Unfair fight?
State and local housing councils act as prosecutor, judge and jury against perceived discrimination. Critics see a conflict of interest.
SACRAMENTO A few little words could cost Dan Bader a fortune.
In 2006, Bader advertised an apartment for rent on Craigslist. He wanted $1,950 a month for the adjoining 480-square foot unit in back of his Newport Beach home. As an afterthought, he added, “Well suited for professional adults” and “Perfect for 1 or 2 professionals.”
Bad move. . .
Dan Walters: Illegal immigrants didn’t cause California fiscal crisis
With illegal immigration a burning concern among Californians – as demonstrated anew by a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll – and the Capitol’s politicians sparring over how to close a whopping budget deficit, it was inevitable that the two issues would be merged.
It happened last week when Republican Assembly members unveiled legislation aimed, they said, at eliminating public services to illegal immigrants, echoing Proposition 187, a 1994-vintage ballot measure that voters enacted only to see it voided in the courts. Republicans claim illegal immigrants cost taxpayers $9 billion a year, just about the remaining budget deficit, citing a 2004 study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
And the mother of Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee confronted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during one of his “town hall” events on the budget in San Luis Obispo, asking him how the state should handle fiscal burdens caused by illegal immigrants. . .
Students to cut classes for Cesar Chavez day
Student activists at UCLA and other schools around the state plan to cut classes today—Cesar Chavez day—to protest the failure of schools to close down on the state holiday marking the birthday of the co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America.
The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary—which calls itself BAMN —will lead a rally and march planned by the student activists. Other rallies will be held elsewhere in Los Angeles, Oakland and Sacramento, organizers said.
“On Chavez Holiday, we will be marching for dignity, equal treatment and respect,” said Los Angeles BAMN organizer Hoku Jeffrey. . .
California officials find Nevada ads ‘un-Bear-able’
SACRAMENTO — As California business leaders bristle at vows by lawmakers to close the budget gap with new corporate taxes, the good people of Nevada see a Golden State opportunity.
In a series of advertisements in newspapers and business journals that portray California in cartoons, the Nevada Development Authority is trying to lure California enterprises across the state line.
“Doing your part to carry the un-Bear-able load?” asks one ad, which features a cartoon of a businessman lugging the bear from California’s state flag on his back. The bear has a fistful of cash in its mouth and, just to be clear, the words “California Taxes” on its left hind leg. . .
Supervisor’s expenses are questioned
Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby, who earlier this month admitted using political contributions to pay for a hotel stay during a spat with his wife, spent nearly $8,000 from his campaign account in the last months of 2007 on unexplained charges, campaign finance records show.
The spending, which included more than $1,300 in payments to himself, occurred during a period when Norby moved out of his home because of marital problems and was living in a hotel and, briefly, his office in the county Hall of Administration in Santa Ana.
Norby recently acknowledged that a $340 hotel charge—labeled a “study of homeless and hotel families” on his campaign committee report—was a weeklong stay for himself. He repaid the money to his campaign account when asked about it by The Times. . .
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
Feinstein, Villaraigosa urge federal action on foreclosures
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged support today for federal legislation aimed at ending lending practices that have contributed to thousands of foreclosures in the Southland and elsewhere in the country.
The two officials pointed to the case of Charles and Patricia Simmons, who refinanced their Inglewood home last year, and are now using their life savings to pay mortgage payments they cannot afford.
The Simmons refinanced from a $550,000 loan with an 8 percent interest rate to a $629,000 loan that they did not know included a 11.2 percent adjustable interest rate, monthly payments of $5,300 and $24,000 in closing costs. . .
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com)—The federal government is keeping Bear Stearns out of bankruptcy. Are you next?Momentum for federal assistance to struggling homeowners, a non-starter with the Republican administration and many members of Congress only a few months ago, has picked up steam in Washington.
The tipping point came March 16, when the Federal Reserve agreed to back up to $30 billion in Bear Stearns (BSC, Fortune 500) losses as part of JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM, Fortune 500) fire sale purchase of Bear Stearns. (The Fed cut its guarantee by $1 billion earlier this week when JPMorgan boosted its offer for Bear.)
Huff’s legislation aimed at migrants said unlikely to pass
A package of Assembly bills aimed at discouraging illegal immigration is circulating the Assembly, though none of the five measures is likely to become legislation.
