New fire stations could mean temporary, interim fire stations
If a new Redondo Beach fire station, or two, come about, with a potential bond now under consideration by the city council, one thing to decide will be what to do during construction.
Patrick Butler, Redondo Beach interim fire chief, has experience with this.
He worked for the City of Los Angeles Fire Department for 32 years, and led a bond education effort in 2000, which led to 19 new fire stations getting built.
“It’s not uncommon to set up a temporary station,” he said, of locating a park or other public land to install modular trailers for living units and a canopy for fire trucks and ambulances.
The interim Redondo Beach chief said that each of the 19 new stations in Los Angeles replaced a station about as old as Redondo’s two stations, “if not older.”
The chief noted that the two local 1950s/’60s facilities were built in an era when the assigned firefighters were responding to about 200 calls per year. Now the number is 8,000 calls per year, as a result of population growth and fire departments taking on more paramedic calls.
If new stations are built in Redondo, Butler said, they would likely be designed to be expandable.
The city council voted last week to have its consultant, Griffin Structures (Irvine), deliver cost estimates for expanded square footage of two reconstructed fire stations, and for the city to hire a firm to survey voters on the potential size of a bond, and what it would include.
City staff will report back to the council in early July.
“The (consultants’) input is going to be very critical in determining the best policy option for the council, and then putting it before voters,” Butler said. “I definitely support a bond but it’s not my decision, it’s the voters’ decision.”
Newsom signs Muratsuchi bill on Transitional Kindergarten assessments
On Tuesday, June 18, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill authored by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) to exempt students in Transitional Kindergarten from evaluations using the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC).
The reason for the exemption, according to proponents, is that the ELPAC is not developmentally appropriate for four-year olds, and has not been proven valid and reliable for them as required by federal and state law.
“Currently, the state is evaluating our youngest English-learner students with an assessment not designed for them, leading to an over-identification of our 4-year-olds as English learners,” Muratsuchi said in a statement. “Educators around the state have expressed frustration with this requirement, reporting that the assessment does not yield useful information about children’s language proficiency, and that it causes some of them considerable distress.”
Now that the bill has become law, Muratsuchi said the California State Board of Education will take up the matter of how to properly assess Transitional Kindergarten students.
“As the parent of bilingual children and a dual language learner myself, I deeply appreciate Governor Newsom, Assemblymember Muratsuchi, and California’s legislators for supporting our young multilingual learners by championing AB 2268,” said Patricia Lozano, Executive Director of Early Edge California, an advocacy group for families and early learning teachers. “This bill will create more supports tailored to their needs and strengths, so they can learn and thrive from the early years onward.” ER
