The water treatment facility at Penmar Park will allow stormwater to be captured and used to irrigate the Venice area park, its golf course and Marine Park in Santa Monica.

The $23.6 million project is the second phase of the stormwater capture system. The first phase involved the construction of the tank.

The funding for the treatment facility comes from the $500 million Proposition O bond measure that was approved in 2004 for clean water projects. The system is expected to be completed in 2017.

“Securing our future against drought means taking every step we can to conserve water now,” Garcetti said. “By capturing and reusing stormwater for irrigation, the Penmar Park Water Quality Improvement Project will help us reduce our dependence on imported water, and give us a model for stormwater projects in L.A. for years to come.”

“Every drop of water we conserve is a down payment on a sustainable future,” Bonin said. “By collecting, treating and reusing water here at Penmar, we are showing what that sustainable future can look like throughout Los Angeles and California. I am very proud to work with Mayor Garcetti to make L.A. a leader in water conservation and forward-thinking environmental stewardship.”

“This project is a great example of what can be done when departments collaborate to achieve water conservation and cleaner rivers, lakes, and beaches,” said Heather Repenning, a member of the Public Works Commission.

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It helps the low-income homeowner maintain his or her dwelling with minor repairs and with reduced-cost building materials and supplies from a restore, according to Erin G. Rank, president and chief executive officer for Habitat’s Greater Los Angeles affiliate now based here at 8739 Artesia Blvd.

“We have a special fund to make home repairs for veterans and a fund to repair or replace mobile homes if owned by the qualifying occupant,” Rank said.

Called “Habitat for Heroes,” the veterans’ program seeks to assist, engage, mobilize and educate military members and veterans about the program and services.

“The ReStore was established in 2004 to provide a self-sustaining funding source and to provide our local communities with low-cost building and home improvement materials,” Rank said, adding that many of the items are sold at about half the retail cost.

Also for sale at the ReStore is used furniture and home appliances donated to Habitat.

Board members of the nonprofit, established in 1990, said that people were calling, asking if they could donate used items, but we could not accept them.

“The ReStore also helps the environment by keeping building materials and used items out of area landfills,” Rank said. “Building materials make up about half the tonnage taken to landfills.”

Some of the materials and building supplies, such as paint and lumber, may be used in constructing a home if it gets quality approved by cities where homes are being built.

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles and its ReStore moved to Bellflower last year from Gardena, where is was in rented quarters.

“When the Bellflower site became available, we decided it would be less expensive to own our own buildings,” Rank said.

An affiliate office and ReStore is located in Torrance.

As of July 1, both ReStores are open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Ian McGough is manager of the Bellflower store.

The ReStore will pick up donated items free of charge, except for a $5 fuel fee.

Since its founding in 1990, the local Habitat chapter has built or repaired more than 1,000 homes locally and internationally.

The organization is nationwide and has about 1,600 affiliates in the United States and in 70 other countries.

On May 16, Habitat began building six units in Downey and also has built homes in Culver City, Long Beach, Lynwood, Norwalk and Montebello.

In some cities, Habitat for Greater Los Angeles acts as a community housing development organization, which allows cities to allocate federal funds as loans for construction, to be repaid by the sale of the homes.

The latest project is in Bellflower where the City Council June 27 allocated a loan of $250,000 in federal funds for construction of six units at 8809 Ramona St. to the local Habitat affiliate, Partnership Housing Inc.

The loan is to be repaid with proceeds from the sale of the units to occupants.

Six three-bedroom, two-bathroom townhomes will be built on the currently vacant 1,690-square-foot site Habitat representative Darrell Simien, director of real estate, told the City Council.

Habitat was founded by a Christian group in 1976 but serves all low-income residents and accepts volunteer work from the entire community.

Rank has a $20 million annual budget with funding from the ReStore, cities using federal funds and private individuals, businesses and corporations.

She has a nine-member staff and help from more than 10,000 volunteers including in the ReStore and construction of the homes.

Prospective homebuyers their families must perform up to 500 hours of what Habitat calls “Sweat Equity,” working on the building, must be low-income eligible, but with good credit and able to make a small down-payment, must take two Habitat education programs and be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

“I started with Habitat as a volunteer and enjoyed the work and accepted when the board offered me a full-time position,” Rank said. “I was the [L.A.] chapter’s first paid staff member.”

The Habitat for Humanity for Greater Los Angeles board is composed of 23 members from the business and faith communities in the area. The current chairman is Bill Blake, senior vice president of Zurich North America, an insurance company.