The bills, authored by Assemblyman Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, aim to revoke the constitutional birthright to citizenship for children whose parents are not U.S. citizens and eliminate other rights for undocumented immigrants.
“Most people don’t think that just because you happen to be in this country and have a baby, it should be a citizen,” Huff said. “What is it that inherently entitles that person to all the rights that belong to people here legitimately . . .
Web site lets users rate their local cops—good and bad
CULVER CITY - Armed with a laptop and the names of tens of thousands of police officers across the country, a Southland entrepreneur is raising the ire of law enforcement with an online, five-star rating system similar to those used for teachers.
Less than a month old, RateMyCop.com has gotten 100,000 hits a day, with users leaving comments – good and bad – about their interactions with cops, founder Gino Sesto said.
He runs the site out of his two-bedroom home and said he thinks it’s a fair way to hold law enforcement accountable. . .
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
KFI NEWS has obtained a copy of LAPD Chief William Bratton’s secret evaluation of the SWAT team, officially known as Metropolitan division’s “D-Platoon,” from a source outside the police department.
The report, which Bratton and other police officials say will eventually be made public when it’s ‘ready,’ criticizes SWAT for rushing into confrontations with mentally ill people, covering up an illegal use of force, and protecting officers disciplined for misconduct.
Bratton commissioned the report following the accidental death of Suzie Pena, a toddler who was used as a shield by her father while he engaged officers in a gunfight in South Los Angeles. . .
Friday, March 21st, 2008
Inspectors find dirt on books at Southern Calif. carwashes
A team of state inspectors strode into the Blue Wave Car Wash in West Los Angeles, past latte-sipping customers in electric massage chairs and into the gritty carwash tunnel.
”¿Cuánto gana usted?” the inspectors asked worker after worker, about 20 of them, most Latino immigrants. How much do you make? Each carwashero responded that he earned minimum wage or more—just as the owner of the Blue Wave, one of the region’s busiest carwashes, had told the inspectors.
Looking over payroll records, however, the regulators became suspicious. Employees who said they were full time were listed as working just 10 or 15 hours a week. . .
The Mystery of Global Warming’s Missing Heat
Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren’t quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.
In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans. . .
Passport Security Breach on McCain, Clinton & Obama
An embarrassed State Department admitted today that the passport files of all three presidential candidates—Sens. John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton—have been breached by its employees.
The bombshell announcement came within hours of the admission that Obama’s personal file was improperly accessed several times earlier this year and no one was notified of the breach.
In a rapid series of escalating admissions, State Department Secretary Condoleezza Rice called Obama to apologize. She then had to call Clinton to apologize as well. And by noon, the department held a news conference to concede that McCain’s personal file had also been improperly accessed. . .
Scavenging to survive in Pasadena
It’s not yet 3 a.m. Juana Rivas grabs her shopping cart and steps off the curb into the dark.
She shields herself from the cold with a sweat shirt and jacket, along with a pink hat and gloves she bought at the 99-cent store. Only a barking dog interrupts the silence.
Rivas arrives at the first house, lifts the trash can lid and shines her flashlight inside. Nothing.
“No hay. No hay,” she says in Spanish. . .
High cost of cell-phone service can leave a ringing in the ears
Even as Los Angeles tries to trim its expenses amid a budget crisis, new data show that the city spends $3.6million a year on cell phones – up 26percent from five years ago.
And costs have tripled and quadrupled in some departments as city workers have switched to more expensive PDAs and BlackBerrys to stay connected.
But with Los Angeles facing a $400million to $500million deficit next year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has pushed city managers to cut cell-phone expenditures. . .
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
Mural sparks outcry from residents of L.A.’s Eastside
Everyone’s an art critic when it comes to a $195,000 mural for the LAPD’s new Hollenbeck station.
The tile mural was meant to depict a quaint Sunday in Boyle Heights. Many angry residents say it makes their neighborhood out to be a crime-ridden dump filled with fat women, stray dogs, beer-swilling men and illegal street vendors. And don’t get them started about the piñata.
“There’s no American flag. There seems to be a rule against that,” said Rosalie Gurrola, born and raised in Boyle Heights, to rousing cheers and applause at a recent community meeting. “We need an American flag . . .
Central Valley GOP senator faces recall vote
For only the fifth time in the past 90 years, voters will have a chance to recall a sitting state lawmaker, after the effort to unseat Sen. Jeff Denham qualified for the ballot on Tuesday.
