February 2007 Archives

It's always fun trying to get rarely asked for public records. You know city officials are going to say no, because they always do. One of those are resumes. I just asked Irwindale* for their city manager's resume, and they declined citing personnel exemptions. According to Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, that's baloney. And he cites case law. I'll be citing it too when I ask for it again. I'll put up the relevant case law when I find it.

*For some reason I had a brain-lock and put in Monrovia. I haven't (yet?) asked Monrovia for the city manager's resume.

UPDATE: Francke e-mailed the case law. Relevant part - "plaintiffs would obtain information as to the education, training, experience, awards, previous positions and publications of the auditor. Such information is routinely presented in both professional and social settings, is relatively innocuous and implicates no applicable privacy or public policy exemption."

Full decision after jump:

Missed this story from former colleague Jason Newell about the Johnson's Pasture. (via foothill) Of interest was where Claremont wanted to get some of the funding. It sounded vaguely familiar. Someone should really do a story about the program, I wish I knew someone in the news business.

According to AP, founder of the Minuteman Jim Gilchrist who has since been fired and accused of embezzlement, filed a lawsuit, saying the " the firings were illegal and that board members also illegally spent Minuteman money, seized its Web site and stole 20,000 pieces of letterhead."

Journalists are by nature inquisitive and paranoid. Questioning everything our leaders do, whether locally or nationally, and then questioning everything we ourselves do. That habit smashed together in our last story about Rep. Gary Miler, R-Brea. Miller challenged our reporting on this story and so we turned our critical eye on our reporting. Despite hours of reviewing our work and exchanges with Miller and his office, we found the reporting by Fred Ortega and Gary Scott bullet proof. But since the newspaper is part of the discussion, we have an obligation to give the other side say. Most times that means allowing someone to write an Op-Ed piece. Instead we gave Miller space on our letters page. We don't agree with his conclusions, but we should allow him the opportunity to respond like we give other readers of our paper. It will also have no effect on our future reporting.

Al Gore's inconvenient truth?
Gore responds.

I didn't see the “The Lives of Others," but Pan's Labryinth was the best movie, in a weak year, that I saw from last year.

"The problem of crime in the United States is not “caused” or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status," according to the Immigrant Policy Center. Breaking the law by illegally entering is not part of the study's equation, incarceration rates are. I haven't read the study yet, but will.

(photo from here)
Correspondent Brian Day did a story last month about how the body of Rusty Tullis was still at the LAC coroner's. Apparently, Tullis, who was portrayed by Cher in the movie Mask, is still there. We are trying to track it down. There is also a forum about how to pay for the costs of cremation

UPDATE: The body of Florence “Rusty” Tullis is still at the county coroner’s office, nearly three months after she died. Los Angeles County officials said the remains are expected to be cremated at county expense within the next two weeks. They will hold the urn for a year for next of kin to claim.

-because we have a pay wall for Day's article, I pasted a copy after the jump.

A fascinating article about the city of Cudahy, to the southwest of us, by LA Weekly's Jeffrey Anderson mentions Baldwin Park Councilman David Olivas, and not in a good way:
"The methods of Beltran, Leal and Olivas left a mark on their former law partner Jesse Jauregui, who broke all ties with the group in 2001. Jauregui has this — and only this — to say about his old colleagues: “I’m glad to no longer be a part of Tammany Hall–style politics. How far it goes, I do not know. It became a seamy situation.”
The legal maneuvering that led to new leadership in Cudahy was part of a larger strategy, says former Cudahy councilwoman Araceli Gonzalez, a child of Mexican immigrants. “They were very outspoken,” says Gonzalez of the lawyers who advised Cudahy and Bell Gardens. “They were telling people they were going to take over these cities and put Latinos in power.”
Olivas, now in his own law practice while wearing two hats — as Cudahy city attorney and councilman in Baldwin Park — argues that the move to anoint Perez as Cudahy city manager was about Latino self-determination, and that change in leadership in small southeast L.A. County cities was for the better."

Of course, Assemblywoman Sally Lieber may not be done.

Now here's a man who gets it. And another one.

"This was my best weekend yet at an All-Star game," said Miami guard Dwyane Wade. "They know how to put on a show here. They know how to do it … just a fabulous weekend everywhere you went.
"Every party was just amazing. The people out here were very excited about bringing basketball to Las Vegas, as well they should be. Hopefully, we can work it out and it could be a common stop. I would love to make this a common stop."
Which one would that be? this one, that one or maybe this.
But at least they are thinking of their future.

One city I'm familiar with and has always been forthright with its documents also posts its meeting's online. Unfortunately, I'm still trying to figure out how to post it to the blog.

Azusa City Council candidate forum on youtube.

We see so many cities that make it difficult to see their agendas or get documents. When a city actually gives the public even more access, it should be applauded. Monrovia is the only city I know of that posts its city council meetings on the Web. (hat tip to foothillcities)

L.A. Times: An article in Wednesday's Calendar section about an English-language newspaper in Mexico City referred to the many U.S. ex-patriots who live there. It should have said expatriates.

And so it begins.

Cool photo and here's the story.

What if we fired all our reporters tomorrow and depended on volunteers and community newsletters for our information? I a big believer in citizen journalism, and there are already blogs slowly covering the happenings in parts of the San Gabriel Valley. But they complement the newspaper, they can't replace it. There are stories, such as the ones we are doing about Gary Miller, that take time: piles of document reading, multiple phone calls and continual rewrites. Local breaking news may be a perfect spot for local residents armed with videos and phone cameras. An all-volunteer
army benefits the military, but it would be disastrous for the news.

"With pitchers and catchers reporting on Thursday, Mets manager Willie Randolph sported his 1977 World Series ring yesterday, hoping that three decades after winning it with the Yankees, he can pick up another one with their crosstown rivals."

Foothill Cities has some interesting links to videos and stories from Sierra Madre, Glendora and and Claremont.

Joe Florkowski, Angel fan and former colleague, tweaks my Mets and my comment on the Galaxy's open tryouts.
"Perhaps if the Mets held open tryouts they could find some quality starting pitchers who are UNDER 40."
Maybe, but we're still going to go deeper into the playoffs.

For the LA Galaxy, it's a good way to garner fan support. Have open tryouts and allow less talented or unproven soccer players believe for a weekend that they can make a major league team. But forcing 800 hopefuls to pay $130 for the privilege is crass. This is the same team that signed David Beckham to a $250 million contract. They reportedly extended two players hopes for another week. Meanwhile, the team pockets about $104,000, gets free publicity and
sinks a little lower to the level of other pro sports teams that squeeze everything they can from the fans.