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The board approved Arnold’s hiring at the June 28 school board meeting after a comprehensive screening and interview process. Arnold assumed the position July 1, replacing Dave LaRose, who announced his plans to retire in late February.

“We had a number of amazing candidates to choose from, and the board was unanimous in choosing Dr. Arnold,” school board President Steve Levin said. “He is a terrific, charismatic, leader who will lead [the district] in the right direction, deepening our commitment to the values and strategies which make this a great school district.”

Arnold had been serving as the assistant superintendent of educational services in the Los Alamitos Unified School District in Orange County.

He earned his bachelor of arts degree in English from UCLA, received a master’s in organizational leadership from Harvard, and a doctorate in education from USC.

Arnold is no stranger this part of Southern California. He is a graduate of Beverly Hills High School and began his career in education as an English teacher in the Los Angeles Unified and Santa Monica-Malibu Unified school districts before becoming a school principal at Crenshaw Arts Tech Charter High and Los Alamitos High School.

He also served as assistant principal at Fountain Valley High School, one of Orange County’s largest enrolled schools with more than 3,600 students.

Arnold and his wife, Claire, have two children, Isabella Juliet, 4, and Anthony Othello, 2. An active family, they enjoy traveling, eating out and outdoor adventuring whenever they get a chance.

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The council voted to move ahead with a five-year, $31 million contract with Taser International Inc. to purchase about 7,000 body cameras and 4,400 stun guns. The agreement will include equipment replacement and upgrade, as well as video storage for footage taken by the cameras.

A little over $23 million will go toward providing police officers with Sprint cell phones that they can use to review and manage their body camera video footage and perform other police duties while on the go.

The plan also includes about $4 million toward infrastructure costs for the body camera program.

City officials say the cameras, which officers can wear on their chest, will likely be given out to police officers by fiscal year 2017-18.

Los Angeles Police Commission officials say the cameras will make interactions with police officers more transparent, leading to fewer complaints from the public and potentially reducing incidences of excessive force or abuse by police officers.

Mayor Eric Garcetti, who pushed for outfitting all Los Angeles police officers with body cameras, said the council action “is an investment in my vision of a Los Angeles Police Department that leads in transparency and accountability — values that protect officers and everyday Angelenos, and that are fundamental to policing in the 21st century.”

This is a historic moment for the LAPD, and I am proud of the leadership shown by everyone who played a part in getting us to this day,” he said.

The city received a $1 million U.S. Department of Justice grant to help pay for the program.

City Council members initially put the issue on hold due to concerns about staffing costs, and it was further delayed in April when Councilman Mitch Englander called for more study of the plan’s costs and contracting process.

Englander told City News Service that following a cost-benefit analysis, he now believes the body camera plan will not only increase transparency and safety for police and the public, but “will also save taxpayer funds, as well.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has opposed the body cameras as long as city officials maintain their policy of not releasing video footage to the public, even to a victim’s family.

“A lot of the public support for body cameras hinges on the widespread belief that the public will get to see the videos, but that’s just not true,” Catherine Wagner, an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, told City News Service.

“The LAPD does not plan to release the videos.”

Wagner said the proposed purchase of the body cameras “was a big opportunity for public officials to weigh in on the policies that will govern this program,” especially through the Public Safety Committee, but that did not take place.

“One of the most troubling things here was that the city has spent a lot of time looking at the financial aspect” of the body camera plan, but did not look into “how the technology will actually be used.”

Police and city officials have argued that the video footage should be treated like any other police evidence, which is typically not disclosed except when required in court or if it serves the department’s purposes, according to Wagner. But she said body cameras were not necessarily proposed solely for use in investigations, but rather as a way to promote transparency and accountability.

Wagner noted the money spent on body cameras is “on a whole different scale of expenditure of public funds.”

“It’s a new technological tool that has been touted as changing the nature of police transparency and accountability, and as a tool for improving public trust,” she said. “If people think these body cameras will improve transparency and accountability, they’re mistaken. It’s money down the drain.”

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Barr, a Silver Lake resident and founder of charter school nonprofit Green Dot Public Schools, issued a statement on his Facebook page saying he plans to “disrupt the political establishment and turn our city around.”

“We’re going to build a grassroots movement to rally around and transform all of L.A.’s schools, end the homeless and affordability crisis, and fight for a city where every family can thrive,” he wrote.

Barr, who filed fundraising paperwork with the City Ethics Commission, has not previously held public office, though he has dipped into the political arena in other ways.

