Reddock withdraws nomination to Los Angeles pension board

The newest appointee to a Los Angeles pension board has withdrawn her nomination after a city councilman voiced concern about her refusal to name her legal clients, city officials said today.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had named attorney Angela Reddock to the Fire and Police Pensions system, an agency whose board members have come under scrutiny in recent months regarding the potential for conflicts of interest.

Although council members were scheduled to vote to confirm Reddock today, Councilman Bernard C. Parks raised questions after reading correspondence between Reddock and the city Ethics Commission, which is charged with identifying potential conflicts of interest for new city commissioners. Reddock told the commission in an e-mail that she did not plan to name any client that had paid her more than $10,000, citing attorney-client privilege.

L.A. mayor selects new housing chief from Chicago

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced his selection of Douglas Guthrie to become the new general manager of the city’s Housing Department.

Guthrie, a former top official at the Chicago Housing Authority, most recently worked with private ventures focused on affordable urban development and the redevelopment of old public housing into mixed-use city centers.

Guthrie served for six years as president of Kimball Hill Urban Centers in Chicago, which built mixed-income affordable housing in many depressed city centers that most traditional developers would avoid, including a project with former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, one of Villaraigosa’s long-time political supporters.

Man falls to death from downtown L.A. apartment

Police are investigating the death this morning of an elderly man who fell from his 10th-story apartment in the Alexandria Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Officers called to the 500 block of South Spring Street about 5:30 a.m. initially investigated the death as a suicide, said Officer April Harding, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department. A recent string of suicides in the area, the city’s Old Bank District, has confounded residents.

But coroner’s officials say the death appears to be accidental, and that a section of the fire escape outside the man’s apartment apparently gave way and was found on the sidewalk near the man’s body, according to Investigator Mario Sainz of the coroner’s office. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Woman, 65, is killed in Van Nuys apartment fire

A 65-year-old woman died today after a fire broke out at a Van Nuys apartment building, authorities said.

One of the engine companies at the neighborhood fire station, which was several blocks away, had been shut down because of budget cutbacks, authorities said.

But authorities said that two firetrucks — with six firefighters — were still in service at the station and arrived at the scene two minutes after the alarm was sounded. Another firetruck from the next-closest station arrived in four minutes, authorities said.

"We got there very quickly," said Battalion Chief Ronnie Villanueva of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

He noted that the average response time in the San Fernando Valley  is about five minutes.

When fire units arrived at the blaze about 2:20 a.m., smoke was streaming out of the second-story apartment building in the 14100 block of West Erwin Street.

The woman was discovered inside the smoke-filled apartment and was taken to Sherman Oaks Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead, authorities said. Her name was not released.

The cause of the blaze was under investigation.

—Robert J. Lopez

Former BART officer's trial is moved to L.A. County

The trial of a former San Francisco Bay Area transit officer who was videotaped shooting an unarmed man in a New Year's Day confrontation will be moved to Los Angeles County because of intense media coverage, the Associated Press is reporting. Here's the full story:

The trial of a white former San Francisco Bay Area transit officer charged in the killing of an unarmed black man will be moved to Los Angeles County because of extensive media coverage and other possible distractions to trial participants, a judge in Oakland ruled Thursday.

The decision by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson comes a month after he decided the murder trial of Johannes Mehserle would be moved out of that area.

State court officials recommended Los Angeles and San Diego counties to the judge as possible sites for a trial.

Mehserle, 27, is charged with fatally shooting Oscar Grant, 22, at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Oakland on New Year’s Day. The incident was video-recorded by several bystanders, shown across the Internet and subsequently used as evidence in a preliminary hearing last spring.

New video footage roils ACORN's South L.A. office

The housing advocacy group ACORN is taking fire again tonight, this time for video footage secretly recorded at the organization's South Los Angeles office.

The video was posted tonight by conservative activist James O'Keefe on biggovernment.com.
In the footage, O'Keefe (posing as a USC student) and cohort Hanna Giles (posing as a prostitute) appear to ask an ACORN employee for assistance in finding housing for a fictional underage prostitution ring.

Read the full story at the Top of the Ticket blog.

Vigil held for driver killed in crash with LAPD cruiser [Updated]

 

Marchers are hitting the streets of Venice tonight for a candlelight vigil to call attention to the death of Devin Petelski, whose car was broadsided last month by a Los Angeles Police Department cruiser.

