Culver City Observer -

The City of Culver City will present the Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration on Saturday, January 13, 2018 noon to 3 p.m. at the Culver City Senior Center 4095 Overland Avenue.

Opening ceremonies at noon, actor Gerald Rivers as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at 12:30. Film screening “Agents of Change” at 1 p.m. Community conversation at 2 p.m.

Additional free parking across the street at the Veteran’s Auditorium Complex. Tori Bailey Chair MLK Committee and Steven Fisher, Daniel Lee, Wayne Slappy, Rev. Carolyn Wilkins and Latrice Williams members. For additional information (arames.white-shearin@culvercity.org. (310) 253-6675.

If you think our school district has problems, then you should hear from your friends who live in Beverly Hills. As we used to say when I was in the Army, “Beverly Hills in the land of the big PX” needs to balance for fiscal year 2018-2019 a short fall of darn near $5 million. Rumor has it their board doesn’t plan to raise taxes but instead will reduce the $10 million in the rainy-day fund or possibly pink slip 50 teachers. Teachers over there get $100,000 just like ours in benefits and wages.

The citizens living in Delaware last month felt a 4.1 earthquake. No damage to speak of. Did you know Oklahoma is the state with the most earthquakes?

Boeing, my former employer last month increased dividends by 20 percent and has authorization to buy back $18 billion dollars of stock over the next 24 to 30 months. Do your research before investing in any company.

Effective January 1, 2018 a Federal Judge ruled in Washington D.C. transgender people can join the military.

Airbus Chief Executive Officer Tom Enders and the Chief Operating Officer Fabricke Bregier will step down from their positions in 2019 due to alleged corruption. Airbus is being investigated by Germany and Austria and others.

On November 11, 2017 the Federal government gave all honorably discharged veterans a new benefit. We will be eligible to shop tax free on line at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (PX) with the same discounts we enjoyed on the base while in the military. First go to (vetverify.com) and complete your eligibility form no matter the branch of service your served in.

Your Assemblymember the Honorable Sebastian Ridley-Thomas agreed to pay a $3500 fine to California Fair Political Practices Commission for failing to report campaign contributions in a timely manner during his 2014 campaign.

The Friends of the Sandy Segal Youth Health Center will have their annual fundraiser on February 24, 2018 at the Marina del Rey’s Del Rey Yacht Club. This promises to be one to the best events of the year and the proceeds support physical and mental health programs of Culver City Unified School District Students.

Ask any Culver City renter and many would say the only thing going up faster than rents is the fees charged by Southern California Edison Company. If you want to help the Culver City Community Coalition addressing this very serious problem, check out (culvercitycommunitycoalition@gmail.com) and read Protecting Renters. How does Culver City compare with other cities Protecting Renters-avoiding eviction?

To those who served in 1991 during Desert Storm and Desert Shield, President Trump signed Senate Joint Resolution 1 on March 31, 2017 to authorize the creation of a memorial to honor your service. The location under consideration is on the National Mall at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue.

Guess what is on the agenda for June 2018. If you said the Board of Education wants us to vote for another parcel tax-for approximately $118; you would be correct. No body and I mean no body will tell you the school district’s own members show the board received almost $19.5 million more in unrestricted LCFF state funding in the past six years. They raised district -wide employee compensation over $19 million and decided to deficit spend almost $14 million over the same six-year time frame. Now that they spend all that money the board wants local tax payers to give them millions more of our hard-earned money. WOW! They got to be kidding if they think they can talk our community into giving them millions more with a catchy slogan, because it’s less than $10 a month.

Perhaps you are on the Culver City High School baseball team. The Japanese have developed a baseball with sensors that will capture data such as, speed, the tilt of the balls rotation, and rotations per minutes. Best of all the data is sent to a smartphone app. It’s made by Acrodea Inc. and costs about $180 per ball.

In Rwanda where because of rugged terrain, bad roads and seasonal flooding companies are sending drones with medical supplies that usually took three hours by truck now takes 15 minutes by drones.

A Volkswagen manager, 48-year-old Oliver Schmidt was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined $400,000 for his role in the German auto maker’s emissions cheating scandal. Now can we see some movement in the Wells Fargo mess?

Beginning in the fall of 2018 Occidental College will launch the Barack Obama Scholar’s Program. President Obama was a member of the Class of 1983.

For those who missed an article, all my commentaries can be found at http://www.culvercityobserver.com; strolling down the page and underneath Opinion look for Rubenstein.