He was a co-founder of the Rock the Vote youth civics engagement campaign in the 1990s, and helped push for passage of the so-called “Motor Voter” law, which allowed people to sign up to vote at DMV offices, according to his campaign website.

Barr has appeared to center his campaign on tackling education. He said in his 15 years running charter schools, he has seen students in Los Angeles’ “highest-need areas” graduating at greater rates and going on to college, so it is frustrating “to go down the street [at LAUSD schools] and see that’s not happening.”

Barr lamented there has been “little sense of urgency” among local elected officials, including Garcetti, around the issue of education, saying most politicians have opted for “staying in their lanes.”

Some have argued that unlike in Chicago and New York, the mayor in Los Angeles does not have direct control of the school district, which limits Garcetti from doing more. But Barr said that because past mayors like Antonio Villaraigosa have made education a priority, there are now programs like Partnership for Los Angeles and an expanded charter school systems in place that have improved student achievement.

The mayor is in a better position than most to rally Angelenos and lawmakers around the issue, according to Barr.

“It’s not out of the question — it takes leadership,” he said, adding that while there is a school board, its members are relatively unknown, but “Everybody knows who the mayor is.”

“You can’t be a great city if you have a quarter million kids going to sub-par schools,” he said. “It seems to me it would be driving me crazy if I were mayor and everyday I’m plugging the holes” of problems like crime and poverty that could be fixed by creating a better education system, he said.

Barr said part of the reason he is running is because he is tired of trying to get elected officials to feel “as passionately as I feel about” education, and “as passionately I feel people in this city feel about it,” so it occurred to him that “maybe I gotta shut up and run myself.”

Mayor Eric Garcetti

Garcetti’s campaign manager Bill Carrick said the mayor has “done a lot of stuff for young people, a lot of stuff for students — meaningful things that will change young people’s lives and students’ lives.”

Carrick said Garcetti has been especially “innovative” in raising private funding to supplement the lack of public dollars for schools.

Carrick pointed to Garcetti’s initiative to raise private dollars to expand a summer youth jobs program from 5,000 to 15,000 jobs, with a goal of reaching 20,000 by another four years.

According to Carrick, Garcetti also helped two areas in the city obtain status as Promise Zones, an Obama Administration program that is expected to bring to South Los Angeles and other parts of the city more federal support and funding for “anti-poverty” programs around education, access to health foods and workforce development.

Garcetti has also embraced a program that would provide a free year of community college beginning next fall. When the mayor announced the partnership with the Los Angeles Community College District in his State of the City speech earlier this year, college district board member Scott Svonkin told City News Service that Garcetti was expected to help with a $3 million fundraising effort toward implementing the program.

The mayor also increased funding for the city’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development program 20 percent to $26 million, and has expanded these gang prevention and intervention services citywide for the first time, Carrick said.

“These are all practical and doable things that the mayor can get done here in Los Angeles, and he’s doing that,” Carrick said, adding that “the mayor is obviously going to speak out on education issues whenever he thinks he can be constructive and make a difference.”

“The reality is, much of education policy is done in Sacramento,” and with the local school district, Carrick said.

Barr, who will be going up against an incumbent who has already amassed a campaign war chest amounting to about $2.2 million — nearly $400,000 of which has been spent as of December — is the second major challenger to declare his candidacy.

In January, longtime Democratic operative Mitchell Schwartz, a political strategist for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign and a communications director in former President Bill Clinton’s administration, announced his bid for the mayor’s seat.

The 55-year-old Schwartz cited homelessness and crime as major concerns, as well as problems with aging infrastructure and what he characterized as unchecked real estate development in the city.

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Gates will open at 4 p.m. and the fireworks begin at dusk. The college’s baseball field will be used as the viewing site with residents invited to bring blankets to sit and relax on.

Carnival games, gourmet food trucks and a drawing tent will be in the adjacent parking lot.

“This will be our 50th year of bringing this family-friendly celebration to Culver City,” said event Co-Chair Xavier Nuques. “People who first came as kids will be arriving with their kids or even their grandkids.” Garden State Fireworks — one of the country’s oldest family-owned fireworks companies — will produce the show.

The suggested admission donation is $5 per person. Parking is $10 and limited. To encourage carpooling, the maximum admission donation for four or more guests in a single vehicle is $20 plus the parking fee. That means a car with six passengers will pay only $30, not $40.

Commercial vans, buses and mini-buses are excluded from the car pool deal. Guests can catch the Culver City bus to the event, which will be running on a holiday schedule.

