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Life & Times Transcript
08/05/05 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- What happens when they need your property for a new school? Jim McConnell>> We need to establish that we have a higher public good that is to build schools, to relieve overcrowding, get kids back into their neighborhood in school and to exercise what really is the most solemn power that any government agency has, and that is the power to take private property for that higher public good. Val>> And then, an impressive new music venue for Orange County, but will it complement or compete with other concert halls? Paul Folino>> It's not only good for Orange County, but it's good for all of Southern California. It's going to have a tremendous impact on how people view this part of the country. Val>> It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val>> Would you be willing to sell your home or your business for the sake of a new school? Well, that's what thousands of Angelenos are being asked to do. The LAUSD is terribly overcrowded and it has to build new schools, so do property owners have a choice in the matter? Sam Louie takes a closer look at the LAUSD construction boom. [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> On June 22, the ribbon was cut in East Los Angeles for Rowan's new primary center. The school is part of a construction boom by the Los Angeles Unified School District. In fact, LAUSD will be building schools at an unprecedented rate between now and 2012. Jim McConnell is the Chief Facilities Executive for LAUSD. Jim McConnell>> We will build a total of sixty schools by the end of 2005. That's in four years, we will have built sixty schools, about sixty thousand new school seats. To put that in perspective, sixty thousand seats is Dodger Stadium. You know, go to Dodger Stadium and look around. That's sixty thousand seats. We're going to do that three times over to relieve overcrowding in Los Angeles. Sam Louie>> McConnell says the district has too many students and not enough seating for them. The district needs two hundred thousand more seats to accommodate the 750,000 student population. To bridge the gap, the district must build schools at breakneck speed, an average of twenty-two schools a year for the next seven years. Jim McConnell>> These are neighborhood schools that are safe, modern, comfortable and great environments in which to learn. It's important because they relieve schools that have been overcrowded for two or three decades. Sam Louie>> The school district's plan to build one hundred sixty new schools carries a price of nine billion dollars, but there's another cost that's harder to quantify and that's the impact on businesses and homeowners forced to move to make room for a new school. So far, school officials estimate more than fifteen hundred families and businesses have been bought out by the district. About half of the property owners agreed to sell and move, but the other half were forced to leave by eminent domain court proceedings. Jim McConnell>> We understand the difficulty that we put people through when we do this. Sam Louie>> Eminent domain is the law that allows the government to take private property for such public benefits such as roads or schools, though the government must offer just compensation. Jim McConnell>> We need to establish that we have a higher public good that is to build schools to relieve overcrowding, get kids back into their neighborhoods in school. Sam Louie>> But some people who must surrender their property worry about the district's power. Eduardo Garcia>> We feel like David and Goliath. Here's Plaza Community Center and we've got all the services that serve our families, and here's Los Angeles Unified School District which is a gigantic entity. Sam Louie>> Eduardo Garcia is the CEO of Plaza Community Center in Boyle Heights. It's a nonprofit agency that offers low-income families here childcare, domestic violence prevention and other social services. Eduardo Garcia>> Considering that we're here where we serve approximately close to fifty children at any one time, we have a waiting list of about another hundred for another year and a half, so the children here in the families are waiting to be served. Sam Louie>> But in February of 2003, Garcia received a letter notifying them that their property is needed for a new high school. The community center will have to find a new home. Eduardo Garcia>> It's not as easy to uproot us here and put us somewhere else. What do we do with the needs of the community in the area that we've been serving? [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> Garcia grew up in Boyle Heights and understands the challenge facing school officials, but the challenge he now faces is finding a new location near the people they help. Eduardo Garcia>> Our goal is to remain close by because our funds are tied to serving this particular community. This community has particular childcare needs, child development needs. Sam Louie>> Garcia says the school district is offering to help them find and pay for a property at another site. There's just no guarantee that it will be as close to its current location. Maria Cirrillo>> I live here for four years and support my kids. I live with my three kids. Sam Louie>> The school construction boom is also ousting residents. Maria Cirrillo is a single mother living in an apartment building in East Los Angeles. She and a dozen other residents will have to move out to make way for a new elementary school. The school district has offered to give her a rent subsidy for Section 8 government housing, as well as pay for relocation costs, but Maria doesn't like the idea of government-assisted housing. Maria Cirrillo>> I hear that they don't have good buildings and they don't have good neighbors. They