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La Palma Intercommunity Hospital

We are a full service,general acute care

hospital and have been a part of the

community since 1971.

• 24-Hour Emergency Services• Behavioral Medicine • Maternity Services• Comprehensive Wound Care • Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory

7901 walker street | la palma, ca 90623(714) 670-7400

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00254.LPIH.AD.General_Ad_10x3.081611indd.indd 1 8/16/2011 10:16:36 AM

VOL. 1, NO. 50Delivered to 12,000 Homes Every Week LA MIRADA, CA., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2012

www.lmlamplighter.com

[See GRADUATES page 9]

Community Sports Page 12

By Carol Fritz Tomlinson

La Mirada High School was built in the early 60's and in October the school’s first graduating classes held the school’s first 50-year reunion at the Hilton Irvine Airport Hotel. Over 150 alumni and faculty from Classes of 1962 and 1963 attended the weekend event that started on Friday night and ended with breakfast on Sunday morn-ing.

On Saturday, a group went on a tour of their old campus, and on Saturday evening the main party included a trib-ute to the 11 faculty members, includ-ing La Mirada High School’s first prin-cipal, Charles Vernon, who attended.

Special moments were remembered

Lamplighter Publisher Receives Questionable Tax Letter From LA County TreasurerBy Randy Economy

On the heels of articles written cit-ing corruption and collaboration to dis-

credit Lamplighter/Los Cerritos Com-munity News, Brian Hews, publisher and President, received a highly question-able letter from the LA County Treasurer and Tax Collector demanding payment of over $5,000 on a

delinquent “unsecured property tax bill.”

The letter, sent to Hews’ residence and referencing Carmen Hews’ Estate (Carmen Hews is Brian’s mother who passed away in Jan 2011) states, “this notice serves as an official demand that unless payment in full.... is received in this office by 11-15-12, you will leave us no alternative other than to proceed with enforced collection for this delin-quent tax bill.”

“This is outright intimidation, I was never on the title of that house, and my brother was the executor of the estate,” said Hews. “The City Council here in Cerritos slammed me and the newspaper when we wrote an article on Councilman Bruce Barrows assaulting a resident after a council meeting. Bar-rows tried to change his story, we doc-umented the changes, and at the next city council meeting, led by Barrows, they voted 5-0 to cut our print adver-tising budget. LA County is trying to do the same thing, it is a personal at-tack and an assault on freedom of the press”, said Hews.

50 YEARS: First Graduating Class of La Mirada High School

[See LETTER page 8]

Candidate

for the 2013

Pulitzer Prize

Work is underway on the new community shopping center on La Mirada Boulevard and Impe-rial Highway. The center will feature a new supermarket and drug store, as well as a number of smaller shops. The center is the largest of several older commer-cial areas in La Mirada that have been upgraded recently or are currently planning to undertake

The La Mirada High School 50th Reunion Committee included co-chairs Pat Tisa and Carol Fritz Tomlinson, Cheryl Cummings Short, Carl Olson, Norm Jones, Colette Poore, Steve Dermer and Martha Perry Campbell.

Friends of LM Library Fundraiser at Dale Tiffany

[See DEMAND page 8]

Letters to theEditor Page 4

On November 5, Dale Tiffany do-nated 20% of their sales to those who came to their store because of the ef-forts of the Friends of the Library. In addition they added a generous do-nation of their own. Ann Choi, store manager, Jonathan Kim, company Vice President, Jose Millan, a store assistant, made it all possible. The Friends of the

Library greeted shoppers and gave out door prizes.

This is one of the continuing fund raising events that result from the ef-forts of the Friends of the Library as they seek to provide funds for the La Mirada Library. New books, maga-zines and the funding of Children’s reading program come as a result.

Brian HewsPublisher

State Demands Cerritos Pay

$17.1 Million in Redevelopment Funds

City disputes state’s findings.

By Jerry Bernstein

The California Department of Fi-nance has informed Cerritos it needs to make a cash payment of $17.1 mil-lion to the State of California, claiming the money is owed by the Successor Agency to the Cerritos Redevelopment Agency.

In a letter dated Nov. 9, the De-partment of Finance wrote it was their understanding $17.1 million from the unencumbered Low and Moderate In-come Housing Fund and cash equiva-lents was transferred to the City on Feb. 1,2012. The Health and Safety