News Articles

The School District is mourning the passing of Armond Fields, a longtime school volunteer, who died peacefully at his home in Culver City on Sunday. The cause of death was metastatic colon cancer. He was 77.

Twelve-year-old Stephanie Finley just passed through one of the most exciting weekends of her life, according to her mother.

[Editor’s Note: This is the second of two parts. Part 1, “A Child Actor’s Paradise — They’re Playing Little Shop of Horrors This Weekend,” ran last Friday, Aug. 15.]

As Tuesday’s deadline approached for the 60-day public comment period on strongly accelerated drilling in the Baldwin Hills oil field, City Councilman Andy Weissman still was industriously sorting through a welter of esoteric, technical data.

When Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City) knocked on Brotman Medical Center’s front door at the noon hour today, he nearly was blown down the steps from the blitz of complaints and pleas that officials directed at his colleagues in the state legislature and about the “forbidding climate” in California for the acute care industry.

When I walked into the darkened auditorium at Hamilton High School yesterday morning, friendly feelings began rushing back in lapping waves — the cast from the marvelous Children’s Civic Light Opera was onstage, swirling through one more dress rehearsal before unfurling their latest production tonight, The Little Shop of Horrors, launching a 3-night-and-day run on the Hami campus.
Every late summer about this time, the hearts of 30 of West L.A.’s most promising performers — from 7 years old to 17 — start beating even faster than usual.

West Los Angeles College, with the support of the Dolores Huerta Labor Institute, has added a new course exploring the social and political history of working people in California through films, literature and poetry.

If you attend meetings of the Culver City Democratic Club for a few months, the feisty sounds and the deserved influence of the diminutive Lee Welinsky quickly become apparent.

As he pushes through the doorway leading down a corridor to middle life, Chip Netzel, tall and square-shouldered, retains all that matters of his athletic profile. Silhouetted against the mid-morning summer sunshine, starting with his nearly permanent baseball cap, Mr. Netzel looks like the classic Little League coach/promoter that he is, standing on the sidelines of the adjoining baseball diamonds at the top of Bill Botts Field, overlooking a large swath of Culver City.

In dribbles, they came last evening.

Curiosity was the motivation, they said.

In silence, they moved from easel to easel in the hollow, unaesthetic lobby of 3855 Hughes Ave., across the street from the classy Kirk Douglas Theatre.