City Council changes speed limits to aid traffic law enforcement, improve safety

More than a hundred streets across Los Angeles will have new speed limits starting Sunday.

LA City Council members unanimously voted to raise and lower speed limits for roughly 114 miles of streets in the greater Los Angeles area Dec. 11. City officials adjusted these limits partly to make sure they are still compatible with current traffic patterns. The ordinance will go into effect Jan. 27.

Streets, where police were prohibited from using radar for detecting speeding, will become eligible for radar enforcement after their speed limits increase, according to the LA City Council Transportation Committee report. The introduction of radar enforcement will likely increase police officers’ ability to ticket drivers for traffic infractions, according to the report.

The speed limits for around 102 miles of streets will increase by 5 or more miles per hour. However, the limits for 12 miles of streets, some of which are in the Westwood area, will decrease. The speed limits for the section of Bel Air Road between Rial Lane and Sunset Boulevard, and the section of Bellagio Road between Bel Air Road and Moraga Drive will be lowered from 30 to 25 miles per hour. The section of Westholme Avenue from Hilgard Avenue to Wilshire Boulevard will also be lowered by the same amount.

City Councilmember Paul Koretz, who represents the area including Westwood, said traffic laws intended to prevent speed traps in rural communities were applied to city spaces in LA many years ago, causing an array of unforeseen issues like having to increase speed limits to ensure law enforcement can detect speeding infractions.

“Our big problem is legislation at the state that was passed a number of years ago to deal with rural speed traps,” he said.

Koretz added the speed limits should be changed to match the current speeds of drivers.

“So what the law says is you have to base your current speed limit on roughly what people are driving now,” Koretz said. “What that means is if you haven’t done a speed survey of what people are driving now and raise the limit (to) nowhere (near) that existing speed, you can’t enforce and you can’t use radar.”

Koretz said this puts council members in a somewhat awkward position, as they have to raise speed limits to enforce traffic regulations for speeding.

“Ultimately, what I think happens is you raise the speed limit, people go a little bit over the new speed limit and then you do another rating a while later and you move the speed limit up higher,” he said.

Cynthia Mendoza, a third-year history student who commutes from San Gabriel, said she is concerned that raising speed limits would potentially endanger more pedestrians.

“I’ve seen some scary close calls with pedestrians. So raising the speed limit even 5 miles per hour, I’m sure drivers are going to take advantage of that,” Mendoza said. “That might make the difference between them being able to stop or those just being close calls, or not.”

Chloe DeRoon, a third-year psychology student, said she had mixed thoughts on the change.

“I guess outside of rush hour and traffic times, I’d be okay with the new speed limit because I have kind of a need for speed,” DeRoon said.

Koretz said he was also concerned about the increased speed limits’ possible effects on pedestrian safety.

“It’s all hard to say; I mean, the faster you drive the more likely a pedestrian fatality is to occur. If we raise the speed limit, it’s to be able to enforce and use radar and give tickets for speeding,” Koretz said. “It will reduce the number of people that go far above the speed limit, but it may also increase the average speed in the area.”

University police Lt. Kevin Kilgore said he supported lowering the speed limits for some of the streets in Westwood because he thinks it will make streets safer for pedestrians.

“In some of the cases, the speed is being lowered and I think that’s a good thing, especially on Westholme Avenue between Hilgard and Wilshire … because that’s a high residential area with a lot of pedestrian traffic with people walking to and from different businesses and UCLA from their homes on the east side of campus,” he said.

Kilgore also said he was uncertain whether the changes would increase the number of tickets issued in Westwood.

“I don’t think you’re going to see much of a change anyway. We don’t have a great area that speeding can be assessed here around campus. Five miles per hour of a change does not make a significant difference to an officer who’s writing a ticket,” he said.

However, Andrew Thomas, executive director of the Westwood Village Improvement Association, said he thinks the changes will effectively increase the number of tickets issued and thus revenue for the city.

“I think the consequences will be the same for students and nonstudents alike. More tickets will be issued,” he said. “The only difference will be in the capacity for students to pay the tickets.”

UCLA faculty members said they think the city should adjust street design and structure as well rather than just speed limits.

Walter Okitsu, a lecturer of civil and environmental engineering, said he thinks traffic engineers should design roads to promote slower driving before speed limits are reduced.