Denham, a Central Valley Republican, angered top Democrats, particularly Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, for his role in prolonging last summer’s 52-day budget standoff.
The state Democratic Party and a committee tied to Perata spent nearly $300,000 to gather more than 61,000 signatures to qualify the recall, which the secretary of state certified Tuesday. . .
Mayor Villaraigosa to take a furlough today
Taking his own advice, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will take a furlough day today.
Villaraigosa, who makes $223,142 a year, will give up $858.26 in gross pay as a way to encourage other city employees to take unpaid vacation days.
The city is facing a multimillion-dollar deficit in the next fiscal year. . .
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
Concord hears Senate leader’s school challenge
CONCORD —Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata again threw down a state budget challenge Monday morning.
Surrounded by about 50 parents, teachers and Democrats on the front lawn of Glenview Middle School, a modest school in a middle-class Concord neighborhood, Perata continued to pressure Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to withdraw $4.4 billion in proposed education cuts from California’s K-12 system.
“I’m taking off my (sun)glasses so you can look in my eyes and see if I’m kidding,” Perata told the crowd. He was referring to Republican assertions that Democrats are going through the motions in their budget protests. “Democrats will never leave Sacramento as long as the governor intends to cut education by even one dime. . .
Report urges LAPD to change SWAT unit
A panel of law enforcement experts convened by Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton to examine the department’s elite SWAT unit concluded in an undisclosed report that the rigorous testing to get into the unit should be changed to make it more open to women, called for tighter supervision and criticized officers for relying too heavily on force over negotiations.
Those conclusions and others, included in a draft of the panel’s confidential report obtained by The Times, have deeply angered several Special Weapons and Tactics Team members, who say the changes—some of which already have been imposed—are misguided and will probably weaken the specialized unit that is charged with handling hostage situations and other high-risk operations.
“This is a recipe for disaster,” said a SWAT officer who has served in the unit for more than a decade. “We don’t get to back up and do things over. . . . These changes are going to put us and the public in danger. . .
Murder case against women outlined
They plucked the destitute off the street as “investments,” insured their lives for millions, then snuffed them out in staged hit-and-run accidents. They became so consumed by greed that they bickered over the money even after their arrests.
At least that’s how prosecutors Tuesday outlined their case against Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The septuagenarians stand accused of murdering a pair of Los Angeles homeless men in a chillingly deliberate scheme that required them to feed and shelter their victims for two years—the period after which insurance companies often cannot contest policies—before crushing them to death under cars in dark alleys. . .
Man suspected of serial flashing asked pursuer to let him go
Naked and looking for a way out, the man spotted outside a woman’s window asked his pursuer to let him go free.
“He said, ‘Please let me go, I have a wife and kids,’ ” said Michael Palacio, who on Feb. 2 chased the naked man after he said he spotted him outside the window of a woman’s apartment, knocking on the glass. “I thought, ‘If you are married, then why are you doing this?’ ”
Palacio, 39, chased the man for about 10 minutes, buying time for police, who arrived and arrested the Mission Viejo man in the parking lot of a Tustin grocery. . .
‘Ontario residents only’ at Tent City
Dozens of Ontario police and code enforcement officers descended upon the homeless encampment known as Tent City early Monday, separating those who could stay from those to be evicted.
Large, often confused, crowds formed ragged lines behind police barricades where officers handed out color-coded wristbands. Blue meant they were from Ontario and could remain. Orange indicated they had to provide more proof to avoid ejection, and white meant they had a week to leave.
Many who had taken shelter at the camp—which had grown from 20 to more than 400 residents in nine months—lacked paperwork, bills or birth certificates proving they were once Ontario residents. . .
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Obama confronts racial divisions in the U.S.
Sen. Barack Obama urged people to move beyond the “racial stalemate we have been stuck in for years” in a major speech in Philadelphia today, pleading for whites and blacks to understand the anger and frustration each side experiences.
In a 37-minute speech at the National Constitution Center, perhaps the most momentous of his 13-month campaign for president, Obama sought to stem the political damage to his campaign caused by his former pastor’s racially inflammatory remarks.
For the first time, Obama publicly acknowledged he had heard some “controversial” remarks from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his spiritual mentor and former pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He condemned remarks in some of Wright’s sermons that blamed the U.S. for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and accused America of being irredeemably racist. . .
