Michelle’s Compendium
By Michelle Logsdon - January 28, 2002School Districts Respond to More Work Comp Claims and Less State Funding
Several school districts across the state of California are planning extensive budget cuts in anticipation of legislative cuts in the state’s education spending. The lack of state funding and the increase in workers’ compensation claims has districts such as the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Las Virgenes and Conejo unified school districts and the Simi Valley Unified School District, preparing for the worst.
Stan Mantooth, the assistant superintendent of business for the Ventura County Office of Education, said districts are expecting workers’ compensation claims to increase 10 to 20 percent next year.
The LA School Board cut $56.6 million from their administrative accounts Jan. 24. Simi Valley’s board will probably have to make cuts in staffing. But those cuts have to be made by March 15, so the board members hope lawmakers announce their plans for education spending by March 14.
What You See Is What You Get
The Los Angeles Unified School District lost a malpractice lawsuit Jan. 24 against its former legal counsel O’Melveny & Myers. The law firm was sued by the district for giving out bad advice on the Belmont Learning Center construction project.
The district was looking for $100 million in compensation but Superior Court Judge Ann Kough ruled that there were no “triable issues of material fact” in the suit.
In 1993, the district purchased 35 acres of land to build a new high school. Much of the land was previously an oil field. Allegedly the law firm told district officials the land was safe based on environmental impact surveys.
When dangerous gases were found underground in January 2000, the district stopped the project. District officials asserted in the lawsuit that lawyer David Cartwright of O’Melveny & Myers provided bad advice to buy the land “as is.” The court disagreed stating that the lawyer’s decisions were based on studies initiated by the district.
You’re More Likely to Get Hit By a Truck
Residents of Simi Valley, CA say the Department of Energy (DOE) isn’t doing all it can to protect people from low-level radiation at a former nuclear research site. During public discussion Jan. 24, DOE officials were told their clean-up plan is not thorough enough.
The controversial site is located in the Simi Hills at the Santa Susana Field Lab where rocket fuel and nuclear research was conducted for five decades. The Boeing Co. purchased the land when it acquired Rocketdyne and has not specified how the land will be used; but housing is not ruled out.
The model proposed by DOE allows a cancer risk of 1 in 3,333 deaths in a lifetime. Residents say that’s too high. The more intensive cleanup wanted by neighbors would require 27 truckloads of waste to be removed from the site daily for eight years.
Phil Rutherford, Boeing’s manager of radiation safety at the Rocketdyne facility, said the residents’ level of cleanup would make it more likely for someone to be hit by one of the waste-removing trucks than to get cancer from living at the site.
The DOE will continue to hear public comment on the cleanup through Feb. 25
Defending Tom Sawyer
One year has passed since a seven-year-old girl lost part of her finger in an accident at Disneyland. Now the girl’s family is suing the theme park for negligence.
Priscilla Figueroa was playing on Tom Sawyer Island last January when she got hurt. The island is constructed with artificial caves and a fort with pontoon bridges and small towers. Figueroa was playing in one of the towers with a toy rifle. When she started to climb down her finger got caught in the trigger and part of it was severed.
The guns were removed from the island shortly after the accident.
Disneyland’s policy is not to comment on pending litigation. | 
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