“Traffic engineers look to solve speeding problems by designing streets so that motorists are less enticed to drive at high speeds,” Okitsu said. “After speed-reduction modifications are applied to the roadway, the posted speed limits could be lowered if the next speed survey showed motorists driving slower.”

Ryan Snyder, a lecturer of urban planning and member of the North Westwood Neighborhood Council, said the way that streets are designed has much more influence on traffic speed than speed limit regulations.

“The type of investments I would like to see in Westwood Village are things like more bicycle lanes, for example. They narrow the field of streets and provide some level of space for people to ride their bicycles as well,” Snyder said. “Things like extending curves out and making crosswalks with more visible margins are also helpful.”

Snyder said he thinks curvature extension and increased pedestrian visibility in Westwood Village would effectively help reduce speed limits in the future.

“So when we extend the curves out, pedestrians are crossing the streets in a much more visible location, but it also turns to slow the cars down, especially in a place like Westwood Village where there are many people walking,” he added.

Thomas said he thinks drivers should follow the speed limits to keep others safe.

“My advice for all commuters is to obey the laws of the road. Driving a vehicle is a great responsibility,” he added. “The laws exist for a reason. Obey them so people in other cars, on bikes, on scooters and on foot can all be safe.”

UCLA gymnastics receives highest total score of the season, third perfect 10

Sophomore Nia Dennis leaped up to hug Madison Kocian before the rest of the Bruins swarmed her.

The junior – coming off an injury from last season – scored a perfect 10 on the uneven bars.

“I knew that the right timing would come eventually,” Kocian said. “It’s a long season, so I wasn’t trying to be too perfect at the beginning of the season.”

No. 2 UCLA gymnastics (2-0, 1-0 Pac-12) defeated No. 19 Arizona State (1-1, 0-1) in the Bruins’ second home matchup of the year Monday. UCLA outscored Arizona State 197.775 to 196.125 with over 10,000 Bruin fans in attendance at Pauley Pavilion.

The Bruins’ score of 49.700 on the uneven bars was their highest score of the season on the event and their best event score of the meet, despite an early fall by Dennis.

“A lot of us are so competitive that it makes us more fired up,” Kocian said. “Personally, I just told myself, ‘Just do it for the team’ and it gets (me) out of (my) head. That’s what motivates us to do even better when you have a teammate that makes a small mistake. We’ve got their back.”

Though Kocian scored the only 10 of the afternoon, several Bruins came close. Dennis posted a 9.950 on vault, while freshman Norah Flatley and junior Kyla Ross garnered a 9.975 and a 9.950 on bars, respectively.

On floor, the top-ranked Bruins recorded a 49.650 overall, after three 9.950s from Ross, freshman Margzetta Frazier and senior Katelyn Ohashi.

Ohashi’s perfect-10 performance last weekend went viral, setting high expectations for her routine. Coach Valorie Kondos Field said Ohashi’s routine had to be simplified after the Collegiate Challenge as its level of difficulty had started at an 11 instead of a 10.

“I feel like there was a bit of added pressure,” Ohashi said. “I tried not to let it get to me because I have the same mindset every time I go into a competition. Something never goes the same twice, so you have to work with whatever you have.”

Vault was the Bruins’ lowest-scoring rotation for the second time this season. After the first five gymnasts did not score above a 9.875, Dennis had to adapt and change her routine, doing a simpler full twist rather than 1 1/2 twists to have a smaller margin for error.

“She wanted to do the 1 1/2,” Kondos Field said. “We put her (at the end of the rotation) knowing that if all five hit she would do the 1 1/2. But since (they) didn’t hit, we asked her to do a full.”

The Bruins will next face Stanford on Sunday.

Track and field opens season with strong showing in Albuquerque

The UCLA track and field team officially opened its season with 15 top-three finishes.

The full Bruin squad traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to compete at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Collegiate Invitational on Friday and Saturday after the team’s throwers opened their season a week ago at the NAU Friday Night Duals in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Standout performers for the women’s team were sophomore thrower Alyssa Wilson, who brought home two first-place finishes in the shot put and weight throw, and redshirt senior pole vaulter Elleyse Garrett, who finished first in the pole vault.

