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Sen. Carol Liu urges community involvement

Senator Carol Liu at the First Hearing on Aging and Long Term Care at the Glendale Central Library in Glendale on Tuesday, July 8, 2014. During a CV Alliance meeting Friday, Dec. 12, 2014, Liu urged the community to get involved with a committee to help Glendale school officials determine how to better spend funds.
(Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)
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State Sen. Carol Liu urged local business owners, residents and others on Friday during a CV Alliance meeting to join a committee to help guide Glendale school officials on how and where they should spend their money.

While the CV Alliance usually works to prevent underage drug and alcohol use in Crescenta Valley, this meeting took a broader look at how residents can help local students succeed, including getting involved with the Local Control Accountability Plan Committee, known as LCAP, which was formed as part of a state mandate that local school districts establish groups to help guide how local schools use their funds, figure out the greatest needs and establish goals.

Earlier this year, Glendale Unified established its committee, made up mostly of parents and teachers.

To a room full of more than 50 people on Friday, Liu asked how many attendees had been involved in the school district’s committee, so far, and several people raised their hands.

“OK,” she said. “Not enough of you.”

She also encouraged the entire community, including leaders of nonprofits and businesses, to get involved with one another to figure out how to connect services to students or benefit local schools.

“We want to make sure that we are spending our resources — getting the biggest bang for our buck. That really means getting out of where we’re comfortable. It really means a serious conversation about what is important about educating our kids,” she said. “I would encourage you to rethink how we could work better together to create something that changes. Get out of your silo. Do some cross fertilization.”

The CV Alliance hosts quarterly meetings to bring people together from various sectors of the community including youth, law enforcement, religion and business to discuss the latest drug trends in the area and topics that impact local youth.

On Friday, California Highway Patrol Officer Ryan Bejar reminded parents how often he arrests teens for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“I’ve arrested a lot of teenage drivers for DUI,” he said, adding that his latest arrest was a teenage girl who had double the legal limit of alcohol in her system.

He also reminded parents that teens cannot touch their cellphones in their cars if they are younger than 18 years old, and if parents wish, they can go to the state Department of Motor Vehicles and have their teens’ provisional license suspended.

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