Bits 'n' Pieces

LBUSD Launches ‘Say Something’ Reporting

The Long Beach Unified School District has officially launched the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System in grades 6 to 12, providing a safe and secure way for youth and adults to speak up about threats and concerning behaviors.

The Say Something Anonymous Reporting System teaches the warning signs of potential violence and provides a mobile app, website and telephone hotline for users to submit tips 24/7/365 to a dedicated National Crisis Center for analysis and response. The system is for any type of serious concerns about students who may be struggling or potentially violent. Tipsters can send reports on anything from school threats they’ve seen or overheard to personal crises including sexual harassment, self-harm, abuse, bullying and depression.

Students can submit a tip through www.saysomething.net directly or navigate from district and school website home pages at middle, K-8 and high schools by clicking the “Submit a Tip” icon. The free mobile app is available for download from the Apple App Store and Google Play. Students can also submit tips through the hotline by calling 1-844-5-SAYNOW.

When credible tips are received, the National Crisis Center notifies a team of school-based representatives to act on those tips. In cases of imminent threat, the National Crisis Center contacts the local 911 dispatch and involves law enforcement. This enables school administrators and law enforcement to work together to effectively prevent shootings, suicide, bullying, self-harm and other forms of violence and victimization.

The Say Something Anonymous Reporting System is a youth violence prevention program from the national nonprofit organization Sandy Hook Promise (SHP), which provides the program and training at no cost. The system is the only anonymous system and National Crisis Center exclusively serving schools. Critical to its proven success is the Say Something training that teaches youth and adults the warning signs of potential violence and self-harm.

More than 5,000 schools and school districts nationwide are participating in the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System, protecting millions of students and educators. Locally, students in the middle grades received training on the system last week, with high school students to follow later this month. Administrators and Say Something response teams at each school also are undergoing training.

Environmental Groups Prevail in Court

The environmental justice group Riverpark Coalition (RPC) and the prominent environmental watchdog organization Los Angeles Waterkeeper prevailed in their lawsuit against the City of Long Beach, challenging a project that would develop land adjacent to the Los Angeles River previously slated for open space for decades.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled that the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in approving the Pacific Place project, a proposed self-storage facility and parking lot, without properly examining and mitigating its environmental impacts.

“This win is a victory for park equity and environmental justice for the most neglected side of Long Beach and the Lower Los Angeles River,” said Juan Ovalle, president of Riverpark Coalition. “The ruling defends much-needed park space, as well as the specific goals of the Long Beach Riverlink Plan and LA River Master Plan.”

The court ruled the city must halt any work on the project unless and until they prepare an environmental impact report (EIR), which is necessary to address significant environmental, biological, recreational and cultural impacts that the development slated for 3701 Pacific Place would present.

The site is just across the Metro line tracks from Los Cerritos Elementary School, Los Cerritos Park and a residential neighborhood.

The court’s ruling found that the city violated CEQA by failing to require an EIR for the project, identifying numerous deficiencies in the city’s environmental review that included:

• The failure to adequately analyze numerous applicable land use plans and policies and the project’s inconsistency with the designation of the site as open space by the City of Long Beach General Plan;
• The failure to address potentially significant impacts to the southern tarplant, a California Native Plant Rank List 1B species, including the inadequacy of the plan to translocate plants previously removed from the site;
• The failure to adequately analyze air quality impacts (in an area near a school and park), particularly the failure to analyze impacts from refrigerated trucks, which emit higher levels of air pollutants; and
• The failure to address potentially significant traffic hazards, particularly of the proposed project’s proximity to the 405 and 710 freeways and the dangers posed by these freeway entrances.

New MemorialCare Chief Strategy Officer

Prominent health care executive Laurie Sicaeros has been named chief strategy officer and leadership academy dean for MemorialCare, a regional health system that includes Long Beach Medical Center, Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach and dozens of health centers and outpatient facilities in the Long Beach area.

Since 2018, Sicaeros has served as chief operating officer for MemorialCare Medical Foundation, one of the country’s fastest growing physician organizations and acknowledged national innovator in value-based care, serving hundreds of thousands of patients.

With more than 2,000 employed and affiliated physicians that are part of MemorialCare Medical Group and Greater Newport Physicians, the Medical Foundation – which she was instrumental in establishing in 2010 – also includes 225 outpatient surgery, imaging, urgent care, breast health, kidney dialysis, physical therapy and other health centers throughout Southern California. Sicaeros also served as MemorialCare senior vice president of physician integration.

Sicaeros’ past MemorialCare management roles include business development, mergers and acquisitions and physician practice alignment. Her work in clinical informatics and electronic health record integration link physicians and outpatient centers to MemorialCare hospitals in Orange and Los Angeles counties – providing seamless continuity of care for millions of patients served by nearly 3,000 affiliated physicians. She helped expand MemorialCare’s footprint into an ambulatory network of primary and specialty care medical groups, Independent Practice Association (IPA) for physicians and outpatient center partnerships.

She also played a major role expanding MemorialCare Physician Society, dedicated to clinical and customer service best practices that drive superior clinical outcomes and performance that often rank above national and regional benchmarks.