s when Michael Kulin started praying tied to his bed in an entanglement of I.Vs and oxygen tubes while at the Little Company of Mary Transition Care Center.

He didn’t pray for himself. He prayed thanking God for his wonderful family, his friends and his life.

“It’s like Michael had so much faith,” said Camilla. “I was so touched by the beauty of him in this state that he wasn’t thinking of himself even though he was in so much pain.

“That filled my heart and made me love him even more.”  

In a nutshell, that describes Mike, 60, a longtime South Bay resident who gave way to his six month battle with lung cancer Feb. 13 - but not before seeing a barrage of friends and his large family. When we arrived at the hospital, he was always asking how the rest of us were and what was going on in our lives. He was so humble, he didn’t want to talk about himself. He wanted to hear about us – all of us – his friends, brothers and sisters, his kids, his wife, myself and my husband in a constantly crowded hospital room.

He was an amazingly selfless man, the kind the rest of us could learn from.

One day before his death, I met Mike’s friend, Steve, who had known him since middle school. When we went to Mike’s bedside together, he immediately lit up and sat up in his bed: “Steve, Diana. I am so glad you met each other. Steve is a mass marketer and knows everything about photography you can imagine. You could help each other.”

When  a nurse asked us to leave for a few minutes, Steve and I wandered down the hall.

“Can you believe that?” Steve asked me. “He cares more about us than about himself.”

“I would just be whining and complaining about everything,” I confided to Steve, still stunned that Mike wasn’t focused on the obvious pain he was suffering when we saw him shudder and cough as his body broke down. He withered from a hefty football guy to a thin, gaunt man, struggling to live because that’s what his family wanted – especially, Camilla, his son, Alex, 11, and daughter, Anna,17.

There are many things Mike Kulin was. He was a family man, who loved his community, and coached football making sure all the kids played no matter their talent. He never yelled at them and always spoke encouraging words. It was his coaching style. He supported his loving wife, who was with him in the hospital every step of the way. He loved his church, and obviously, he loved God – even when he could have been filled with complete rage that he’d been given a raw turn.

Instead, he was more than grateful for what he had. While many of us grumble about our everyday lives, Mike shone like the sun who enjoyed his life immensely despite all the troubles his family went through with Camilla’s frequent  bouts of hospitalizations due to intense asthma attacks.

When I first met, Mike and Camilla, the duo rescued rabbits (after they fell in love with one as a pet). They were weary of so many of the creatures being euthanized – many abandoned by owners when the Easter jig was up.  They worked as a team in many ways, Mike running errands for Camilla’s Girl Scout Troop; She often helped with his health and life insurance business.

 Mike stood strong as he ushered his wife back and forth to the hospital where several times it seemed she might not make it home. This was just woven into the fabric of their family’s life.

Through all this, Mike appeared happy and healthy.

Before he was diagnosed, the family came to our house for dinner. Mike had lost weight because he had cellulitus and was trying to get into shape. We had a great time and were stunned to hear the news two weeks later.

While at the transitory care center, where Mike died, a friend arrived and told Camilla that he’d only known Mike less than a year.

“If I was half the man Mike was,” he told Camilla, he’d be proud.

“I was in awe at how he managed to coach the kids in such a calm, methodical manner,” said Lawrence Michael John Frontino, who met Mike when he was coaching his grandson, Shane, in football. “With Mike’s help, I now know at the age of 55 what it is to be selfless. With our friendship of only a few months he has demonstrated love of family, gratitude for where he has been and a profound knowledge of where he is going.”

That was Mike, a dying man who showed us dignity and strength in life and in death.

Sometimes you meet angels. In my mind, Mike Kulin was one of them and always will be.

Newly elected Councilman Joe Buscaino with his wife, Geralyn, and children, Gia, 5, and Mateo, 9.

Councilman Joe Buscaino Swinging Into Action and Hitting Heavy Early

By Diana L. Chapman

I like it. I like it. I like it.