are noisy. Sam Louie>> For Maria and other tenants, they have no choice but to eventually move. They are relieved to hear the school district plans to give up to four years' worth of rent subsidies. Jim McConnell>> We think it is a higher public good that these schools get built. They have to get built. Sam Louie>> The district has made numerous adjustments to handle overcrowding. Thousands of students are bussed hundreds of miles each day to less crowded campuses. Jim McConnell>> In 2001, when we started this, sixteen thousand kids got up earlier than they should have to every morning. They walked to their neighborhood school, but they didn't go to school there. They got on a bus and got bussed an hour or an hour and a half to somebody else's neighborhood because of overcrowding. Sam Louie>> Many schools like Rowan Elementary have switched to year-round schedules with multiple tracks, but that can result in students getting seventeen fewer days of instruction each year. Jim McConnell>> And that's really the crisis. Over the course of a student's K-12 experience, that's one full year that you didn't spend in the classroom. Sam Louie>> John Goldberg, who has been teaching for thirty-two years, says it's about time his students enjoy some of the basics of a decent campus. John Goldberg>> Grass in East Los Angeles is a rare commodity. Here we have grass and, over at the other school, kids play soccer on the hardtop. Our kindergarten yard doesn't have these beautiful things like we have behind us. Sam Louie>> But others who have to make room for the new schools are not looking forward to the upheaval. At the Plaza Community Center, Garcia wonders about the parents who rely on them for support and services. Eduardo Garcia>> Will they have to travel further? Will they have to pay more? Will they still see the same kinds of services that they've seen over the years here? Sam Louie>> There are a lot of unanswered questions, but what is certain is that many property owners will face relocation as ground is broken on more schools. The current building project is in the first of three building phases, so that means more property owners and tenants will find themselves in the same position as Garcia and Cirrillo, making a personal sacrifice for the sake of school children. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times. To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val>> If you've ever seen one, you'd remember it. It's a new way to get around, a Segway. It's a nifty cross between a scooter and a bicycle and, ever since they were invented in 2001, they've been gaining in popularity. But as Philip Bruce tells us, there might be some bumps along the Segway's road. Philip Bruce>> When Joseph Chiu heads to the office each morning in Pasadena, he always factors in plenty of extra time. It isn’t that he has far to go. It’s just that he can’t get there without stopping half a dozen times to chat with the curious onlookers. Such is life when you glide down the sidewalk on a Segway. >> Can you show us how fast it goes? Joseph Chiu>> "Sure. You go over here and back up a little bit and, see, I just lean forward and you just keep going faster and faster." Philip Bruce>> Joseph, a thirty-two year old computer engineer, has a perfectly good car, but he rarely uses it for his daily commute. The Segway allows him to breeze along up to twelve miles an hour, pollution-free and noise-free, and he never has to worry about parking. He didn’t set out to wow his fellow pedestrians or to draw crowds like some visiting celebrity, but it sure turned out that way. Is that pretty typical? I mean, do you get that kind of response a lot? Joseph Chiu>> Yeah. Well, it’s a little different today because there are a lot of kids and they’re actually less shy about asking questions. Most of the questions I get from adults are pretty much the questions that they ask also. Philip Bruce>> When a pedestrian sees you on the sidewalk, I mean, they have questions, but what are they doing? Are they jumping out of the way? What are they doing? Joseph Chiu>> It depends. A lot of people just treat me like someone that’s, you know, like someone who’s jogging might cause a person to move a little bit aside, but they don’t go completely out of the way. At the same time, I’ve also met people who didn’t know what this was and was a little fearful of it because, you know, they see me on what should be toppling over from the looks of it. Philip Bruce>> People gawk at the Segway the way your great-great-grandmother must have stared at the first horseless carriage that rolled down Main Street. There’s a real joy in watching it run. And Joseph Chiu is one of a handful of Southern Californians who ponied up the five grand to buy one. Joseph Chiu>> My birthday was coming up and I said, okay, I’m going to buy myself a birthday present and I got this and it’s working pretty well. Philip Bruce>> But regardless of the “gee whiz” factor, new technology has a way of scaring some people, especially the ones who can’t quite figure out how to regulate it. That’s what’s happening now with the Segway in cities and towns across California. Some have banned it while others have heaped on heavy restrictions on when and where to use it. >> "Now do you have a brake on there?" Joseph Chiu>> "Well, so going forwards and backwards, it’s just adding more speed. Just lean and that’s it." Philip Bruce>> Is Joseph Chiu a pedestrian or a motorist and are his fancy new wheels a potential safety hazard that must be controlled? We put those questions to a couple of local lawyers in Pasadena who’ve been trained to ponder such weighty issues. >> As long as you’re careful. Whether you’re on a bike or anything, if you’re on a public sidewalk, as long as you’re careful, you know, it’s no problem. I don’t see any problems at all. Joseph Chiu>> It looks sort of