Wilson and redshirt senior thrower Ashlie Blake threw approximately 10 feet further than the third-place finisher in the shot put, which was the same distance between the third and 21st place finishers.

Garrett’s first-place finish comes on the heels of nearly a year away from competition, as she redshirted during the outdoor season last year.

“I know I have a lot to improve on; the goal of the first meet is to kind of figure everything out,” Garrett said. “After redshirting, I’m really looking forward to coming back, competing and having fun while doing it.”

On the men’s team, senior jumper CJ Alumbres placed first in the triple jump. Freshman jumper Sean Lee, redshirt senior thrower Dotun Ogundeji and senior thrower Justin Stafford joined him as the other field athletes to earn top-two finishes, in the high jump, shot put and weight throw, respectively.

For the men’s track athletes, freshman sprinter Seth Holloway, senior sprinter Cameron Stone and redshirt junior distance runner Millen Trujillo earned second-place finishes in the 60-meter dash, 400m dash and mile run, respectively.

Track and field director Avery Anderson said he was pleased with the progress the team’s jumpers have made but is looking to maintain constant improvement for the entire team.

“We had a couple of good performances out of the meet; (Alumbres) jumped well and (Garrett) jumped well,” Anderson said. “First meet out, the jumpers had a solid meet; for everyone else, it’s a matter of, ‘You won’t run your best the first meet,’ so I’m not going to place as much of an emphasis on times or marks right now.”

Alumbres said he also was focused on incremental, weekly improvement and that he was looking forward to improving on his opening marks as the season progresses.

“I’m happy with the win, but I was expecting a better mark,” Alumbres said. “This was one of those meets where I have to take it like it’s practice and move on. It’s my last year, so I have high expectations for myself.”

UCLA will compete at the Dr. Sander Columbia Challenge in New York City on Jan. 25 and 26.

Jazz and hip-hop fusion collaboration to play at the Fowler Museum

The members of Solea first got together at a co-op party last year.

The jazz band comprises current and former UCLA students – Sean Lee, Hunter Mee-Lee, Lancelot Chu, Jordan Avesar and Kyle Frankhuizen. The members have been playing together since May and will now perform jazz fusion music at the Fowler Museum at UCLA on Wednesday for a Fowler Out Loud event. Drawing on their knowledge and background in jazz music, the band also plays live backup for other genres, such as hip-hop and rock, said Mee-Lee, a third-year gender studies student.

“What I like about jazz is that it gives you the baseline,” Mee-Lee said. “And I think just having all of us with this kind of synergy is what makes the band work.”

All of the band members have a strong connection to jazz through listening, studying and playing the genre, said Lee, an alumnus. And while they are listed as a jazz band, they still perform more than just the single style, having performed several other genres. Though the band is rooted in jazz, Lee said, they now often play hip-hop due to a partnership with the hip-hop collective Adobe House.

Adobe House was founded in Tucson, Arizona, and creates music videos, graphic art and YouTube content. Musically focused on hip-hop and R&B, Adobe House shifted their operation to Los Angeles last year, where they connected with Solea. Jonathan Benn, one of the founders of Adobe House, said he has been friends with Lee since kindergarten. They now collaborate to create music that combines jazz and other styles, mainly hip-hop, which Benn said fits well with their original hip-hop direction.

“The band guides the directions of the main artists because it is so good,” Benn said. “They’re all talented musicians by themselves, and when they get together as a group, it’s just ridiculous.”

Mee-Lee said the connection among genres makes jazz adaptable to styles like R&B and soul, making the transition between music styles more natural. Despite jazz and hip-hop sounding like two different styles, Lee said the band members see a clear connection between the genres. He said jazz provides the musical foundation for hip-hop, which originally used many jazz and soul samples. Sampling is the reuse of existing music, which is common in hip-hop and necessary to understand for bands that play the genre. Nowadays, chords and instrumentation in hip-hop often come from jazz.

“If you can play jazz, you can play any genre that is a modern Western genre,” Lee said.

He added because many modern musical genres are rooted in jazz, mastering that foundation allows the band to play other genres, such as hip-hop and rock.

