Surgery for Kronenthal

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

Syd Kronenthal, the mostly widely loved and longest serving official in the history of Culver City, is in Hollywood Kaiser Hospital this afternoon awaiting triple-bypass surgery. He is believed to be 94 years old. “The surgery could be today, tomorrow, Saturday or Monday,” Mr. Kronenthal said at the lunch hour as a doctor was being selected. “But it will be very soon.” The former Parks and Recreation Dept. director, who served 53 years, never actually has retired, and he has kept himself superbly conditioned throughout his life. Mr. Kronenthal did not realize he had a problem until yesterday. When he checked into the hospital for his periodic treadmill test, irregularities were detected and he was sent to the cardiac unit. There it was determined that three arteries were “pretty clogged.”

Scant Comfort for a Harassed Owner

Ari L. NoonanSports


I doubt that Les Surfas drew meaningful solace from the two most recent stories covering his fight with City Hall over whether the city gets to seize his property for redevelopment purposes. Yesterday’s story in the Food Section of the Los Angeles Times (“Will Surfas stay or will it go?”)underscored the little-appreciated universality of the Surfas businss. The headline accents a critical point made in the second sentence of the story. The reporter refers to Mr. Surfas’ “eponymous restaurant supply and gourmet food store.” Both sides of Mr. Surfas’ company are very large deals to people thousands of miles off. This may come as a bulletin to some natives or residents. When visiting the power alleys of Our Town, I do not remember Mr. Surfas’ name surfacing as a major player in this community.

Fiddler, Fiesta and Family Fair

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED


A Sinking Feeling

If you ever have driven away from home with all but one of your children, you know the feeling. Sitting in the cool darkness of the auditorium at Hamilton High School last Sunday afternoon, I was reviewing ways to include the names of the entire cast from the Children’s Civic Light Opera production of Fiddler on the Roof.” Fortunately, I found a foolproof method for rounding up all three dozen names. Unfortunately, the foolproof method sprang a leak. Two names were inadvertently omitted: Eden Hankin and Samantha Garfield. Sorry, ladies. For next summer’s play, Ms. Hankin and Ms. Garfield will be mentioned first so that two different persons can be overlooked…

Now You Know Why the Academy Was Run Out of Town

Ari L. NoonanSports

I was powerfully unimpressed with the two professionals whom Katia Bozzi, the founder of the Star Prep Academy, chose to represent her in Monday night’s showdown fight against the Redevelopment Agency. Their sad-sack performances would stamp her ability to evaluate personnel as questionable at best. Based only on their appearances at the speaker podium, a reasonable man can take one step back and say, “Ah, Mrs. Bozzi, now I understand why you lost.” Ostensibly, the Star Prep Academy was issued a 90-day cease-and-desist order to shut down/quit its facility for ignoring the city’s building and safety regulations. City Hall, adopting a spurned lover’s role, wrote letters, made telephone calls and met twice with Academy people. Each time, City Hall’s pleas to conform were couched in the cuddly, cutesy spirit of “oh, pretty please obey our rules.” Each time, the Academy, which seems to be a sturdy, worthy enterprise, apparently blew them off until very recently when someone got the message this was serious.

School Founder Was Hospitalized

Ari L. NoonanSports


Hours after last night’s Redevelopment Agency meeting, when the founder of the Star Prep Academy was ordered to close/move her beloved school(see story above), she was hospitalized with a stroke, according to a friend. Katia Bozzi already was recovering from a stroke suffered three weeks ago when she was felled again. This would explain why no one from the Bozzi family was on the campus, inside the Star Eco Station, when I dropped by this afternoon. When I mentioned to Mrs. Bozzi after the Agency meeting that I intended to visit the Academy today, she said, prophetically, she still would be too upset to talk. But that did not discourage me. I have spoken with a number of people in an effort to gain a better understanding of the three members of the Bozzi family, — mother, 30-year-old son Erick and 27-year-old daughter Katiana — who operate the non-profit Academy and the non-profit Star Eco Station on Jefferson Boulevard. No one seemed shocked that the apparently first-rate private school is being thrown out of its building, and probably out of Culver City. The most common explanation was that there isn’t a strong business mind in the family. “Katia is an educator, a sincere person, and most of all an idea person,” a longtime friend said. “She gets the ideas, and then she tells people to carry them out. Her job is not figuring a strategy. That’s what she pays other people to do. The Bozzis do important good in this and many other communities with their education programs, but they are not detail oriented.”

