L.A. Now Live: Should bars be allowed to sell alcohol until 4 a.m.?

A state lawmaker has proposed that some California cities be allowed to serve alcohol until 4 a.m., putting them in line with other tourist spots like Las Vegas and New York City.

The bill, proposed by state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) would give tourist destinations like Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego an exception to state laws prohibiting alcohol sales after 2 a.m.

Times reporter Patrick McGreevy reported on the proposed bill and will join L.A. Now Live at 9:10 a.m. Monday.

Currently, the state allows the sale of alcohol from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. for bars, nightclubs and restaurants. Leno's bill would let cities get permission from the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to allow their nightspots to extend their hours for serving alcohol.

Leno said the change could mean a boost to the California economy. He cited a study by the market research firm Technomic Inc. that found the top 100 grossing social and night life venues in the country generated $1.5 billion last year and 15 of them were in the Los Angeles area.

But all of the top 10 venues are in cities that have extended hours, including Las Vegas, New York and Miami, the firm found.

Not everyone is sold on the idea.

Leno's proposal is "terrible,'' said Alan Dymond, president of the Studio City Residents Assn. Dymond said many clubs and restaurants along Ventura Boulevard back up to homes affected by noise and traffic at closing time.

"For our members, that extension of hours would just increase the aggravation,'' Dymond said.

Senate Republican leader Robert Huff of Diamond Bar said Leno's proposal raises a lot of questions, including its effect on drunk driving rates, and needs more study.

Do you think it’s a good idea to permit alcohol sales for an additional two hours? Do you think it would bring more tourists to L.A.? Let us know in the comments below, by tweeting @LANow or on our Local Facebook page.

 

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UC faculty leaders blast legislation on online education expansion

In a crossing of swords between academics and politicians, the University of California’s top two faculty leaders on Friday strongly criticized legislation that would allow students bumped from overcrowded core courses at state schools to instead take online courses from other colleges or private companies.

The bill, authored by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), “raises grave concerns,” Robert L. Powell and Bill Jacob, the chairman and vice chairman of the UC system’s faculty Senate, wrote in a letter to colleagues. Among other things, “the clear self-interest of for profit corporations in promoting the privatization of public higher education through this legislation is dismaying,” they said.

The Steinberg legislation, introduced Wednesday amid strong national interest, proposes a special review panel, comprised of faculty from UC, Cal State and community colleges, to determine which online courses are worthy of academic credit.

The goal is a list of up to 50 basic undergraduate courses that students could take online for UC, Cal State or community college credit if they cannot gain enrollment into those courses on campus.

Powell, a chemical engineering professor at UC Davis, and Jacob, a mathematics professor at UC Santa Barbara, rejected that plan as an assault on the power of UC’s Academic Senate to determine whether transfer courses cover the right material with the same rigor as UC courses do.

“There is no possibility that UC faculty will shirk its responsibility to our students by ceding authority over courses to any outside agency,” they wrote.

The two, who are the faculty representatives on the UC Regents board, said they were not consulted in advance of Steinberg’s announcement but said they plan to meet with his staff soon.

The faculty union at the Cal State system previously expressed similar concerns.

Rhys Williams, Steinberg’s spokesman, said Friday that the bill specifically gives California faculty control, albeit in a new way, over which online courses should be approved and that “nobody is trying to take away power from the faculty.”

He said the senator's office “embraces the opportunity to discuss” the bill with faculty leaders and that its details might change as a result.

However, he said the senator remains committed to the legislation’s goal of helping students.

“Students and middle-class families are in desperate need of action to break the bottlenecks that are preventing timely graduation and ultimately increasing the burden of student debt,” Williams said.

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L.A. County Superior Court to cut 511 positions by summer

The Los Angeles County Superior Court plans to eliminate 511 positions by June in a sweeping cost-cutting effort to close an $85-million budget shortfall by the beginning of the next fiscal year.

“All of them are necessary,” Presiding Judge David S. Wesley said of the positions.

Including those cuts, the court has lost 24% of its employees over the last four years, officials said. Meanwhile, the workload continues to increase.

More than 50 judges and staff members have spent the last five months creating a cost-cutting plan, court officials said. It “involved hundreds of hours” of caseload analysis, study of court facilities and discussions with attorneys and stakeholders, the court said in a statement.

The courts are funded by the state, which has slashed funding in recent years, leading to court closures, higher court fees and longer waits for cases to be heard.

This week, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye pleaded with lawmakers to restore funding for state courts during the annual State of the Judiciary address. The state, which has the largest court system in the country, "is facing a crisis in civil rights" because of the cuts, she said.

L.A. County supes back court-ordered mental health treatment bills

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this week threw its weight behind Laura’s Law –- which allows counties to create court-ordered outpatient mental health treatment for the severely ill who have cycled through hospitals or jails and refused voluntary care -- saying in a resolution that such programs have been shown to “significantly reduce” homelessness, hospitalization and arrest.