Though he said jazz music helps with learning other genres, from the players’ point of view, there has to be some adjustment based on what genre they are performing, Lee said. This adjustment can be made by changing the number of chords being played within a song, for example, since hip-hop is loop-oriented, musicians play one chord for a long time. In contrast, jazz musicians might play several chords in a very short span of time.

Lee said being able to play hip-hop music is important to the band because much of their audience grew up listening to the genre. He also said there is a common misconception that anyone can play hip-hop music, but hip-hop has the musical tradition of sampling music, which you have to learn about in order to play well.

“It’s kind of nice not having to play just jazz all the time,” Lee said. “I guess you could say it’s still jazz but with a twist.”

Budding Los Angeles: Punch Edibles looking to operate but stuck in limbo as it awaits license

Thirty years ago, buying cannabis was difficult, expensive and illegal. Buying cannabis in 2019 is somewhere between picking up a prescription from a pharmacy and buying beer from a liquor store. Join columnist John Tudhope each week as he visits cannabis companies in Los Angeles and discusses the budding industry.

The first time I purchased cannabis was in my high school parking lot from an older guy in my Boy Scouts troop. It was a chocolate cannabis edible, wrapped in green foil, and it immediately stunk up any room I brought it into.

More important than the ethics behind my 15-year-old self buying drugs at school is the fact that an edible was my segue into the cannabis world. Cannabis-infused edibles are a category of cannabis products that have expanded rapidly in California’s new legal market, in part because of their accessibility for those trying cannabis for the first time and the ease with which foods can be infused with cannabis.

I have seen the standard brownie and gummy edible options cascade into products ranging from granola to gourmet truffles to canned beverages. Edibles are less harmful and more discreet than traditional cannabis because you don’t have to smoke to feel the effects.

Almost any food can be infused with tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, more commonly known as THC and CBD. These two active ingredients in cannabis are responsible for a variety of effects which can range from a simple “buzz” to anti-inflammatory effects, and are becoming more quantifiable as scientific research on cannabis progresses.

I visited Punch Edibles’ industrial kitchen and extraction facility to see how these products are manufactured and how the market has changed since legalization. Their cannabis-infused chocolates and fruit snacks contain nine servings and include 90 milligrams total of THC or CBD. This is a standard-dose edible and is just under the legal limit of 100 milligrams per product. Their edible is straightforward, well-made and sold in small colored boxes the size of floss containers.

When I visited their facility in Canoga Park I saw a business that creates a solid edible, but is hamstrung by strict regulations and bureaucracy moving at a snail’s pace – a trend I have observed in cannabis businesses throughout LA.

The City of Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation is LA’s permitting body for cannabis businesses. Though California voters approved cannabis legalization in 2016, three years later, many cannabis manufacturing businesses have yet to receive the required local permits in LA. This means that currently, only a small number of businesses are even eligible to be manufacturing legally, and Punch is not one of them.

Punch has been selling cannabis-infused chocolate bars since 2014, but has been forbidden from producing their products since Dec. 31, 2017. If you’re confused, as was I, this means that since legalization, businesses have come to face much harsher and more prohibitive regulations. Despite Punch’s home in a state-of-the-art extraction facility, they would be breaking the law if they continued making their edible chocolates and gummies, so they don’t. Instead they have a stockpile of products made before the ban and are focusing on improving the capacity of their industrial kitchen so they can compete when they are fully licensed.

Their 7,000-square-foot factory in the San Fernando Valley is at a standstill while they await permits. When I visited them, the preparation space was completely empty save for the seemingly untouched machines – it was a sight of unfulfilled potential.

Because LA has yet to issue manufacturing permits to businesses like Punch, the companies are in a state of limbo where they must spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply with strict regulations, but are not permitted to engage in any manufacturing activity. Andrew O’Donnell, the owner and founder of Punch, says the situation is costly and frustrating.

“What were they thinking? We have payroll, we have mortgages, we have all of these things. Were we just supposed to sit on our hands for nine months?” he said. “You need at least a million dollars.”

Though Punch seems to be surviving this less-than-ideal bureaucratic shutdown, my fear is that not all of LA’s cannabis edible manufacturers will be able to as well. O’Donnell said this situation is in fact hurting small businesses that are trying to be legally compliant.

“(The city) literally choked out all the small guys,” he said. “Not only the small guys, but the small guys that are trying to do it legally.”