Star Prep Academy Ordered Shut Down

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

On the eve of a new school term, the Redevelopment Agency surprisingly took a much stiffer stand against non-compliance last night than City Hall has, voting narrowly, 3 to 2, to close down the controversial Star Prep Academy. Choosing an exceptional approach, the city had recommended that the Agency put aside the recently adopted prohibition against allowing schools to operate in the light industry-dominated Jefferson Corridor. The Agency, however, firmly said no. For reasons that included student safety and long-term defiance of city regulations, Agency Chair Steve Rose, Carol Gross and Alan Corlin resisted lawyerly pleas by the Star Prep Academy. All three were unwavering in their criticism of the school’s posture throughout the past year. Chris Jones, the school’s attorney, argued that the environmental-centric private school diligently was scurrying to comply. But Agency members who favored shutting down the unusual school contended that after a year of fruitless dickering between City Hall and the school, the small moves underway represented too little, too late. In what was seen as a compassionate gesture by the Agency, the 43-student Academy was given 90 days to move out of its equally controversial location, the philosophically-related Eco Star Station. The Station/museum is an environmental science and wildlife rescue center. Two neighbors of the Star Eco Station/Star Prep Academy, Moldex Metric and M-E Engineers, filed complaints with City Hall about traffic-related dangers to students in a neighborhood formally designated for light industry and manufacturing.

Want to Start Your Own School? Here’s the Easy Way

Ari L. NoonanSports

Based on our latest interpretation from City Hall: This may be the most valuable tip you receive this afternoon. If you live or work in Culver City and you want to start your own school — in your basement, in your sewing room, on the front porch — do it. Now. All you have to do is round up the children, 1 or 2 or 50 of them. Don’t worry abut punishment. City Hall no longer seems to take the permit process very seriously. I would assume, then, anyone who wants to open a school can. The school owner need not worry about the annoying, time-consuming prospect of following the city’s ordinances or California’s building and safety codes. No more standing in nagging lines at City Hall. Just fling open your doors and listen to your cash register start ringing. The case of the several-year-old Star Prep Academy — which may have followed this path — comes up at Monday night’s Redevelopment Agency meeting at 7 in Council Chambers. The Agency will be asked to make a decision about whether to punish the Star Prep Academy, which operates inside of the Star Eco Station, and evidently never has bothered to pull the necessary paperwork required of those operating a business in Culver City. Vice Mayor Alan Corlin said this afternoon he intends “to go against” the Academy, unless he learns “new and pertinent” information to the contrary. Another official inside of City Hall said the Academy should be closed, at least until it meets the permit requirements.

All the Boys and Girls Looked Jewish

Ari L. NoonanOP-ED

Children’s Civic Light Opera production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” partially benefiting the Museum of Tolerance, plays Friday, Aug. 18, at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 19, at 2 and 7:30, and Sunday, Aug. 20, at 2, in the Norman J. Pattiz Auditorium at Hamilton High School. Preview: Sunday, Aug. 13, at 1:30, in the Museum of Tolerance Theatre, at the corner of Pico Boulevard and Roxbury Drive. Dress rehearsal: Thursday, Aug. 17, 5 p.m., Hamilton High. www.CCLO.org or  310.478.5886.  
 
For an hour and a half this morning while watching the utterly brilliant cast of the Children’s Civic Light Opera rehearse, I thought I had fallen asleep and the whole world had become Jewish. Every single one of the 40 boys and girls I watched sweeping through their paces for the production of “Fiddler on the Roof” two weekends from now looked Jewish. Some are. Some are not. But they had me convinced. They looked so authentically Jewish that I will be disappointed if I do not see them in my synagogue on Saturday morning.

Time Out, on Stage of All Places, for Modesty

Ari L. NoonanA&E

[Editor’s Note: Earlier story follows a review of yesterday’s closing “Fiddler on the Roof” performance by the Children’s Civic Light Opera.]
 

Modesty is the most rarely displayed moral value in these exhibitionist times. My wife and I caught a fast-moving glimpse of modesty at the end of yesterday afternoon, following the final performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” by the extraordinary Children’s Civic Light Opera cast at Hamilton High School. At the conclusion, the anxious, proud, thoroughly involved audience was asked to remain seated, no cinch to happen given the heat of their enthusiasm. Flowers and tributes would be distributed to the sung and publicly unsung. This is a sacred tradition for stage productions not to mention summer camps. After watching them — and their personalities — in rehearsal and now in production, I can say without fear of rebuttal that these 40 students between the ages of 7 and 17 represent the closest you can come to perfect children without converting them into mindless puppets.

Friends of the Library tribute to Peter Pan

Ari L. NoonanNews

peterpan.jpg

Presenting your City Council as you never before have seen them — at Saturday night’s Friends of the Library tribute to Peter Pan at Vets Park . From left, Mayor Gary Silbiger, Vice Mayor Alan Corlin , Carol Gross, Steve Rose and Scott Malsin as they appeared in the  Costume Parade. They are expected to take on a more conservative appearance tonight at 7 in Council Chambers at the Redevelopment Agency meeting. On Saturday, Council members joined more than 500 persons at the Friends of the Library’s giant Evening Under the Stars tribute that wrapped up this summer’s Culver City Reads program.