Organizers said about 200 people are at the scene of the Oct. 15 crash on Venice Boulevard at Glyndon Avenue, and plan to walk several miles to the LAPD's Pacific Division station. Petelski was struck as her BMW entered the intersection shortly before midnight. She died two days later in a hospital, where she had been on life support.

[Updated at 9:12 p.m.: Marchers reached the Pacific Division station, where they spoke with Capt. Joseph Hiltner and Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes Venice.]

Petelski's friends and relatives have accused  police of causing her death. Two officers, who suffered minor injuries, were in the cruiser and had been speeding along Venice Boulevard without their headlights, sirens or flashing lights, critics say.

The accident remains under investigation by the LAPD, but city officials say the preliminary police investigation indicates that the officers were using their headlights as they drove along Venice Boulevard.

Friends say Petelski was a Santa Monica resident who enjoyed yoga and trips to the beach. She was a graduate of Crossroads High School in Santa Monica and studied communications at UC Santa Barbara, friends said.

Judges to donate portion of salaries to furloughed staff

A fund created by Los Angeles County Superior Court judges who are donating a day’s pay each month will be used to offset pay cuts to the court staff, officials announced Thursday.

Monthly staff furloughs and court closures were ordered in July after the state Legislature cut court funding by more than $200 million.

Most of L.A. County’s judges, who were exempt from the furloughs because their salaries are legally protected from cuts, opted to forgo a day’s pay to help mitigate the effects of the budget cuts.

The donations, which amount on average to 4.5% of a judge's salary, will restore up to one day’s pay per quarter for the court’s 5,000 employees, beginning in January.

“We believe this is unprecedented and shows strong support to staff working under difficult conditions,” said Arnella Sims, a court reporter and union official who said the decision came as a surprise.

—Victoria Kim

Agents seize bongs at L.A. Harbor listed as Christmas ornaments

Customs officials at the Los Angeles Harbor received a shipment from China listed as Christmas ornaments.

But when they opened the "presents" Tuesday, they found 316,000 bongs and pipes.

“They’re very colorful and big,” said Cristina Gamez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “Some of them are like 2 feet tall.”

Gamez said glass bongs and pipes, contained in nearly 860 boxes of cargo, are worth about $2.6 million.

The package arrived a month ago but was seized Tuesday at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex. The manifest listing the cargo’s contents said Christmas ornaments were inside. They were addressed to someone in L.A. County.

Gamez said no arrests have been made, and an investigation is pending. She said that it is illegal to import, export or sell drug paraphernalia in the United States and that all the items would be destroyed.

-- Baxter Holmes

Photo: A bong seized by Customs agents at L.A. Harbor. Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement

Rock 'n' Roll Marathon coming to Los Angeles in 2010

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon series is coming to Los Angeles.

The Competitor Group, which owns the series of marathons held around the country, announced today that it will open a new half-marathon in L.A. Scheduled for Oct. 24, 2010, the run will replace the City of Angels Half Marathon, which has been held since 2006 on the first weekend in December. Peter Englehart, president and chief executive officer of the Competitor Group, said an agreement had been reached with the nonprofit group Grove of Hope to replace the City of Angels event, but he did not disclose the terms of the deal.

“We’ve been blessed with several other good markets on the West Coast, but L.A. was the missing piece to the puzzle,” Englehart said. “As we grow our company, it’s important to have a presence in L.A., so this was an opportunity we were looking for.”

L.A. charter schools win Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant

A consortium of Los Angeles-area charter schools has won a $60-million grant to develop a new teacher evaluation system based at least partly on student test scores. The grant, part of $335 million in related awards announced today by the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, represents the largest private funding for an initiative of this sort.

The local winners are five charter management organizations that specialize in opening schools that serve low-income minority communities. The charter companies are Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, ICEF Public Schools, PUC Schools and Aspire Public Schools. All are based in Southern California except Aspire, which is headquartered in Oakland and expanding its L.A.-area operations.

Veteran substitute teachers win back seniority rights in L.A. Unified

Veteran substitute teachers in Los Angeles will get more work and a shot at keeping their health benefits after the teachers union approved an agreement restoring their seniority rights.

The agreement approved Wednesday night puts back in place a system that gives the most experienced substitutes the first shot at jobs when regular teachers call in sick within the Los Angeles Unified School District. That traditional system had been altered in June under a one-year pact between district officials and A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the district’s teachers union.