Of course I would have liked to focus on the tastiness of a product, the kindness of the business owner or the enjoyable time I had walking through the factory, but unfortunately, above all, I felt a type of frustration. I felt the frustration of business owners who want to sell their product, comply with regulations and compete in the free market, but are currently stuck twiddling their thumbs and burning through cash while they wait for the city to give them a piece of paper.

‘A Quiet Place,’ ‘Argo’ sound editor to discuss inventive art of audio creation

When a tree falls in a movie, and the audience needs to hear it, a dedicated team of experts is there to ensure that it makes a sound.

Creating audio for film and television will be the focus of an event hosted by Creative Labs, a club that designs creative, real-life projects with the aim of bringing together students from all areas of study. The talk, which is set to take place at the Northwest Campus Auditorium on Tuesday, will feature Oscar-nominated sound editor Erik Aadahl as its main speaker. Along with fellow sound editor Ethan Van der Ryn, Aadahl founded the award-winning sound design company E Squared, which has worked on films such as “A Quiet Place” and “Argo.” Aadahl said he plans to draw on his experience with E Squared at the event by discussing the multistep process of creating sounds for films.

“The most common definition (of a sound designer) is somebody who’s creating sound from scratch, tailor-made for a specific film and a specific story. … It can be a really abstract art where you use something you’d never think of for something on screen,” Aadahl said. “The challenge is making that work and finding that alchemy between sound and picture.”

On set, the only sounds typically recorded are dialogue – additional noises are constructed by sound designers in postproduction, Aadahl said. Footsteps, the vocals of a robot and ambient jungle noises are all sounds Aadahl has been responsible for producing in films he’s worked on.

Aadahl said he plans to talk about using innovative techniques to create sound, using an example from his work with “Kung Fu Panda,” in which he used a 100-foot bungee cord and a spatula to produce the noise of two characters’ movements during a chopstick battle scene.

Sound designers often go out and collect sounds like dripping water or racing cars, but they can also create sounds in a studio using unlikely objects. While working on “A Quiet Place,” for instance, Aadahl had to design the sound of the blind monsters, which rely on their keen sense of sound to track people down and attack them. He went about the process by pressing a stun gun to a bunch of grapes and slowing the speed of the recording to resemble the clicks of echolocation.

“In experiencing cinema you’re using two senses, vision and hearing, and I feel strongly that sound is half of the experience,” Aadahl said. “For me, my starting point is like, ‘What’s the story? What’s the script? How can sound tell that story?'”

Sound has to follow the relationships and context of the movie, Aadahl said. For example, in “A Quiet Place,” the audio must reinforce the logic of a family that has adapted to understand how sound functions – which noises are too loud and where they are more likely to be heard, he said. Aadahl compares the role of sound to that of a character in “A Quiet Place” – it drives the narrative and acts as such a pivotal plot point to the extent that it seems to take on a life of its own.

Eric Marin, a lecturer in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, teaches a class on digital audio postproduction and views sound not just as a way to replicate reality, but as a means to convey who characters are. By putting an audience into the same space as characters, sound can help viewers identify with them, he said. Marin gave the example of a scene from the film “50/50” in which the protagonist learns of his cancer diagnosis. In this scene, his doctor’s chattering voice fades out, putting the audience into the mindset of the character who is trying to process the news.

“I think what sound will do is it triggers your imagination, and it can transport you to a time and a place even without the visuals,” Marin said.

Sonia Xavier, a fourth-year cognitive science student and the business sponsorship and partnership director for Creative Labs, said the event suits the organization’s purpose. Creative Labs aims to encourage students to pursue their creative interests, Xavier said, even if they lack technical experience. She also said Creative Labs tries to host events which promote the theme that creative career paths are tangible for all students.

Even to students who aren’t pursuing a related career path, sound is such a crucial part of the cinematic and human experience that learning about sound design can be beneficial, Marin said.

“I think going to hear a lecture about sound might actually make somebody more aware of how sound is getting to us and how we’re hearing it and how it’s being actually digitized, … how that process is happening,” Marin said.

Aadahl said the event is meant to be fun rather than technical and will feature clips and sound demos from movies he has worked on. The event will also feature a Q&A portion in which Aadahl will open up the talk to audience questions. Aadahl said the event will cover the basics of sound design from conception to completion.