Adding to the festive atmosphere will be a special kids zone with carnival games and a drawing with grand prizes including a big screen TV, an aerial tour of Los Angeles and a week-long luxury stay in Las Vegas.

As in past years, guests will be able to sample the fare of more than a dozen gourmet food trucks. Guests may bring picnic baskets, blankets and low chairs.

Tents and umbrellas along with pets, alcoholic beverages and smoking all are prohibited.  Limited seating and handicapped parking are available.

Live entertainment will feature the New Directions for Vets Choir — a finalist on TV’s “America’s Got Talent.” Comprised of formerly homeless and addicted veterans, the choir will also sing the national anthem as an all veteran’s color guard raises the nation’s flag. Starting at 6 p.m., Teresa James & The Rhythm Tramps will entertain the crowd with their original music.

Among the food trucks scheduled to be on hand are the Surfer Taco, the Carnival Truck, Slammin’ Sliders, A Rockin’ Ice, Mikey’s Tacos, Hang Ten Taco, the Garbage Truck, Angie’s Weiners, the Recess Truck, Boba Ni Taco, Cousins Maine Lobsters, Dogtown Dogs, Paradise Cookies, Santa Maria Barbecue, the Berlin Truck and CJ’s Wings.

Proceeds from the event will be used to help to combat child abuse and to support local youth programs including college scholarships for deserving students.

Some of the other programs support by the event are the YMCA, the Culver Youth Health Center and “Backpacks for Kids,” a program that provides supplemental weekend food and nutrition to children from needy families.

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Voters will be asked to increase Los Angeles County’s sales tax by another half-cent, and continue the existing Measure R half-cent tax indefinitely. MTA officials had originally planned to have the proposed tax hike sunset in 40 years — which would have raised $120 billion — but announced earlier this month that they plan to propose a tax without a sunset date.

The ballot measure still requires approval from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors before it can be placed on the ballot.

The permanent total one-cent sales tax for transit would create a sustained funding source for construction and operation, and would allow the acceleration of nine projects, including a five-year acceleration in planned improvements on the Orange Line, an eight-year acceleration of the northern extension of the Crenshaw/LAX rail line to Hollywood and a five-year acceleration of the Green Line extension to the Norwalk Metrolink station.

The board also approved an amendment that earmarks funding for a bus rapid transit project in the San Fernando Valley.

MTA board chair and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said that the transportation plan funded by the proposed tax hike and extension would be potentially “transformative” for Los Angeles County.

“It’s about time the county of Los Angeles with respect to mobility steps squarely into the 21st century,” he said.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, who sits on the MTA board, noted a feeling that both riders and other county residents who currently rely on cars are eager for a more complete public transportation system in Los Angeles, and they are willing to pay a higher tax for it.

“Folks have a very palpable hunger for us to do more,” he said. “I’ve sensed they have a lot of faith that we can do that.”

The two board members who voted against the measure — Lakewood City Councilwoman Diane DuBois and County Supervisor Don Knabe — had raised concerns that not enough was being done to ensure all areas of the county are equally represented among the major projects included in the transportation plan.

Most cities in Los Angeles County, including the city of Los Angeles, currently have a nine-cent sales tax.

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Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley, who received a Grammy nomination in 2015 for their country-bluegrass sound, will launch this year’s series of six concerts that will be held every Thursday through Aug. 11.

The shows are produced by Gary Mandell of Culver City’s Boulevard Music.

The six shows run the gamut of musical styles. Following Ickes and Hensley will be the world music sounds of Peter Mawanga and the Amaravi Movement July 14, high-energy Latin and salsa rhythms from Orquesta Tabaco Y Ron July 21, pop and rock classics by Big Daddy July 28, internationally renowned Irish vocalist and flutist Nuala Kennedy and her ensemble Aug 4 and soul and rhythm and blues from Missy Andersen and her band.

The concerts are held in the courtyard of City Hall, within walking distance of dozens of dining options in Culver City’s downtown area, which also features a mix of historic buildings, boutiques, theaters, galleries, and unique restaurants.

The Boulevard Music Festival is sponsored by the city of Culver City, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Culver Studios, Boulevard Music and several other local businesses and organizations.

Parking is free in designated structures for one hour. The courtyard opens at 4:30 pm. No glass containers or alcoholic beverages are allowed in the courtyard.

Information: Boulevard Music at (310) 398-2583.

