Diploma-cy
As a longtime teacher, ensuring all Long Beach residents have access to the highest-quality education is a top priority for me. Our local high schools provide a world-class public education, but some students, for whatever reason, do not attain their high school diploma.
Today, I’m pleased to announce that qualified Long Beach residents can now earn an accredited high school diploma through our library system.
The Career Online High School is free and pairs each student with an academic coach who will also help with a career plan. All local residents age 19 or older with a valid library card can participate. The program is funded by the California State Library and the Long Beach Library Foundation.
Classes are taught by board-certified instructors, and students can access the online platform 24/7. Students are able to graduate in four months if they transfer enough high school credits or take up to 18 months to earn their diploma.
You can learn more about Career Online High School at any Long Beach Public Library location or by visiting lbpl.org/events/cohs . For more information on this and other Long Beach Public Library services, visit your local library, call (562) 570-7500, or go to lbpl.org .
As an educator, I am extremely proud that we are providing this new start for residents, and I want to thank our library leadership and the Library Foundation for creating this great opportunity.
Robert Garcia
Mayor
Long Beach
Dog-gone
I have been a resident of Wrigley Heights for 30 years. I have seen many changes to our neighborhood, good and bad. Putting in the dog park is a wonderful addition to our neighborhood; putting houses would not be. Why do you think it’s appropriate to move the dog park and place an additional road where the dog park is now to add 275 homes in our neighborhood? This would make the neighborhood very congested. And aren’t those grounds contaminated? Would you want to live on that? Would you want your families to live on that? Nothing needs to go on that land.
I use this park every day for my dogs. This park is important to our community; don’t be greedy and add more houses. We don’t need it. We don’t want it. Keep our neighborhood the way it is. Go build your houses somewhere else, not in our area.
I know this isn’t a powerful letter but I hope you get enough letters to where you will reconsider what you are doing to our ‘hood.’
Kelly Manlove
Long Beach
It has come to my attention that plans are in the works to build 275 new homes in the Wrigley Heights neighborhood and that the Wrigley Heights Dog Park will be sacrificed to this end. This is a wonderful and well used park that a lot of people and dogs enjoy. Long Beach is in desperate need of parks and open spaces, so it seems a shame to eliminate one so the developers can make big piles of money.
Cynthia Evans
Long Beach
[Ed. note: After submitting her letter to the Signal Tribune, Evans contacted editorial staff indicating that she had also written to Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia’s office, who responded to her, saying that, despite “rumors” of a 275-unit residential development being planned for the location where there is a dog park, no such development has been proposed to the City, and there is currently no development planned for that site.]
In a not so roundabout way…
I am against the roundabouts (“Los Cerritos neighborhood group survey says residents against proposed roundabouts,” April 26, 2013) being constructed at the intersections of 1) Country Club Drive/Pacific/36th Street and 2) Pacific and Bixby. I use these intersections almost every day. No. 1 has made a very simple intersection incredibly confusing. No. 2 has made a simple intersection into a dangerous one. It is about twice as large as it should be, sends the driver down into the gutters and brings them far too close to the curb. These frivolous additions to our neighborhood have been protested for years. I have been told there was federal money that the City had to use, or lose. There were so many repairs this money could have been used for. They should take them out, restore our safe intersections and call it a mistake and a waste of money. That would be better than the danger it is going to impose on drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians, and the lawsuits that will no doubt ensue.
Susan Stoothoof
(Website comment)