That pact gave priority in substitute assignments to former full-time teachers who had been laid off July 1 because of budget cuts. About 1,800 laid-off teachers signed on as substitutes; the district uses about 2,200 substitutes per day. The specifics of the deal, which came to light two months later, caused immediate outrage among veteran substitutes and also among many full-time teachers. They said they objected both to the treatment of their part-time colleagues and to the idea that seniority rights could be so easily and quickly abrogated.

Group tied to DWP employee union sues L.A. Ethics Commission to block fundraising limit [Updated]

A nonprofit group closely tied to the Department of Water and Power employee union has filed a federal lawsuit against the City’s Ethics Commission, saying a city campaign fundraising law is unfairly limiting its ability to advocate on behalf of City Council candidate Christine Essel.
 
The case comes during a two-week period when outside groups have poured more than $280,000 into independent expenditures to boost Essel’s bid to replace former City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who is now city controller. Among those groups is the political arm of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 18, which has spent more than $93,000 in support of Essel’s campaign. The union is headed by Brian D’Arcy.

Working Californians, the group suing the city, is co-chaired by D’Arcy and Marvin Kropke, the business manager of IBEW Local 11. The group devised the solar energy proposal known as Measure B on the March ballot, which was supported by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa but was defeated by voters. And D’Arcy showed his political clout last month when he negotiated a five-year package of raises for DWP employees at a time when the police union agreed to forgo pay increases for two years because of the city’s budget crisis.
 
The legal challenge is to a 1985 city law that bars political committees from accepting contributions of more than $500 if the group plans to use that money to make an independent expenditure for a city candidate.
 
In practice, the law prevents outside groups or individuals from contributing to each other to pay for independent expenditures that support city candidates. Contributions that are not earmarked for a specific city campaign are not subject to that $500 limit. (If violations are suspected, the City Ethics Commission’s enforcement division determines whether a contribution was for an independent expenditure).
 
In a court hearing Thursday, Working Californians plans to ask a judge to immediately bar the Ethics Commission from enforcing what it characterizes as an unconstitutional violation of their free speech rights. If they are successful, it could open the door for a flood of outside contributions, not only in the Dec. 8 contest between Essel and Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, but in future city elections.
 

UC Regents committee approves student fee increases; at least 14 protesters arrested at meeting at UCLA

A University of California Board of Regents committee today approved a series of controversial increases in student fees that, if passed by the full board, will raise UC undergraduate education costs by more than $2,500, or 32%, in two steps by fall 2010.

The finance committee vote is expected to be endorsed by the full Board of Regents on Thursday. The two-day meeting is being held at UCLA, where today's session has been marked by raucous protests with at least 14 arrests.

The first step of the fee hike, costing undergraduates an additional $585, will take effect in January. Next fall, students will see another $1,344 increase, bringing the UC education fees to $10,302, along with about $1,000 in campus-based charges. That does not include room, board and books, which can add another $16,000.

Demonstrations broke out inside the meeting hall at UCLA's Covel Commons soon after the meeting began this morning.  A presentation on the budget and fee increase proposal by UC President Mark Yudof was interrupted.  Police cleared the public from the hall but a group of protesters refused to leave, standing and singing “We Shall Overcome.” 

They were escorted out and handcuffed and police said they would be cited for misdemeanor unlawful assembly. It was not clear whether they were students.

Outside the hall, meanwhile, an estimated 300 students and union activists faced off against a large contingent of UC police in riot gear and carrying non-lethal weapons.  At one point, bottles were thrown and police pushed the crowd away from the front door.  There were no reports of serious injuries or additional arrests beyond the 14 people arrested inside.

-- Larry Gordon at UCLA

Photo: UCLA students, from left, Frances Clark, 20, a history major, and Amanda Bahamonde, 20, a biology student, protest student fee hikes today at UCLA. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times.

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L.A. City Council puts off marijuana vote until next week at the earliest

The Los Angeles City Council this afternoon postponed a vote on a medical marijuana ordinance until next week at the earliest.

Councilman Ed Reyes, who is overseeing efforts to craft a law, introduced a motion that would make a series of major changes to the proposal, and asked that the council take more time to review them.

He also noted that other council members had proposed numerous amendments. "This is only the tip of the iceberg," he said.

L.A. City Council lists top 10 places where bureaucracy makes it hard to film

The Los Angeles City Council, in an attempt to stem runaway production and make television and motion picture filming less of a hassle in the city, ordered up a list of the 10 most popular locations where bureaucratic regulations and other factors make it hard to film, with hopes of eventually fixing the situation.