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The event was moderated by “Fruitvale Station” and “Creed” star Michael B. Jordan, with participation from actress Yara Shahidi of ABC’s “Black-ish.” It was live-streamed on Facebook Live and on the U.S. Justice Department’s social media platforms.

Lynch noted that using social media is an important tool for building relationships between law enforcement agencies and the public.

“I think we can use social media to show what school officers in school are doing as well,” she said. “How are they interacting with kids? I know parents would love to see that. Other kids would love to see it. One of the things I’ve learned also on this tour and I’ve talked to young people in different communities, they talk about the fact they just want to get to know who officers are, you know, are they even people?

“It can seem like a different world. Having a way to connect and using social media is really important. It can be a great tool.”

The town hall audience included local high school and college students, Los Angeles Police Department “cadets” and 15 officers from the Hollenbeck Police Activities League and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

On June 29, Lynch met with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, Mayor Eric Garcetti and U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker for an LAPD technology briefing, discussing real-time crime analysis. Lynch was also briefed on the department’s Virtual Ride Along and body-camera programs.

“The challenge for law enforcement today, the challenge of 21st Century policing, is how to ensure that we are using the best and most innovative tools available involving technology and social media, and also protect the public to ensure the well-being of our communities,” Lynch said following the meeting with Beck, Garcetti and Decker.

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“We can’t just have moments of silence when we see American lives perish,” Rep. Xavier Becerra said. “It’s time to allow the American people to speak through their representatives and have a vote in Congress on legislation to prevent gun violence.

Becerra issued the call exactly a week after House Democrats held a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives for 26 hours to demand that House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Republicans allow an immediate vote on bipartisan, common-sense gun safety legislation to help keep guns out of dangerous hands.

The bills included the bipartisan King-Thompson legislation to expand and strengthen the background check system and the bipartisan “No Fly, No Buy” bill to keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists.

“You will never truly understand the gun violence epidemic until it happens to you,” said Mandy Pifer, the fiancé of Shannon Johnson, who was killed in the San Bernardino shooting last December. “I strongly believe that to ignore the role that guns play in this public health epidemic — homicides, suicides and terrorism — is like throwing away the last piece of a puzzle you’ve been working on for a very long time. It’s frustrating and nonsensical.”

The event was part of a National Day of Action for Common-Sense Gun Violence Prevention. Gun violence prevention advocates held sit-ins and other events throughout the country to demand that Congress act on commonsense gun violence prevention legislation.

Becerra was joined at City Hall by other members of the Southern California congressional delegation, including Reps. Maxine Waters, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Judy Chu, Karen Bass, and Alan Lowenthal; as well as Los Angeles City Councilmen Mitch O’Farrell, Paul Krekorian, Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Curren Price.

“Enough is enough. It is long past time for Congress to make sensible gun control a national priority,“ Roybal-Allard said. “Democrats are ready to vote on bills to strengthen our background check system and keep terrorist suspects from buying guns.

“In the name of my constituents, in the name of the countless American families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence, and in the name of all those who fear that a gun in the wrong hands could harm them or their loved ones, I am calling on House Republican leaders to hold a vote on these bipartisan gun bills,” Roybal-Allard added.

“Americans have had enough of mass shootings and of feeling unsafe because Congress refuses to allow a vote on even the most common sense gun restrictions — like keeping guns away from those on the No Fly List, or expanding background checks, a proposal supported by 92 percent of Americans,” Rep. Chu said.

“The problem of gun violence is more than just mass shootings. It’s a daily plague. Today, with our National Day of Action, we are speaking out as one to say that it is time for Congress to take action to end the senseless gun violence that is tearing apart our communities.”

“It is unfortunate that House Republicans have refused to take up the issue of gun violence through legislative action, particularly after it is clear that it’s what the American people want, “ Rep.Bass said. “It is critical that we continue the protest efforts started last week by House Democrats in our communities across the country to keep the drumbeat going and that is what we are all hoping to accomplish today.”

Earlier in the day, Rep. Becerra convened a roundtable with residents affected by gun violence, including representatives from Women Against Gun Violence, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Trevor Project, Equality California, Interfaith Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles, and the Wall Las Memorias Project.

“I want to thank Rep. Becerra for helping lead the fight against our nation’s gun violence crisis,” said former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, co-founder of the gun violence prevention organization Americans for Responsible Solutions, who was the victim of an assassination attempt in 2011. “Speaking is difficult for me. But I haven’t been silenced. And neither should the American people. Their representatives must vote to make our communities safer.”

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