Burbank Blog

Discoveries at the Downtown Burbank Arts Festival

garza302 — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:51:20 +0000

I’m doing my final story about the Burbank Arts for All program, and while in communication with BUSD Arts Director Peggy Flynn, I found out that Burbank was having its annual arts festival this weekend. The event ran on Saturday and Sunday, and I attended it to get a feel for the festival and talk to some art exhibitors, volunteers, students, and the woman who coordinated it. People were there showing off art of all variations, ranging from paintings to ceramics to chalk designs to photography, among others.

My favorite type of art I saw by far was an artist who made glass-fusion pieces. The designs were colorful and unique, and not quite like anything I had ever seen before. I was really tempted to buy a pair of glass-fusion earrings, but sadly I am out of spending money. However, I chatted with the woman selling the jewelry for a good fifteen minutes. She makes her glass-fusion pieces, along with many other types of ceramics, out of her garage! She’s been retired for almost ten years, and now spends most of her time with this hobby. I think that is something to admire, and I really hope that I find something like that to occupy my time with when I retire.

-Alyssa

This may not be about Burbank, buuuut…

garza302 — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:53:58 +0000

…it definitely has to do with our class! Several of us wrote about the 49th Street Massacre for our court story (myself included) and I was interested to see a recent article about the crime in the local section of the LA Times yesterday.

The article says that while the murder trial of the two suspects is coming to a close, little evidence has pointed to race as a motive for the crime. This is an important finding because the 49th Street Massacre is notorious for being a gang-related crime that “stoked fears among some minority activists of a possible race war,” according to the article’s author Jack Leonard.

Much of the piece is a summary of the 49th Street Massacre, which is very familiar to some of us! But knowing that I was in a courtroom watching this very trial play out is what really made seeing this headline exciting.

Click Here to read!

Image Credit: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/la-me-0425-49th-street-massacre25-20100425,0,3303012.story

-Allison Norton

Glee at Burroughs

garza302 — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:31:59 +0000

The John Burroughs High School Vocal Music Association sponsors four “curricular” choirs and three extra-curricular ensembles, including the award-winning Powerhouse, which aired on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on Wednesday, April 7. Surprisingly, despite the education budget cuts the Powerhouse group are actually not doing too bad as they fundraise all by themselves and don’t rely on state funding. The director of the program, Brendand Jennings, said only 1% of their budget comes from state funding. The Powerhouse also got of $100,000 from the Operah Winfrey show and I was also told their entrance fee is $3,000 for some of the programs. They are seen as a model-program in Burbank for how they work so sufficiently.

-Jessica

Healthy Kids Day

garza302 — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:38:28 +0000

The Burbank Community YMCA’s ninth annual Healthy Kids Day took place on Saturday to teach parents and kids about healthy nutrition and physical activity.

Booths at the event gave examples of how to pack your child a healthy lunch, advertised summer camps and after-school programs and provided fun outdoor activities for kids who attended.

Children and parents were able to enjoy each other and the outdoors while being active and receiving valuable information about nutrition.

~ Katelynn Whitaker

A proud day for Burbank elementary schools

garza302 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:59:07 +0000

Three Burbank schools were honored Monday in the California Distinguished School Award, a yearly recognition given out by the California Department of Education.

Providencia, Stevenson, and Disney elementary schools got the award, which alternates every other year between elementary and middle schools. Schools must apply to receive the distinction, and prove themselves to be improving exam scores and narrowing gaps in learning achievements.

Stevenson elementary gained recognition mainly for its challenging programs and strong writing curriculum. There were 484 schools chosen for this award across the state, so Burbank should be proud to be home to three of them.

-Alyssa

Arts Festival to Color Downtown Burbank

garza302 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:22:01 +0000

This Saturday and Sunday the 7th Annual Downtown Arts Festival will take place in Burbank.

The event is designed to bring in professional artists as well as aspiring artists from Burbank schools in order to support arts education. The festival will showcase painting, photography, woodwork, sculpting, jewlery, and many other types of art.