The worst of the worst are, in no particular order: the

• Hollywood sign.

• Griffith Park Observatory.

• Los Angeles Zoo.

• Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce headquarters.

• AT&T Building downtown.

• Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center.

• Farmers and Merchants Bank downtown.

• Japanese American National Museum.

• Library Park, also known as Maguire Gardens, at the Los Angeles Central Library.

• Terminal Annex Post Office near Union Station downtown.

The city’s financial analysts compiled the list with the help of film industry location managers through their union, the Motion Picture and Theatrical Trade Teamsters Local 399.

The location mangers said those sites are difficult to film for a variety of reasons, including rental costs, difficulty securing permits, government regulations restricting public access and even things such as restrictions on providing food for crew members.

“Los Angeles is the film capital of the world, but there are too many places in which we tell filming to go away,’’ said Council President Eric Garcetti.
 

Eight arrested at UC Regents meeting at UCLA

Soon after the UC Regents meeting began today, demonstrations broke out inside the hall, UCLA’s Covel Commons, disrupting a presentation by UC President Mark Yudof on the budget situation and his recommendation for student fee increases.

When the protesters refused to be quiet, university police cleared the public from the hall, but eight people refused to leave, standing and singing “We Shall Overcome” for several choruses.

They were escorted out and handcuffed and police said they would be cited for misdemeanor unlawful assembly. It was not clear whether they were students.

Outside the hall, meanwhile, several hundred protesters gathered, holding banners protesting the likely vote to increase fees and shouting, "Cut from the top!"

-- Larry Gordon at UCLA   

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Michael Jackson was 'probably' in denial about drug abuse, Janet Jackson says

Michael Jackson, who died of an overdose of a powerful sedative,  was "probably" in denial about his drug abuse, his sister Janet Jackson said in an interview.

In an interview with ABC News, Jackson said the family was aware of the pop star's drug problems and in the past had organized interventions for him.

"You can't make them drink the water," Janet Jackson said. "I'm a true believer in prayer, a big believer in prayer -- but it's, it's something that you can't do for them. Something they have to do for themselves."

Asked about whether Michael Jackson believed he had drug problems, his sister added:  "I felt that he was in denial."

Jackson died of "lethal levels" of the powerful anesthetic propofol, according to a search warrant affidavit unsealed in Houston.

L.A. council members hear from residents angered about digital billboards

Pressure is building on members of the Los Angeles City Council to remove 101 digital billboards across the city, now that a judge has struck down a key settlement. But after hearing from more than 30 speakers today, members of a council committee put off making any recommendation to their colleagues.
 
The illuminated signs were erected under a 2006 agreement between the city and two outdoor advertising companies. That settlement was struck down by a Superior Court judge earlier this month.
 
But as they weighed their legal options, members on the council’s planning and land use committee heard an earful from residents urging them to immediately remove the bright, flashing signs in their neighborhoods and convert them back to conventional billboards. At the same time, representatives from settlement participants Clear Channel Outdoor Inc. and CBS Outdoor Inc. — backed by several business groups — urged the committee not to act hastily because the firms are appealing the judge’s ruling.
 
Jan Reichmann, president of the Comstock Hills Homeowners Assn., told committee members that she and her neighbors were living in the shadow of a huge digital billboard on Santa Monica Boulevard in Westwood. “It’s time to end the suffering from the blinking lights flashing into our homes and backyards, and the nonstop noise emanating from the huge cooling fans,” Reichmann said.
 

D.A. will prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries -- even if L.A. does not ban sales [Updated]

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said today he will prosecute dispensaries that sell medical marijuana even if the Los Angeles City Council adopts an ordinance that does not ban such sales.

On Monday, two council committees rejected the city attorney’s advice and changed a provision in the proposed ordinance, allowing cash transactions as long as they complied with state law.

“Undermining those laws via their ordinance powers is counterproductive, and, quite frankly, we’re ignoring them. They are absolutely so irrelevant it’s not funny,” Cooley said.

Cooley said state law and state court decisions have made it clear that collectives cannot sell marijuana at dispensaries.

Charlie Beck named L.A.'s new chief of police

The Los Angeles City Council today appointed Charlie Beck as the city's new police chief.