like a scooter. It’s got a platform and it’s got two wheels, but it is definitely a lot more controllable, a lot more maneuverable. You actually stop in really short distances. >> I doubt that in downtown Manhattan you would be able to use this really efficiently. However, that having been said (laughter), I can think of places where I have to park a long way away. If I had one of these, I could get from my car to a facility or a courthouse. Philip Bruce>> Joseph admits you could hop onto a Segway and start running people down just as you could on a bicycle or a skateboard. But the Segway, which has more built-in computer power than the rockets NASA sent to the moon, has some built-in safeguards. Joseph Chiu>> Especially if I like bump into people, like I’m going to do this to you right now, I’m going to put all my weight into it, okay? You can feel my weight. It’s like if I’m pushing with my legs, but it’s not like a motorcycle where I could open the throttle and just knock you over. Philip Bruce>> But if you whack me at twelve miles an hour -- Joseph Chiu>> -- if I whack you at twelve miles an hour, right, then that’s a problem, but that assumes that I don’t see you while I’m going twelve miles an hour until you suddenly appear in front of me. Philip Bruce>> There’s nothing like a hands-on ride to turn even the biggest skeptic into a true believer. Even an old dog like me can easily learn this new trick. Joseph Chiu>> Come over here and go ahead and twist it the other way. Philip Bruce>> I’ll see you later. Joseph Chiu>> (Laughter) okay. I get that a lot (laughter). Philip Bruce>> You get the sense that, if every city official took a spin on a Segway, they’d never try to ban them. In fact, they might try to ban all the cars and motorcycles and try to force all of us to commute like this. Are you aware of any bad accidents on this thing so far? Peter iNova>> The only accidents I’ve heard about are people in training and one accident in May of 2001 where a guy in Atlanta fell off of his and hurt his knee. I haven’t ever heard of an accident where somebody on a Segway has collided with a pedestrian, for instance. Philip Bruce>> Peter iNova not only rides his Segway to work, he rides it at work. He’s a creative director of a media production company in Burbank. He’s also a self-professed technology nerd, a guy who’s written books dissecting and critiquing the latest gadgets. iNova is writing a book now about the Segway. He’s even got a hard-to-find picture of a souped-up Segway the Pentagon is allegedly testing as a way to put foot soldiers on wheels. Peter iNova>> You’d think something that was so simple looking on the outside would be simple on the inside, but there is a huge number of little details and technologies all colliding together to make this thing work. Philip Bruce>> Is it a good product? Peter iNova>> It seems to be an excellent product. They’ve gone to extremes to make it safe. The person who’s on the Segway is being balanced by the machine and they’re using their own sense of balance to make it move and respond to the directions they want to go. The distance and the speed is all controlled by their own sense of balance, but underneath all of that, there’s a machine that has to figure out how to keep you from falling over in spite of yourself. Philip Bruce>> Is there anything to fear about this device? Peter iNova may not be the most objective source on that, but from his own research, cops around California aren’t the ones raising the fuss. He says the restrictions are coming mainly from City Hall types who’ve never even seen a Segway in person. Peter iNova>> What I’d like to see people do, like city governments and that kind of thing, is get one, pass it around the City Council, everybody gets to know what it’s like, take it home, show the kids, show your parents, all these bits of input, and then decide. Philip Bruce>> So far, Joseph Chiu has had only one mishap on his Segway. He hit an avocado in the driveway just as the lady next door was saying hello. Joseph dropped like a cowboy thrown from a feisty bronco. Embarrassing maybe, but not serious. He only hopes his daily commute won’t fall victim to a pile of new laws at City Hall. Joseph Chiu>> A hundred years ago, people were talking about how cars are terrible, dangerous, they’ll kill everybody, they’ll scare the horses, they’ll cause massive problems in the cities. Some people will argue that they have (laughter), but over time, people learned to work within the framework of having cars around them. People developed rules on how to operate cars and to be safe with people around them and with other cars. I think that it will take some time for the same thing to happen with the Segways. Val>> Well, since that story first aired, the Long Beach Police Department has bought a half dozen Segways to patrol crowded areas. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department has been using them for two years and they've become popular among the disabled. people who can stand, but have trouble walking, prefer them to wheelchairs. As for the laws, well, thirty-six states have passed laws dealing with Segways. In California, you can still drive one without wearing a helmet and there is no age requirement. Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times". Val>> It's Orange County's answer to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Segerstrom Hall. When it's finished, it will offer superb acoustics for classical music, but what will it mean to Orange County overall? As our Orange County reporter, Roger Cooper, tells us, it signals a cultural coming of age. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> When the Pacific Symphony prepared to perform on this evening in 2003, there were clear signs that something unusual was afoot. