LONG BEACH – On Sept. 21, Vivian Malauulu, a journalism professor at Long Beach City College and former Random Lengths News contributor, announced her intention to run for the Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees to represent West Long Beach in April 2016’s municipal election.
Malauulu, a career educator who has been teaching college, community college and high school students in the local community for almost 20 years, launches her campaign with more than $30,000 in initial campaign contributions and an impressive list of formal endorsements that includes the full and part-time faculty associations and classified staff at Long Beach City College, state Sens. Isadore Hall and Tony Mendoza, former state Sen. Betty Karnette, the Teamsters union, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Malauulu earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge; she earned a master’s degree in educational administration from California State University, Dominguez Hills; and she several teaching credentials. Prior to joining the faculty at Long Beach City College, she worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District for almost 20 years teaching high school
English and theater and she served as an activities director, career adviser, and girls’ track and field coach. Her first teaching job was at Banning High School in Wilmington, her alma mater. She has also taught at Carson High School, Los Angeles Harbor College, and California State University, Dominguez Hills.
As a trustee, Malauulu plans to collaborate with other trustees to raise support of college issues that will:
Renew efforts in vocational training to provide LBCC students with valuable job skills to help strengthen our working middle class;
Assure that fiscal responsibility and absolute transparency consistently govern all board actions;
Inspire civility on the Board to help relieve embarrassing, ongoing tension among current
Trustees;
Serve the residents of District Area 2 and the college at large with dignity, honesty, and respect; and
Encourage a shift in the priorities of the Board to focus on improving faculty and staff resources and working conditions in order to enhance student learning.
Malauulu, a commissioner for the City of Long Beach, presently serves as chairwoman of the city’s Commission on Youth and Children. She also serves as a member of the Board of Managers for the Greater Long Beach YMCA Early Childhood Development Program. She is a registered longshore worker at the twin ports complex of Long Beach and Los Angeles and she is an active member of ILWU, Local 13, where she has served as an elected officer in various positions.
A first-generation American who emigrated as a child from Honduras to the United States in 1981, Malauulu spoke no English upon her arrival. She credits her love of education, her tough work ethic, and her faith for inspiring her to dedicate her professional career toward educating students, equipping teachers, enabling workers, and empowering her community.
Vivian and her husband George Malauulu, who is also a longshore worker and former educator, have been married for 17 years. Together with their four children they are longtime residents of Wrigley neighborhood of west Long Beach.
LONG BEACH — A man who came into the Long Beach Police Department East Police Sub-Station, at about 11:15 a.m. Sept. 23, gave officers bomb scare.
The man made anti-police comments and placed an object between the handle and the glass of the main entrance. Officers called the Los Angeles County Bomb squad and evacuated nearby businesses and residential units; traffic in the Los Coyotes Diagonal, from the traffic circle to Clark Avenue also were closed.
The man was whose identity has not been made public was detained. The bomb squad determined that the object did not have any explosive materials. The suspect is being held for mental evaluation.
LONG BEACH — An industrial accident, which ended the life of 26-year-old William Vasquez-Uz of Los Angeles, took place at about 8:45 a.m. Sept. 16, at 700 Pier A Way.
When Long Beach Port Police officers arrived they found Vasquez-Uz on the asphalt next to a trailer, about 30 feet behind a 2009 Sterling 3-axle tractor. The Long Beach Fire Department responded and pronounced the Vasquez-Uz dead at the scene.
An investigation found that the Vasquez-Uz was the driver of the 2009 Sterling 3-axle tractor. The victim got out of his tractor without setting the emergency brake and without putting it in park. Vasquez-Uz, who was on his cell phone at the time, attempted to unlatch the trailer. The trailer slowly began to roll forward, striking the him. He was subsequently run over by the trailer.
LOS ANGELES — On Sept. 22, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the first steps of a comprehensive strategy to address the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles.
The effort would invest at least $100 million annually in city funding to help house tens of thousands of homeless individuals.
To address immediate needs, Garcetti also announced a short-term strategy to secure an additional $13 million in emergency funding to expand homeless services and housing. The bulk of that funding — $10 million — will be allocated to veterans and non-chronically homeless people in the form of housing subsidies. This should re-house people who need short-term assistance to get off the street and on with their lives. Garcetti called for shelters to remain open 24 hours a day during the rainy season, and for winter shelter availability to expand by two months. The mayor also proposed seed money to incentivize new storage and access centers across the city — that would newly provide access to restrooms, showers, laundry, and services, as well as providing safe storage for personal possessions.
This comes as Los Angeles City Council leaders declared homelessness in Los Angeles a “state of emergency” and introduced a motion to allocate $100 million in one-time funding for homeless services.
The city council’s action is a critical down payment on the mayor’s comprehensive homelessness plan, which is being developed jointly by city, county, Home for Good and other partners.
In addition to one-time funding, the mayor is calling for an annual $100 million investment that would fund permanent housing for the homeless and establish an institutional foundation to tackle homelessness for years to come.
