November 2007 Archives
The skies were clear and light winds blew in an easterly direction on the day nearly a half-century ago that federal officials insist was the only one during a 14-day partial nuclear meltdown when the Santa Susana Field Laboratory might have emitted radioactive materials into the air. Lisa Friedman in the Daily News.
The first look at wind direction that day emerged Thursday from mounds of meteorological data the Boeing Co. recently turned over to federal officials after years of denying the information existed.
But federal officials cautioned that many factors have yet to be analyzed and it still could take months to develop the data into a useful model for better understanding the 1959 meltdown.
Grappling with increasingly crowded Southland freeways, the Metro
board Thursday said it will seek to convert some of Los Angeles
County's most popular car-pool lanes to toll roads. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
Under the plan, solo drivers could use the car-pool lanes if they pay
a toll. Vehicles with two or more occupants - which currently use the
lanes for free - would also pay a toll, although less than solo
drivers. It's unclear how the plan would apply to hybrids.
"Orange County has them and so does San Diego County, but we've never
had toll roads," Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Marc
Littman said. "This is another option for reducing congestion,
improving mobility and generating additional revenues that we could
use to improve public transit."
In another warning to city department managers, Los Angeles Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa renewed his call Thursday to slow hiring as he
set cutback goals for all agencies to try to deal with a projected
budget deficit. Daily News.
Villaraigosa released a letter to managers late in the day warning
again of the financial problems the city faces and singling out the
worst spenders in the city: the Office of Finance, City Attorney Rocky
Delgadillo and the General Services Department.
In separate letters to the departments, the mayor laid out targets of
$400,000 in reduced spending for each department as part of a citywide
effort.
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Los Angeles County officials are bracing for a round of belt-tightening as property tax revenues fall short of expectations on drooping home values and the state prepares to cut off additional funds. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
While soaring property values have poured millions into county coffers in recent years, officials say they expect revenues to increase just 2 percent to 5 percent next year - compared with 9 percent this year - as the real estate market cools.
At the same time, California's fiscal woes are worsening as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked all state departments to prepare for 10 percent cuts amid a slowing economy and unexpected setbacks that have created a nearly $10 billion budget shortfall over the next two years.
Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge said Wednesday that he will call for a countywide parcel tax, designed to raise $1.7 billion, to help make long-term improvements to the region's transportation system. Daily News.
The proposal came as the council's Transportation Committee recommended approval of an 18-month process to develop a 20-year transportation plan.
But officials said the tax proposal would need support from all cities within Los Angeles County, as well as from county supervisors.
Home sales and prices tumbled across most of California in October as the credit crisis continued to roil residential real estate markets, a trade association said Wednesday. Gregory J.Wilcox in the Daily News.
Last month sales plunged 40 percent statewide from October 2006 and the median house price declined 9.9 percent to $497,110, said the Los Angeles-based California Association of Realtors.
The association computes sales on an annualized basis, which means that if the market matched October's pace all year, 265,030 houses would change owners.
Democratic officials announced Wednesday cancellation of the planned presidential debate in Los Angeles set for Dec. 10 because of the ongong writer strike.
The debate, scheduled to be held at the CBS studios, was called off because writers plan to picket the location and the three leading candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards said they would not cross picket lines.
There was no indication if an effort will be made to reschedule the forum before the state's Feb. 5 election.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa steps back on to the national stage this weekend, when he joins a group of big city mayors to serve as commentators on two presidential debates in Iowa.
Villaraigosa, who has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, will be part of a group of mayors from the U.S. Conference of Mayors who will talk about the presidential election and the candidates following the Heartland Presidential Candidate Forum and the Black and Brown Presidential Forum.
“With over 85 percent of people in the United States living in our nation's cities and metro areas, mayors clearly understand how urban issues impact every day Americans and are calling on candidates to focus on these issues,” the U.S. Conference of Mayors said in a statement.
“For the first time in our history, The United States Conference of Mayors is bringing a bipartisan group of mayors to the Iowa Caucuses. We believe that the issues of Iowa and the city of Des Moines are the same issues that face mayors around the country each and every day. We support Mayor Cownie and the other Iowa mayors as we present to the next President of the United States the challenges and opportunities before us,” said U.S. Conference of Mayors Executive Director Tom Cochran.
Other mayors include Douglas Palmer of Trenton, N.J.; Franklin Cownie of Des Moines, Ia.; Manny Diaz of Miami, Fla., and Mike Cornett of Oklahoma Citiy.
NBC Universal plans to sell its entire 34-acre studio in Burbank to a development company that will inherit the right to build on the property, city and studio officials said Tuesday. Alex Dobuzinskis in the Daily News.
M. David Paul and Associates will be the builder, with help from Stockbridge Real Estate Fund, officials said. The companies have created a joint entity - Catalina Media Development II LLC - to develop the remainder of the NBC lot.
With NBC Universal set to move its operations to Universal City, the company reserves the right to lease the Burbank facility for several years while it makes the move. The daytime soap opera "Days of Our Lives" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" are among the shows produced at the Burbank studio.