The resolution, authored by Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, directs the county’s chief executive and legislative advocates to  get behind five new state bills that would make it easier for counties to create such programs and secure “mental health treatment for those who refuse to get help on their own.”

The back story: It’s been a whole decade since state lawmakers passed Laura’s Law, which was patterned after New York State’s Kendra’s Law but didn’t come with any funding. It also required approval by each county board of supervisors.  In all that time, only Nevada County, where the law’s namesake, Laura Wilcox, was shot to death by a mental health client who had begun refusing treatment, has implemented one.

Lawsuit filed against L.A. County courts over changes for eviction cases

Saying that a Los Angeles County Superior Court plan to reduce the number of courts handling landlord disputes "shuts the courthouse doors on many of the county's most vulnerable residents," several legal aid organizations filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the court system and the state.

In the 21-page filing, the organizations said the reduction in the number of courthouses hearing such cases from 26 to five throughout the county will create difficulties for low-income tenants and people with disabilities fighting eviction.

Some people will have to travel up to 32 miles to litigate their cases, court officials have said. The trips "to the courthouse for these tenants will require numerous transfers and travel to unfamiliar areas and will be prohibitively difficult and expensive," the lawsuit states.

The plan to send eviction cases, known as unlawful detainers, to designated "hub" courthouses is scheduled to begin Monday.

The cases will be heard only in Pasadena, Long Beach, Santa Monica, the Antelope Valley Courthouse in Lancaster and the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in downtown Los Angeles, seeks to halt the plan and demands a jury trial.

Attorneys with Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Disability Rights Legal Center and Western Center on Law & Poverty filed the suit on behalf of several plaintiffs, including two disabled people facing eviction.

Suspending some standardized tests could save state $15 million

A plan to suspend California’s standardized testing for certain grades while new computerized exams are developed could save $15 million, the state’s top education official said Wednesday.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson recommended to the state Board of Education that the savings be used instead to develop higher-quality tests linked to new uniform but voluntary academic standards. They have been adopted by 45 states, including California, which plans to roll them out in the 2014-15 school year.

The new standards are aimed at fostering more critical thinking, sophisticated writing and other higher-level skills. 

“Rather than continuing to spend scarce dollars and precious class time on outdated testing, we can invest these resources in developing the next generation of assessments that will help students focus on critical thinking and problem-solving -- the skills they will need in college and their careers,” Torlakson said in a statement.

But some analysts have estimated that it could cost as much as $1 billion for the textbooks, teacher training and technology needed for computerized tests related to the new standards. As a result of such concerns, state Sen. Carol Liu (D-Glendale) has proposed delaying the suspension of current tests until 2016.

Torlakson has sponsored a bill by Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla (D-Concord) to suspend most of the standardized testing beginning next fall.

Torlakson has recommended suspending tests that are not required by the federal government, such as math and English in second, ninth and tenth grade, and those given at the end of high school courses in such subjects as world history and biology.

Tests to evaluate whether high school juniors are on track to meet the academic expectations of California State University would not be suspended.

“These new assessments will provide our schools with a way to measure how ready students are for the challenges of a changing world,” Torlakson said. “That’s why, despite the budget and other challenges, California must move forward now so that all children -- no matter where they come from or where they live -- receive a world-class education.”

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Photo: State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson in a 2010 file photo. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

California school districts in better financial shape, report says

California school districts are slowly emerging from financial crisis, with the number in danger of running out of cash dropping by one-third over last year, state education officials announced Monday.

“I can say with growing confidence that the worst of California’s school funding crisis is behind us,” State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a statement.

The number of school districts that won’t or may not meet their financial obligations this year and the two subsequent years dropped to 124 from 188 last May, according to the report released by the state department of education. That amounts to 500,000 California students whose districts are no longer in financial peril, he said.

In Los Angeles county, however, two more districts joined Inglewood Unified on the list of those that are expected to run out of money sometime in the next three years: Walnut Valley Unified in the Diamond Bar area, which serves 14,600 students in 15 schools, and Wilsona School District in the Antelope Valley area, with 1,430 students in two schools.

A further 16 L.A. County school districts reported they might not be able to meet their financial obligations between now and 2014-15. They include L.A. Unified, Burbank, Compton, Pasadena and Pomona.

But the number of financially imperiled school districts in L.A. County has been reduced by half this year over last May, said Alex Cherniss, chief business officer for the county’s Office of Education. He said financial problems remained because new funding from Proposition 30, passed by voters last November, and Gov. Jerry Brown’s new school-finance formula, won’t start delivering new dollars for another year or two. Beginning next year, he said, L.A. County schools would receive an average boost of $300 per student.  

In L.A. Unified, however, Supt. John Deasy has said that any increased funding would be used to fill in continued deficits from past state budget cuts and that any new spending would not be likely to begin until 2015.

“There is no tangible evidence that districts’ financial positions are improving today,” Cherniss said. “There’s just more positive projections moving forward."