“Mostly I just want to talk about the process and the art of sound design. … It’s a very misunderstood art, but I think a super interesting one,” Aadahl said. “Sound is so part of us that we don’t really realize how truly powerful it is.”

LAUSD’s refusal to heed teachers’ concerns shows its skewed priorities

“La educación no se vende, se defiende.”

Education isn’t sold, it’s defended.

That was just one of the many signs teachers carried at Friday’s United Teachers Los Angeles rally in front of City Hall.

UTLA has been negotiating with the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education for the past 20 months about how to put unused district funding toward investing in LAs’ public primary education. The board has refused to listen to the union, and teachers have had to strike in order to demand much needed changes in the public education of Angelenos.

Failed negotiations resulted in last Monday’s impressive display of 30,000 educators marching in the rain and demonstrating in front of LAUSD offices. The school district, one of the largest in the nation, has more than 600,000 students and 1,000 schools.

UCLA students essentially attend a public school in LA, and the school has assisted the surrounding community for years through various philanthropic programs and clubs. LAUSD sends many students to UCLA, and we need to ensure that the education system they grow up with is as solid as can be.

Board members have a lot to be ashamed about. Teachers have continued to work with a contract that expired in June 2017 while the board has been unwilling to compromise. There are worryingly few school psychologists per student. And students are not receiving a quality education due to enormous class sizes.

Teachers have taken on the initiative to call to attention these concerns at the expense of themselves and their families. LAUSD board members should heed their concerns.

There are a variety of issues the teachers’ strike is bringing to the forefront. One of those is how charter schools are harmful to the sanctity of public education.

The board has not refuted the idea of converting schools to charters schools and seems to take no issue with rising class sizes. That’s a result of board members not taking their jobs seriously. For example, Austin Beutner, superintendent of LAUSD, has experience as a financial analyst who maximizes profits. Perhaps because of that, he has ignored what his position requires him to do: fully support and aid his schools to improve them.

Beutner is joined by school board president Mónica García and vice president Nick Melvoin, both of whom are prominent pushers for charter schools in LAUSD. García has also limited transparency by cutting back on public board committee meetings.

“The model the superintendent is proposing is putting schools in corporate hands … jeopardizing teachers and families,” said Diana Sintich, a teacher who has taught for LAUSD for 16 years and works at Harding Elementary School.

Under the district’s portfolio model, the board manages a variety of different schools, including public and charter schools.

Charter schools are exempt from many regulations that apply to public schools, and are nonunionized, making it easier to replace teachers. They often neglect students in nontraditional education, such as special education, and fail to offer accommodations for students with disabilities. Teacher turnover rates are exponentially higher at charter schools compared to public schools, and transparency is often severely lacking.

Board members have also neglected the lack of vital full-time staffing, such as in cases where a nurse rotates between four schools every week. Limiting schools’ funding for full-time staff severely cripples the inner workings of these institutions. It’s inexcusable to ask a teacher to double as a nurse because the on-staff nurse only gets to be at school once a week. The same goes for librarians and psychologists, who serve the needs of students outside the classroom.

These have very real effects on students. Alyssa Avila, teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School and UCLA alumna, said one of the students who attends her school has trouble taking their eye drops and getting their medicine without a nurse on site during the school day.

LAUSD needs to reinvest in LA’s future: its students. The primary concern of the board should not be to make money off its schools, but to foster positive education for all children that can lead them to succeed in higher education when they move on to community colleges, four-year universities, trade schools and their careers as well.

The LAUSD board’s neglect has rippling effects on the LA community, including UCLA. Many LAUSD students come to UCLA and the university has taken efforts to engage the district’s students – all of which is put into jeopardy with ineffective leadership.

The changes UTLA is proposing would make education more equitable for all by implementing better adult education programs and expanding on special education services.

And LAUSD has the money to meet teachers’ demands. It currently has $1.9 billion in reserve funding that can be used to expand staffing and decrease classroom sizes. To ignore that money shows the board really only cares for the money and not the children.

Teachers have spoken, and morality is on their side. Education is a primary means for social mobility, and LAUSD board members have a responsibility to enable that via their schools.

Education, after all, isn’t sold; it’s defended.