City may allocate $82,200 for environmental education
(Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures which appear on the upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agenda. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the city council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past.)
By Carolyn Sackariason
Daily Press Staff Writer
Better radio communication between bus drivers and continuing education on the ocean environment is expected to cost local taxpayers $387,300 tonight.
The Santa Monica City Council has been asked by staff to allocate $302,100 for a new dispatch radio frequency for the Big Blue Bus.
The council agreed last October to spend $7.2 million on what’s called an “Advanced Fleet Management System,” which applies state-of-the-art technologies to the Big Blue Bus in an attempt to be more efficient in operations, scheduling and traveling times, among other things.
The system includes bus radios, global positioning system locators, an “automatic vehicle location system,” a “computer aided dispatch,” “automatic passenger counters,” scheduling and trip planning software, and an “interactive voice response” system.
The city will buy the frequency equipment from Mobile Relay Associates and it will require a $3,000 annual rental fee. The money will be used from the city’s public transit funds, and therefore not affect the city’s general fund, city staff members said.
Big Blue Bus hopes to improve driver and passenger safety, provide travelers with real time transit and traffic information, and be able to provide faster and more accurate reporting of information required under Federal Transit Administrations regulations.
City staff also recommends that $82,200 be spent to ensure that the Ocean Discovery Center at the Santa Monica Pier doesn’t shut down, as well as to provide environmental education to local students.
For the past several years, UCLA has operated and funded the discovery center at the pier. But because the state has cut funding for higher education, UCLA has decided to stop operating the center as of March 1.
Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica-based environmental organization, has devised a funding plan to help keep the facility open from March 1 to June 30 while it figures out a way to keep it operating indefinitely.
The city is being asked to help Heal the Bay with 40 percent of the interim funding, which amounts to $48,000 and will be taken out of the city’s environmental programs division.
The city council is also anticipated to give Heal the Bay $15,000 to fund two education projects — “Bay Days,” a community event held at the beach and the organization’s marine educational program called “Key to the Sea.” The city is expected to spend $5,000 for Bay Days, which is a free, one-day public event that has an ocean-related environmental theme and includes a variety of environmental activities and a beach clean-up.
4B8,“Key to the Sea” provides a combination of teacher professional development, and student learning in the classroom and in the field for kids in kindergarten through fourth grade. Students will learn about ocean pollution prevention, coastal stewardship and beach safety.
Another program undertaken by an organization called the BayKeeper is asking the city for $19,200. The program educates middle school students about urban impacts on the local marine environment. It involves in-class experiments with kelp germination and a field trip by boat to an underwater kelp reforestation site.
The BayKeeper makes in-class presentations to about 18 classes in the sixth grade, focusing on the investigation of local marine phyla, animal taxonomy and physiology, biodiversity, urban runoff and sources of pollution. BayKeeper also assists with in-class cultivation of living kelp specimens which are later transplanted into coastal kelp beds in the Santa Monica Bay.
The city also plans to spend $26,500 for other educational programs, including a school gardening project for local students and household hazardous waste education for city residents.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 11, 2003. Read the original PDF.