That’s how I feel so far about our new councilman and former senior lead Los Angeles Police Officer Joe Buscaino, also known around Los Angeles City Hall as “Bustea,” “Buscanacho,” “Busti,” “Bustia,” “Busty,” “Buzarella,” some of the many names Los Angeles council members teasingly came up with while trying to say his name on a welcome video.

So far, the 37-year-old councilman – who has sat on the council less than a month after a victorious ride to fill former Councilwoman Janice Hahn’s shoes– has hit all the right key notes.

He’s jumped on the gone-wild skateboarding practices, showed up when two teenagers were horrifically shot this week in Wilmington and picked the Warner Grand -- a historic theater well-known to locals by the many struggles to save it– to hold his public swearing in ceremony even though he’d already had an official swearing in downtown.

“Who’s idea was that?” I asked his chief-of-staff, Doane Liu of the Warner event.

“It was Joe’s,” Liu said.

It’s called shoring up a rather pale community pride that had grown even paler in recent years.

Packed with about 1,000 residents at the swearing in, Buscaino took all the joking in stride, surrounded by his wife and children, thanked city officials for “butchering my name,” and told the public: “It’s been an amazing journey and a journey we will travel together. It’s because of you that I am here today.”

He added that he plans to partner with Council District 15 communities –Wilmington, Harbor City, Harbor Gateway, San Pedro and Watts—to bring about safer streets, build “a dynamic” waterfront and invigorate the region to become a city gem.

At a ceremony peppered with bouts of humor, LAPD Deputy Chief Pat Gannon, the emcee, told how he spotted Buscaino working with children as an assistant park director and was impressed. He encouraged the young man to become an officer and then mentored him after he joined the force.

 “For years, I got to be his boss,” Gannon said. “That’s all changed. He’s been in office for three days and he already calls me to get more officers in the Harbor Area. What are you going to do?”

Buscaino, Gannon said, received his request since he’s now the boss.

While many speakers came on stage, one who stood out was Isaiah Alexander, who as a youth,  worked with Buscaino to form the city’s first teen community police advisory board in the Harbor Area – which met with such success the LAPD adopted it in all 21 of its regions.

Now 22, the college student said his life improved dramatically with Buscaino’s friendship. He calls him: “Papa Joe.”

“He was with me at all my high school (events), ” Alexander told the crowd. “He was with me when I met my father (for the first time.) He helped me put my first car on the road. The councilman you chose is a caring man and he is loyal.”

Why do I like Buscaino so far? He feels our heartbeat.

He’s showing us true leadership, starting with the skateboarders who are “bombing” the hillsides of San Pedro – racing down them, clocking 40 mph and ignoring lights and stop signs. One 15-year-old skateboarder was killed.

“What are we going to do about the skateboarders?” one lady moaned when we were talking one morning. I didn’t have a clue, but Buscaino did.

He introduced a motion in early February to ask the City Attorney to draw up an ordinance to control unsafe skateboarding – and force them to abide the same laws cyclists and cars follow – meaning stopping at red lights and stop signs.

Not too long after, a horrific event drew the councilman to Wilmington Feb. 26, a Sunday night.

One day after the councilman’s San Pedro ceremony –which followed with a festive block party on Sixth Street --  a gunman shot to death a teen couple walking home in Wilmington at night – making them the sixth and seventh homicide in that community since 2012.

Killed were Carolina Ramirez, 15, a Banning High student, and her 16-year-old boyfriend, Meldrick Melgoza Alvarez.

I was glad to see Buscaino was there, trying to reassure residents and to  offer up a plan – to form a group called Wilmington United to help citizens work more closely with police. It’s first meeting Tuesday brought together police, church and school officials, the councilman’s office, residents and the many non-profits working with children or running gang prevention programs.

“No neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles should experience the horror of having anyone, especially teenagers, gunned down in its streets,” Buscaino said. “I want this task force organized to share valuable information with the LAPD and help deliver desperately needed resources to Wilmington.”

Already, we are breathing in the fresh air Buscaino brings to the low morale of the Harbor Area and Watts. It’s more than refreshing. It’s a burst of light.