Decades after Santa Susana Field Lab neighbors first asked which way
the wind was blowing during a 1959 partial nuclear meltdown at the
site, lab officials have discovered the missing meteorological
records. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
The newly found data are expected to be vital in helping lab watchdogs
and researchers more accurately estimate where radiation released
during the meltdown could have moved during the accident and what
communities might have been exposed.
Last year, a state-funded study determined that radiation released
during the accident could have triggered 260 cancers in the area. But
that analysis was stunted by the lack of data from the incident,
including weather information.
Hammered by a barrage of negative publicity in recent months, Los
Angeles Unified School District officials have quietly hired two
consultants to help improve their public image. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.
The school district also hired the public relations firm Rogers Group
to focus exclusively on dealing with fallout from an electronic
payroll system that has left thousands of employees underpaid or
overpaid since February.
The recent hirings come in addition to a six-person communications
staff with a nearly $1.4 million budget, an overall $10 million
communications budget, and a separate consulting contract with Darry
Sragow, who helps LAUSD develop communications strategies and policy
issues.
The problem with traffic in Los Angeles is everyone talks about it,
but nothing seems to get done.
Little fixes like left-turn lanes and synchronized signals provide
some relief. But no long-term plan has emerged to solve the problem of
too many cars going to the same places on too few lanes. Daily News.
"We are never going to solve our transportation crisis with a single
project," Councilwoman Wendy Greuel said. "We need a comprehensive
policy, with benchmarks, to hold the city accountable. Right now... if
you ask anyone where the city is going, no one knows."
Bowing to pressure from City Council members, a developer agreed to
pay an additional $20,000 in relocation costs for tenants evicted from
a Valley Village apartment building to clear the way for approval of a
condominium project. Daily News.
Developer Gary Schaffel, under terse questioning from Councilman Bill
Rosendahl, agreed to make the additional payment to end the
controversy that had surrounded his project after a city planner
mistakenly left a telephone message with a tenant promising the
developer would win approval "no matter what."
Former tenants in the building played the taped message at hearings,
and raised concern that the project approval process had been tainted.
Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D- Van Nuys, has found a special meaning for Thanksgiving. It was the day he proposed marriage to Edie Lambert, a Sacramento television reporter, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Levine aides said he proposed to Lambert on Thursday.
"They're engaged and they're incredibly happy," said Alex Traverso, Levine's spokesman.
No date for the wedding was announced.
Thanksgiving carries a special significance for the couple -- and apparently always will.
Exactly two years ago, Levine and Lambert met in a chance encounter, hundreds of miles from home, inside a Seattle airport during a Thanksgiving Day visit to relatives.
Upon meeting, they began talking casually, one passenger to another, and each apologized because neither recognized the other, Levine recalled in an interview last spring.
"We've been dating ever since," Levine, 38, said at the time. "She's absolutely wonderful."
Amid severe staffing shortages, California park rangers for months have battled after-hours parties in the area near the flash point of the weekend Malibu wildfires that scorched 4,900 acres and left 53 homes in ruins, the Daily News has learned. Beth Barrett in the Daily News.
Rangers on Monday said they have been aware of the problem for at least the past six months and even patrolled the area less than six hours before the firestorms are estimated to have started just hours before dawn Saturday.
While officials on Monday were still investigating the cause of the wildfires, they have said it was caused by humans and swept down from the popular gathering spot at the top of Corral Canyon into the Malibu Bowl community
Voting-rights experts on Monday said Los Angeles County's electronic
voting system is vulnerable to fraud and hacking and urged officials
to return to the practice of publicly counting paper ballots.Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
Speaking at a hearing held to determine whether the county's
electronic system should be recertified, several independent
voting-rights activists said they had doubts about the system marketed
by Omaha-based Election Systems & Software Inc.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified the county's InkaVote Plus
system in August because a vendor failed to provide information and
equipment on time to consultants performing a review of voting systems
throughout the state.
Foreclosures in the Greater San Fernando Valley area soared nearly
fivefold and home sales plunged to their lowest level in almost 20
years in October, a research center said Monday.Gregory J. Wilcox in the
Daily News.
As the credit crisis increases its choke hold on residential real
estate, the Valley's median house price slipped under its year-ago
level for the first time since 1997, said the San Fernando Valley
Economic Research Center at California State University, Northridge.
Last month lenders foreclosed on 414 properties, up from 84 in October
2006, as owners could not make monthly loan payments. The center said
the most likely reason for the jump in foreclosures was higher
interest rates making payments unaffordable, the center said.
Once a bastion of old guard conservatism, the San Fernando Valley has become a hotbed of progressive activism that appears to be re-energizing the Democratic Party base in the county and state for the 2008 presidential campaign year. Tony Castro in the Daily News.
Activists have already moved into positions in the party's important county and state central committees, which have traditionally been the seats of power from where old guard leaders have controlled money and volunteers for political campaigns.
"A lot of new blood got involved in 2004," says Democratic activist Chad Jones of Granada Hills, an executive board member of Valley Grassroots for Democracy. "We're not old guard. We don't have a history. We don't know how things are supposed to be.