The entire weekend will benefit Burbank Arts Education Foundation, which aims to provide art classes for the 15,000 students in Burbank. Orange Grove Ave. between 1st and 3rd street is entirely dedicated to the works of Burbank students.

There will be contest, raffles, and interactive exhibits. The event is free and open to the public.

-Hayden Coplen

Fashion Forward

garza302 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:53:56 +0000

Students at Woodbury University in Burbank will honor professional fashion designer Sue Wong at their annual fashion show benefit on May 2. Woodbury alumna Christiane King will also be honored as the recipient of the Woodbury Rising Star Award. Since graduating in 2005, she has gone on to launch her own line, pieces of which have been worn by many celebrities on the red carpet. ”Asiatikos” is the theme for this year’s show and students are hard at work to prepare for the big day.

Image Credit: www.woodbury.edu

-Allison Norton

Observations on a murder trial

garza302 — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 23:55:16 +0000

Last Tuesday at the San Fernando Courthouse, I sat in on a really interesting case involving three defendants charged with murder for an alleged gang-related shooting. The most interesting part was seeing the defendant, Steven Alcaraz, testify in his own case.

I’m not sure why seeing this was so intriguing to me, but I was fascinated by it. Shannon Knight, the prosecutor, was reading some of a transcript from a phone conversation Alcaraz had with an LAPD detective after the crime occurred. When she asked if certain things he had told the detective were true, almost everything turned out not to be.

Image from http://www.la-criminaldefense.com/images/SanFernando_Court_05.jpg

The phone call ended with what the defense is claiming to be a false confession from Alcaraz. It was just so interesting to me to see the prosecutor read the defendant his own words, spoken three and half years ago and filled with expletives, and for him to simply say that most of it was untrue. It was an fascinating day in court, to say the least.

- Taylor Freitas

Giggles in the Jury

garza302 — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 03:09:54 +0000

So I’m sitting in Department 102 on the 9th floor at the Los Angeles Criminal Court and let’s just say it’s been a pretty slow day at the 49th Street Massacre trial so far. As I listen and robotically take notes about what I hear, some subtle movement in the jury catches my eye…

Two young women are sitting next to each other and, judging from the smiles and quiet giggles that they unsuccessfully try to hide, they’re doing anything BUT listening to the case. One woman passes her notebook to the other and scribbles on a piece of paper–no doubt they are passing notes.

All I can say is that come verdict time, I hope the women were listening.

I think Ryan Moore and Charles Smith hope so too.

Image Credit: http://stephaniebondlaw.com/

-Allison Norton

49th Street Massacre

garza302 — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 02:50:05 +0000

On Monday afternoon, after paying $17.50 to park at the LA Superior Court and going through two metal detectors (beeping both times), I finally arrived on the 9th floor (the criminal trials level) at Department 102 to observe the trial of the men who committed the 49th Street Massacre murders in 2006.

The 49^th Street Massacre, as it was called by Police Chief William J. Bratton, occurred in June 2006 when the suspects, identified as Ryan T. Moore and Charles Ray Smith, allegedly got out of a vehicle in front of a house on 49th Street in South Los Angles and fired more than 30 shots from two assault rifles at point-blank range.

Smith and Moore, alleged to be members of the Rollin’ 30s gang, were said to be driving around the neighborhood looking for members of the Eastside Trece gang, when they shot to death David Marcial, 10, a fourth-grader at Hooper Elementary School, his uncle, Larry Marcial, 22, a father of two and 17-year-old Luis Cervantes, a junior at Johnson High School.

They are now in the final stages of their second trial for this crime. The first trial was declared a mistrial after the jury couldn’t break a deadlock over the verdict.

In court on Monday prosecutors rested their case after presenting evidence for over a month. The defense began calling witnesses in the afternoon and they are expected to wrap up the proceedings by the end of the week.

~Katelynn Whitaker