“It’s hard to take to the bank rosier times until we see the economy actually improve,” he added.

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Cal State won't raise tuition despite budget shortfall

California State University officials said Tuesday they would not increase tuition next fall but they warned that the governor's budget would not allow them to increase enrollment despite record demand at many colleges.

The Cal State system had requested $372 million in additional funding for student programs, urgent maintenance, enrollment growth and other services for the 2013-14 academic year. But the governor's proposal includes $125 million in additional money — and that amount must still make it through budget negotiations with the Legislature.

"It's going to improve access but perhaps not by a lot of bodies," Chancellor Timothy P. White said at a meeting of the Board of Trustees in Long Beach. "The budget stops the hemorrhaging and gives us a chance to take breath."

Gov. Jerry Brown, who attended Tuesday's meeting, echoed White's concerns, reiterating that he wants the university system to spend within its means and avoid a tuition hike. Brown took the same message to the UC regents in San Francisco last week.

"It's a tight ship and it's going to get tighter," the governor said in Long Beach. "We're going to have to do some very creative, very thoughtful, very careful adjustments."

The caution underscored a key fiscal reality: Despite Brown's funding proposal and the passage of Proposition 30, which temporarily increased sales taxes and income taxes on high earners, the state's public higher education systems are still climbing out of deep budget holes. State support for Cal State's 23 campuses has decreased by nearly $1 billion since 2008.

Brown's budget won't forestall court closures, chief justice says

California courts will continue to face closures and reduced hours in the coming year under Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget, California’s chief justice said Thursday.

In a telephone conference with reporters, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said Brown’s proposed spending plan fails to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts that are forcing court closures in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Fresno counties.

“Nothing about this court budget fixes or ameliorates” the loss of service to the public, Cantil-Sakauye said.

The state's top jurist said she was relieved that the proposed budget did not call for further cuts for trial court operations but noted the proposal “has an incredibly negative long-term impact” on the judicial branch’s ability to replace dilapidated and potentially unsafe courthouses around the state.

“This budget doesn’t answer our problems and our challenges,” she said. She said she and other court leaders would work to restore court funding.

Other legal leaders around the state also expressed disappointment with the court’s budget. Brian Kabateck, president of Consumer Attorneys of California, said the court system was still reeling from past cutbacks.

“At first blush the governor’s new budget appears to maintain the status quo,” Kabateck said. “Unfortunately, with the courts absorbing more than $1 billion in cuts over the past five years, the status quo isn’t acceptable. The status quo has been a disaster.”

Kabateck noted that Los Angeles County has been forced to close 10 courthouses and cut operations, creating long lines for service and slowing the pace of justice.

“The old axiom is: Justice delayed is justice denied,” Kabateck said. “Well, lately there has been a lot of justice being denied all over the state.”

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Photo: Chief Justice Tani Cantil–Sakauye in January 2012. Credit: Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times

College admission may get easier as ranks of high school graduates drop

High school graduates will face less competition for college admission in the next decade due to a demographic decline in their ranks, according to a report on education enrollment trends released Wednesday.

At the same time, Latinos and Asian Americans will constitute larger shares of high school populations and the numbers of white and black students will drop.

“Over the last two decades, colleges and universities have been able to count on an annually growing number of students graduating from the nation’s high schools. But it appears that period of abundance will soon be history,” said the study, Knocking at the College Door, issued by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

Postsecondary campuses will have to recruit more heavily, possibly reaching beyond typical geographic territories and turning to older adults and other nontraditional populations, the report said.

The number of high school graduates increased nationally for a decade, peaking at 3.4 million in 2010-11, but then lower birth rates and less immigration contributed to a decline. Estimates show 3.21 million graduates are expected in 2013-2014, according to the report. Then it projects small ups and downs until 2023-24, when high school graduates will reach 3.4 million again.

The effect will be uneven across the country. The Northeast and Midwest will experience the largest declines, with smaller ones in the West and some growth in the South, particularly in Texas and Georgia, the study found.

In California, the ranks of high school graduates peaked two years ago at 430,292 and is expected to be 408,467 in 2012-13. Possibly easing enrollment pressures at state colleges and universities, a general decline will follow to a low of 384,600 projected in 2019-2020. The state will then see some modest growth for the next five years but the ranks of its new high school graduates will remain well below the peak.

The study anticipates that 45% of nation’s public high school students will be non-white by 2019-20, compared to 38% in 2009. In that period, the annual numbers of Latino graduates from public high schools will rise 41% and Asian-Pacific Islanders will be up 30% while whites decline 12% and blacks 9%, according to the study.

Colleges and universities should review their recruitment, financial aid and student support policies for a more ethnically diverse future, the report suggested. Higher education must “address the fact that systems, policies and practices designed for an earlier, more racially/ethnically homogenous era will not suffice.”

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Photo: Students wait in line for financial aid at Santa Monica College campus in September. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times