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> The Orange County Performing Arts Center was about to break ground on a major two hundred million dollar expansion, including a world-class concert hall and music theater. True to form, the groundbreaking was choreographed. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> Now this construction dance is just about half complete. Next door to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the new concert hall and music theater are rapidly taking shape, two hundred million dollars worth of space for the performing arts. But in these days of tight budgets, where do you get money like that for the arts? The performing arts in Orange County owe a great debt to this: an internationally known shopping center, a little place called South Coast Plaza. South Coast Plaza was built on bean fields built by Henry Segerstrom and his family who also donated some prime bean field real estate eighteen years ago as the site for the Performing Arts Center and South Coast Repertory Theatre. How good a facility is that concert hall going to be? Henry T. Segerstrom>> It's going to be the best (laughter). It's going to be the best. I say that, on the day it opens, it will be the finest concert hall in the world. Roger Cooper>> Now Henry Segerstrom has kick-started the drive for the new concert hall with a cornerstone gift of forty million dollars, the largest single charitable cash gift in the history of Orange County. Why did you give that gift? Henry T. Segerstrom>> Well, I felt that it was an opportunity of a lifetime. I just thought, Henry, you can do it now and forever enjoy it or you can just say no, I don't think I want to do it. Let somebody else do it. I'm so glad that I did. Roger Cooper>> There's a virtual tour showing what it will be like. [Film Clip] Roger Cooper>> The very first notes to be heard in the new hall will be conducted by Maestro Carl St. Clair who suited up in safety gear to take us inside. Carl St. Clair>> I've been in here several times, but my favorite place was when I actually got to stand right over there which is right where the podium is going to be. As we look out, this is going to be the stage and we're in some of the great seats. Where we're standing is where the seats are going to be, but right there where that little cutout is is where the conductor is going to stand. When I stood there and I looked up and had my arms in the air and thinking about a full orchestra there and the chorus sitting above and the entire house filled with classical music lovers and people that are just, you know, wanting to come into this new building, I thought, wow. Roger Cooper>> There's another major component to this expansion made possible by another major gift. Broadcom co-founder, Henry Samueli and his wife Susan, new owners of the Ducks hockey team, gave ten million dollars to build Samueli Theatre, a more intimate venue for smaller ensembles. The west coast will soon have two world-class concert halls. The new Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall sits just about forty miles away from Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, but Segerstrom says they won't be in competition. Henry T. Segerstrom>> I am so pleased with that and I have informed my friends in Los Angeles that I think, now that we have four great halls in Southern California, it's time for us to start marketing our joint assets world-wide in cultural tourism much as New York does. Mayor Bloomberg of New York said that cultural tourism was the second largest industry in New York after finance and Southern California can reap the benefits of this as well as share our facilities with the world. Roger Cooper>> Orange County's Pacific Symphony currently performs in this hall, which will continue as the venue for special events, ballet and touring Broadway shows. [Film Clip] Paul Folino>> In the next week or two, they start laying sixty thousand square feet of glass on the front façade of this building. Roger Cooper>> In his day job, Paul Folino is CEO of Emulex Corporation, but he's also CEO of the Performing Arts Center board. Paul Folino>> In one location, they can see Broadway, they can see ballet, they can see the greatest opera in the world, they can see jazz, they can see pop. Once again, the whole goal here was to create one-stop-shopping where you can get the greatest, finest performers in the world in one location and I think it's not only good for Orange County, but it's good for all of Southern California. It's going to have a tremendous impact on how people view this part of the country. Roger Cooper>> Fine arts makes you a better person? Henry T. Segerstrom>> I think so because I think you appreciate the accomplishments of generations of talented human beings and the marvelous contributions that the geniuses of the past give to us today. Roger Cooper>> What do you think of the music in here right now? Carl St. Clair>> Oh, it's music to my ears. Every time I hear a clanking or a hammer or a drill or see these sparkling lights over here, that's just one notch closer to opening night. Roger Cooper>> There's lots of work still to be done, but the day is coming in September 2006 when the expanded Orange County Performing Arts Center can take its bow. In Orange County, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times. [Film Clip] Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val>> Next time on Life and Times -- It's a tough choice with no clear favorite: preserve a historic dam or help endangered fish? >> We've gone from fifty thousand steelheads in Southern California to less than two hundred. They are on the brink of extinction. It's time for us to decide. Do we save them for our children or do we wave goodbye? Val>> That's next time on Life and Times. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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