NEWS DIGEST: Lynwood offers free grab-and-go meals youth, seniors

By Jose Ivan Cazares

Contributing Writer

LYNWOOD — The city is offering supper and snacks for kids and teens from 1 to 18 years old at the Henning Youth Center and the Avalos Community Center. Residents are able to drive through or walk up to pick up meals Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to noon or until food runs out.

The meals are meant for students taking online courses who normally would not have access to community center facilities after school. Lynwood has redirected funds from after-school programs it normally runs during the school year to this pandemic-specific meal program.

“COVID has created an unprecedented role for local government to support their community,” said Mark Flores, Lynwood’s director of recreation and community services “Food is a basic need for all our families, so we immediately switched our traditional program, which was more of an after school thing during the summer and school year, to a program that provides basic needs and resource information.”

The city also is providing senior residents with meals through a reworked pandemic-specific program. “Seniors used to be able to pick up meals as part of this program, but with them being some of the most vulnerable during the pandemic, we can’t even ask them to use the drive through, so [now] we go to them,” Flores said.

The program used to serve approximately 100 seniors, but Flores said the number has more than doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Community services relied on community volunteers when the program first transitioned to delivering food but is now administered entirely by city staff.

For more information, call (310) 603-0220.

Norwalk extends

auto auction lease

NORWALK — The  City Council has extended until Dec. 31 its lease agreement with Aquirecorp, which has operated an auto auction on the site, 12405 Rosecrans Ave., since 1985.

“The current lease expires at the end of September,” said Nicole Amescua, community development director in a report to the council Sept. 15.

“The parties wish to extend the current lease for three months while discussions regarding the terms and conditions necessary for a new lease agreement continue.

“Each party has indicated a willingness to proceed with an extension of the current lease agreement for an interim time period until negotiations for a longer term are finalized,” she said.

The interim extension term would be for period of three months at the current monthly rent of $55,914, totaling $167,742, she added.

City staff will proceed with the continued lease of the property and collection of rents through Dec. 31 and also proceed with the negotiations of terms and conditions for the new lease.

Whittier offers

parking lot movies

WHITTIER — The city is renting out parking spots for a drive-through screening of the Disney movie “Hocus Pocus” starting Oct. 5 in the old Alpha Beta parking lot at the corner of Hadley Street and Comstock Avenue. Social distancing will be encouraged and moviegoers will be able to participate in a parking spot decorating contest.

Volunteers sought

to distribute food

EAST LOS ANGELES — The Helping Hands Senior Foundation is seeking volunteers to help prepare donated food and deliver meals to senior living alone at home Monday and Thursday starting Oct. 5 from 9 a.m. to noon. at the community center at Obregon Park, 133 N. Sunol Drive

Community talk set

on Los Angeles River

BELL — The city is holding a public meeting to discuss plans to develop the lower Los Angeles River. The meeting will be held at the Bell Community Center, 6250 Pine Ave., with social distancing protocols in place on Oct. 1 at 6:30 p.m. and Oct. 3 at 9:30 a.m. A Zoom meeting will also be held Oct. 6 at 6:30 p.m. Attendees must RSVP at http://www.cityofbell.org/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/3737/20?backlist=%2F to attend.

College to serve

as voting center

WHITTIER — Voters will be able to cast their ballots for November’s election at Rio Hondo College, school officials have announced.

The college’s vote center will operate Oct. 24 through Nov. 3, inside the Campus Inn. Rio Hondo College is one of multiple community partners to host vote centers as part of a countywide Voting Solutions for All People initiative.

The vote center will offer same-day registration, voting support in multiple languages, replacement ballots for vote-by-mail voters and ballot drop-off, with all activity following social distancing guidelines required by the Los Angeles Department of Public Health due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This will be the second time the college has served as a vote center this year; it previously hosted voting from Feb. 29 to March 3 for the California 2020 primary election.

The Campus Inn is on the main campus, 3600 Workman Mill Road, where the vote center will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day; hours for other days are being finalized.

Shooting suspect

arrested in M.P.

MONTEREY PARK — Police have arrested a shooting suspect during a perimeter search Sept. 26.

The shooting happened about 3:35 p.m. in the 300 block of South Garfield Avenue, Monterey Park police Lt. Paul Villalobos said.

Officers responded to the scene after a shots-fired call was made,” Villalobos said. “They found one man who suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen.” He was transported to Los Angeles County USC Medical Center, where he underwent surgery. His condition was unknown.

Monterey Park police set up a perimeter with the help of Alhambra and Montebello police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Within the perimeter, they found and arrested a suspect.

Villalobos said the suspect, whose identity was withheld, was still being interrogated.

A motive for the shooting was not released.

Deputy shoots man

in court parking lot

WHITTIER — A young man who had been looking into parked vehicles was hospitalized Sept. 23 with wounds inflicted by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy in a parking structure near the Whittier Courthouse.

The shooting occurred at 4:09 p.m. in the 7300 block of Painter Avenue, near Mar Vista Street, according to Deputy Eric Ortiz of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The deputy was assigned to the Whittier Courthouse but was not working and not in uniform at the time of the shooting.

He was walking to his vehicle inside the parking structure when “he observed two individuals looking into windows of parked vehicles including his own and he confronted the individuals as to what they were doing in the parking structure,” Ortiz said.

One of the men allegedly advanced toward the deputy, who then identified himself as an off-duty deputy, according to Ortiz.

The deputy shot the man, striking him in his upper body, according to Ortiz. He was taken to a hospital where his vital signs were listed as stable.

City News Service contributed to this story.