First grade students at the book fair (left to right): Adina Eastman, Hayden
Hartman, Seneca Weiss, Ella Silveira, Daniella Rabbanian, Doreen Berukhim
Students celebrate reading at book fair
Beverly Hills students are browsing collections of books at their respective book
fairs this week, a joint effort between each of the elementary schools and Scholastic.
Beverly Vista, E1 Rodeo, Hawthorne, and Horace Mann are hosting their book fairs
Monday through Friday during regular school hours on campus.
Hawthorne school is clearing its library and filling the shelves with brand new selec-
tions for children and parents to peruse throughout the week.
The fairs are accompanied by visitations from different published authors speaking
about their literary endeavors.
The fairs cater to the elementary schools' ongoing enthusiasm in regards to books.
"In school and in the elementary level especially, they're still reading books in
class, they still have class libraries, they're still encouraging kids to read books," said
Hawthorne PTA president Lorraine Eastman. "Little kids like to flip a page and see a
picture. There's just something about that that may not totally go out of style just yet."
briefs cont. from page 3
an amendment to Title 2, Chapter 2, Article
107(E) in the municipal code, allowing a
commission member to serve for longer than
one year as chair in their second term of ser-
vice, should the first two year term of service
not allow completing a full year as chair.
The article currently bars members of a
commission from serving in excess of one
year during any single term on the commis-
sion or committee.
Such an amendment would allow Pressman
to serve as chair until September 2014, com-
pleting a second year as chair at the time
of the Public Works Commission's annual
rotation.
Pressman joined the Public Works
Commission in April 2011 and was appoint-
ed as chair in September2012. His first term
ended in April 2013. Under the current code,
Pressman would only be allowed to serve as
chair until April 2014.
As a result, the likely candidates for
chair are the commissioners appointed in
November 2013, having gained five months
experience learning the department, its pro-
cesses, programs and projects.
The council agreed to discuss the needs of
all the commissions in terms of size and term
length at a future meeting.
"I think we have to do this in an orderly
way or we're going to have every commis-
sion coming and saying, 'I'm a valuable part
of the commission and I'm sure future com-
missioners are, and I want to stay longer,'"
Councilmember Willie Brien said. "And I'm
sure that they would. And we're going to be
Page 4 • Beverly Hills Weekly
sitting here saying, 'Well we did it for that
commission. We're not going to clo it for this
commission. And we did it for a commission-
er and not this commissioner,' and I just think
it puts us in the middle of some challenges."
Celebrating the centennial
with 100 Chinese couples
The Beverly
Hills City
Council
discussed
bringing
100 Chinese
couples to be
married in
Beverly Hills
as a part of the
Beverly Hills
centennial
JimmyDelshad celebration at
their study ses-
sion on Tuesday.
It would involve a ceremony at a Beverly
Hills hotel, followed by a parade down
Rodeo Drive - closing the street for a few
hours in November 2014.
The event was proposed by former Mayor
Jimmy Delshad, who had married many
international couples during his mayorship.
He aims to bring 100 couples to signify a
century.
"As long as we're doing a centennial,
why not do it a little bit bigger and a little
more international?" Delshad said. "Since
I became mayor, I started a lot of relation-
ships with China, Israel, and others. I thought
Office of Emergency Management stresses disaster
preparedness training
The Beverly Hills Office of Emergency Management hosted citizen's emergency
response training from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday at the Beverly Hilton
Hotel - for the first time teaching business owners how to properly care for their
employees and customers in the event of a disaster.
50 people attended - from hotels, schools, the medical community, the entertainment
industry, and other major businesses in the Beverly Hills area, according to Director of
Emergency Management Pamela Mottice Muller.
Classes were taught by Muller, members of the fire department, and community
volunteers certified by FEMA as emergency response trainers.
The classes teach students how to extinguish a fire, first aid, search and rescue, how
to handle a terrorist attack or an active shooter, how to organize teams, how to under-
stand the psychology of disaster victims, among many other things.
In the event of a disaster, "Residents and businesses are reminded they need to be
on their own for three to five days," Muller said. "The government cannot take care of
how many millions of people. People need to take care of themselves. They need to
store food. They need to store water. They need to have supplies. They need to have
medication. People need to have their gas tanks above half a tank. Look at the people
hit with a tornado in Illinois. Look at the people in the Philippines. The three likely
disasters in the city of Beverly Hills are an earthquake, a terrorist attack, or an urban
wild land fire."
Muller says there are about 250,000 people in the city of Beverly Hills during the
day - a lot of people who would have needs in the event of a disaster, Muller said.
"We're trying to create a culture of preparedness," Muller said. "That earthquakes
will hit, that tornados will come. And that when they do, we're a nation that's prepared.
We're a state that's prepared. We're a county that's prepared. The city of Beverly Hills
- we're prepared."
The Beverly Hills Office of Emergency Management plans to hold additional train-
ing for residents in the spring time, over a six week period - a two hour class each
week. The dates are yet to be announced. Those interested can call (310) 281-2754.
China is growing so well and it's also open-
ing its borders for people to come out and
visit other countries and the idea came why
not make this something that would be
interesting for Beverlyans and would put
Beverlyans also more on the circuit of being
very friendly to other countries?"
Council members expressed their approval
of the vision, though City Council member
Nancy Krasne expressed concern with its
potential resemblance to other mass wed-
dings.
"This,isn't going to look like a Moon wed-
ding is it - Sun Myung Moon where he takes
a thousand couples, puts them in a room, and
marries them?" Krasne said. "I don't want it
to look like we're doing a Moon wedding.
So it really has to be super elegant, before I
could go for this."
In response to Delshad's request for a let-
ter of endorsement from the city of Beverly
Hills so as to bring sponsors from China on
board in order to fund the event, Mayor John
Mirisch expressed the importance of involv-
ing the Beverly Hills Conference (CVB) and
Visitors Bureau as well as the Rodeo Drive
Committee for their official endorsement of
the event.
"If we're endorsing something on any
level, I think it's important we know who
the sponsors are, especially when it comes to
a country we don't know so well," Mirisch
said. "I think we need some control over that.
But I'm comfortable if it goes through the
CVB. I believe it should go to the CVB board
and the Rodeo Drive Committee as well. We
should get their official endorsement of it.
They should be involved. China is such an
important part of the CVB's work plan these
days that we need to make sure that anything
we do, whether it's official, semi-official,
quasi-official - dovetails into what their
plans are and their entire work plan."
The City's projected expenses amount to
$13,000, according to Beverly Hills Deputy
City Manager Cheryl Friedling - including