The council unanimously approved Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's nomination at a hearing this morning. There was no organized opposition to the nomination of Beck, currently an LAPD deputy chief, but the stakes are high.

The choice comes at a time of uncertainty for the department as Beck will be given the task of sustaining former Police Chief William J. Bratton’s hard-won gains amid dwindling city budgets. Beck, 56, has risen quickly through the department’s command ranks in recent years and was viewed widely as the favorite to be selected by the mayor.

From his success in rehabilitating the Rampart Division, which had been at the center of a corruption scandal, and later as head of the LAPD’s forces in South Los Angeles, he has earned praise from police and civic leaders for blending a tough stance on crime with a progressive approach to improving the police department’s relationship with the public.

L.A. Council to discuss billboards amid calls to have digital signs removed

Some of those bright, flashing digital billboards across Los Angeles could soon go dark if a handful of City Council members have their way.

A council committee today will begin wrestling with how the city should proceed in the wake of Superior Court Judge Terry Green's ruling that invalidated a 2006 billboard settlement between the city and two outdoor advertising companies, CBS Outdoor Inc. and Clear Channel Outdoor Inc. That agreement, brokered after the two companies sued the city over its earlier billboard regulations, authorized a variety of changes to 840 billboards, including adding a second face or converting them to a digital format.

In his ruling earlier this month, the judge said city officials should decide to handle 101 of the signs modernized so far.

Neighborhood groups, arguing that the signs have created visual blight and distractions for drivers, are urging council members to move quickly by ordering the companies to convert the billboards back to their conventional state. But with millions of dollars at stake, CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor are appealing the judge’s ruling and urging the council to let the case work its way through the courts before taking action.

L.A. City Council panels reject ban on medical marijuana sales

Rejecting the advice of the city attorney, two Los Angeles City Council committees voted today to scrap a proposed provision that would have banned the sale of medical marijuana.

The controversial measure, first proposed a year and a half ago, delayed deliberations as council members debated the wisdom of ignoring the opinion of the city's top prosecutor. But about four hours into a raucous hearing, council members made it clear they were ready to move on.

"When can we finally stop the merry-go-round?" said Councilman Dennis Zine, who kicked off the City Council's consideration of the issue in 2005 when concerns about dispensaries first surfaced. He proposed an alternative provision that would allow dispensaries to accept cash for marijuana as long as they comply with state law.

L.A. mayor and teachers union to compete for control of Jefferson High

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the teachers union will compete for control of Jefferson High School under one of the nation’s most closely watched school-improvement initiatives. Today marks the first key deadline — the final day for groups inside or outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to turn in “letters of intent” for reform plans.

Up for grabs are 12 struggling existing schools and 18 campuses that are scheduled to open next fall.

The joust over Jefferson, located in the Central Alameda neighborhood south of downtown Los Angeles, was both revealed and underscored by dueling news conferences this morning. United Teachers Los Angeles struck first, at 7 a.m., in front of the Jefferson entrance. The timing had more to do with allowing students and teachers to participate before the start of school than with upstaging the mayor, but the rhetoric was nonetheless defiant toward outside forces seeking to take over.

“Politicians have to stop using public education as their means to beat their chests,” said UTLA President A.J. Duffy. “As they say in the commodities market, this is all about their futures -- their political futures.”

USC again has most foreign students, followed by NYU [Updated]

For the eighth consecutive year, USC enrolled the highest number of foreign students of any U.S. university last year, a new report shows. USC, which recruits strongly in Asia, hosted 7,482 international students in the 2008-09 school year, according to the study by the Institute of International Education with support from the State Department. [Updated at 2:16 p.m.: In all, USC enrolls about 34,000 undergraduate and graduate students.]

New York University, with 6,761, had the second-largest international contingent and Columbia University, with 6,685, ranked third. UCLA was in eighth place, with 5,590. California had the most foreign students, followed by New York and Texas.

The "Open Doors" survey, released today, showed that the number of international students at about 3,000 U.S. colleges and universities rose 8% last year to a new high of 671,616. Big increases in students from China helped fuel the rise. As in other recent years, India once again sent the most students to the U.S., followed by China, South Korea, Canada and Japan.

But there are indications that the growth might have slowed this fall semester because of economic conditions and concerns about the H1N1 virus. A related but separate survey of 700 schools by the institute and seven other education organizations showed that 45% of those campuses reported an increase in foreign students this fall, compared to 56% last year.

-- Larry Gordon

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