The plan relies on three pillars, which set both short and long-term goals:
Connecting homeless Angelenos—and those most at risk of becoming homeless—with good jobs can help end the cycle of homelessness. Garcetti also launched the Los Angeles Regional Initiative for Social Enterprise, an initiative focused on fostering workforce development solutions for individuals who face the greatest barriers to employment – those with a history of homelessness or incarceration, and disconnected youth.
Funded by a $6 million investment by the U.S. Department of Labor, the five-year initiative will be led by the City of Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board and City of L.A.’s Economic and Workforce Development Department, with support from the employment social enterprise organization REDF. Social enterprises are mission-driven businesses that earn and reinvest their revenue to provide people who are the hardest to employ with jobs so that they participate in the economy and their communities.
The initiative will feature transitional and bridge jobs, as well as training and support services for individuals in need. The Los Angeles Regional Initiative for Social Enterprise is a unique model, designed to better align and integrate existing services and foster cross-sector collaboration between social enterprises, and government, private and nonprofit sectors.
LOS ANGELES — Mayor Eric Garcetti’s appointed businesswoman and community advocate, Pamela A. Bakewell, to the City of Los Angeles Commission on the Status of Women. The Los Angeles City Council confirmed Bakewell Sept. 22.
Bakewell is executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Bakewell Company — one of the largest African-American commercial real estate development companies in the Western United States. As COO, she oversees the day-to-day operations of the real estate development and redevelopment projects, as well as the print and broadcasting divisions of the Bakewell Company — which includes the L.A. Sentinel and L.A. Watts Times newspapers.
Previously, Bakewell served as executive vice president and chief neighborhood officer at the Los Angeles Urban League. She serves as president of Sabriya’s Castle of Fun Foundation, which assists hospitalized children affected by leukemia, sickle cell disease and other blood disorders. Bakewell has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and is a member of the Coalition of 100 Black Women.
Established in 1975 and re-launched by Mayor Garcetti with an emphasis on promoting gender equity citywide, the Commission on the Status of Women has a mandate to advance the general welfare of women and girls in Los Angeles, and to ensure that all women have full and equal participation in City government.
In August, Mayor Garcetti signed an executive directive calling on city departments to implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which the city adopted in 2004.The directive requires each general manager or head of department to submit a Gender Equity Action Plan by February 1, 2016.
SEATTLE – On Sept. 22, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. co-chaired the Third U.S.-China Governors Forum and met with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China. He later announced the first Chinese province – Sichuan – to sign on to the Under 2 MOU climate agreement.
The forum included a bipartisan group of five U.S. governors – Brown, Gov. Rick Snyder (R-Michigan), Gov. Terry Branstad (R-Iowa), Gov. Kate Brown (D-Oregon) and Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Washington) – and six Chinese officials – Sichuan Party Secretary Wang Dongming, Beijing Mayor Wang Anshun, Chongqing Mayor Huang Qifan, Zhejiang Governor Li Qiang, Shandong Gov. Guo Shuqing and Shaanxi Gov. Lou Qinjian. The event was organized by Madame Li Xiaolin, President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
Following the forum, Brown joined participants at a meeting with Xi to discuss the day’s events, and later, the governor met privately with the president. The forum and meeting follow significant diplomatic and business exchanges between California and China since Brown took office, including a Trade and Investment Mission to China and meetings between Brown and Xi during his visit to California as then-vice president of China in February 2012 and again as president in June 2013.
Additionally, the governor met with Sichuan Party Secretary Wang Dongming and announced the first Chinese province to sign the Under 2 MOU – Sichuan.
The Under 2 MOU is an agreement amongst sub-national jurisdictions around the world to limit the increase in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius – the warming threshold at which scientists say there will likely be catastrophic climate disruptions. With the addition of Sichuan, a total of 24 jurisdictions in 10 countries and five continents have signed or endorsed the Under 2 MOU, collectively representing more than $5.55 trillion in gross domestic product and more than 228 million people. If the Under 2 MOU signatories were a single country, they would represent the third largest economy in the world behind only China and the United States.
This comes just one week after the U.S.-China Climate Leaders Summit in Los Angeles, where Brown announced the first cities – Zhenjiang in China and Los Angeles – to endorse the Under 2 MOU and the renewal of a landmark agreement between California and China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the first agreement between the NDRC and a subnational entity on climate change.
Brown will announce additional global signatories to the Under 2 MOU later this week at a signing ceremony in New York City.
Brown also signed the U.S.-China Governors’ Accord on Clean Energy & Economic Development. The agreement aims to advance the development and commercialization of clean energy innovation and encourages signatories to adopt measures to promote energy efficiency in buildings and industries, modernize the electrical grid infrastructure, reduce transportation emissions, promote technologies and approaches to enhance air quality and strengthen trade and investment activity that supports the commercialization and deployment of renewable energy and clean technologies.
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