A Los Angeles official is waging a battle against the City of Vernon and its plans to build a 914-megawatt power plant.
Councilman Jose Huizar is planning a mock funeral procession tonight
from the Boyle Heights area of his district to Vernon to bring attention to the proposal and mount an effort to block the plan.
Huizar said he hopes to have more than 200 residents join him to protest what he said will lead to increased toxic emissions that will impact his district.
The councilman sai the plan will add 881 tons of pollutants that will affect Boyle Heights and Huntington Park.
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A move to declare Dec. 1 as Rosa Parks Human Rights Day begins this
week, with members of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable lobbying city officials to honor the civil rights leader.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who chairs the3 group, said it is particularly timely this year because of the continued racial problems in the city,the rise in hate crimes nationally and the increasing levels of
violence between black and Latino gangs.
"The spirit and example of Rosa Parks demands a rededication on the part of Los Angeles residents to the battle against bigotry and intolerance," Huthinson said.
The date was selected to commemorate the day that Parks refused to move from her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., and became the turning point in the civil rights movement.
Hutchinson said he hopes to see the day used as a way for schools to teach about the civil rights movement and its relevance today.
Confronting an enormous fund-raising gap with Democrats, Republican Party officials are aggressively recruiting wealthy candidates who can spend large sums of their own money to finance their Congressional
races, party officials say.New York Times.
At this point, strategists for the National Republican Congressional Committee have enlisted wealthy candidates to run in at least a dozen competitive Congressional districts nationwide, particularly those
where Democrats are finishing their first term and are thus considered most vulnerable. They say more are on the way.
These wealthy Republicans have each already invested $100,000 to $1 million of their own money to finance their campaigns, according to campaign finance disclosure reports and interviews with party
strategists. Experts say that is a large amount for this early in the cycle.
Consultants for Secretary of State Debra Bowen said Friday they found several flaws in Los Angeles County's voting system that could leave it vulnerable to fraud or electronic hacking. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
The report found that seals on boxes used to carry the system hardware could be opened and resealed without detection, making the machinery susceptible to tampering.
Plus, some password-protected systems could be hacked with certain programs, and some encrypted files containing sensitive data could be decrypted.
President George W. Bush has placed himself squarely between the Southland and millions of dollars for transportation and social services, blocking two appropriations bills in an attempt to rein in spending. Lisa Friedman in the Daily News.
Congress is gearing up for a battle, with House Republicans upholding presidential vetoes and Democrats accusing their GOP counterparts of ignoring the poor while suddenly rediscovering fiscal conservatism.
But caught in the middle are dozens of Southern California legislators' pet projects - known as earmarks - for everything from roads and hospitals to job-training programs, museums and after-school groups.
Recent changes to the Board of Water and Power Commissioners are giving the San Fernando Valley added clout on the powerful utility panel. Beth Barrett in the Daily News.
The moves come as former board president H. David Nahai prepares to be the DWP general manager, replacing Ron Deaton, who is retiring.
While Nahai's appointment still needs approval by the City Council and mayor, Tarzana resident Nick Patsaouras was recently named to succeed him as president of the commission.
In addition, Encino attorney Lee Kanon Alpert was appointed Friday to the panel by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, capping a major restructuring of the Department of Water and Power.
Is Arnold snubbing Newt?
Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's politically ambidextrous governor, is planning to skip a Republican Governors Association meeting in his home state next Thursday when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is scheduled to moderate a discussion of "government transformation." Associated Press in the Mercury News.
It's a 75-mile trip from his Los Angeles home to an Orange County resort where the meeting is being held.
Schwarzenegger "is proud that RGA chose California for this meeting," said spokesman Adam Mendelsohn. "Unfortunately, his work as governor will not allow him to participate in every event."
Seeking to stave off a bitter regional battle over transportation money, state officials said Tuesday that they will add $1 billion to funding for port infrastructure and trade-route improvements throughout California. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.
The move came as a coalition of five Southern California counties geared up an aggressive lobbying campaign to try to land nearly 85 percent of transportation-bond funds to be doled out soon - or $1.7 billion out of $2 billion.
But officials with the California Transportation Commission said they now plan to add $1 billion from other revenue sources to the program - meaning most regions will now get close to the amounts they were originally seeking.
The Los Angeles Police Department's largest youth program came under fire Tuesday for its links to the Boy Scouts of America, which condemns homosexuality, and the department is looking into possible replacements. Rachel Uranga in the Daily News.
Every year, hundreds of youths participate in the department's Explorer program in an effort the LAPD sees as key to recruiting.
But the program was assailed by departing and openly gay Los Angeles Police Commissioner Shelley Freeman and other commissioners for its ties to the Scouts.
A brief online survey could help chart a new course for an agency charged with diverting airline traffic from Los Angeles International Airport to other local airfields. Art Marroquin in the Daily Breeze.
Or, as some have predicted, the survey could spell the demise of the on-again, off-again Southern California Regional Airport Authority, more commonly referred to as SCRAA.
It's been a year since Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reintroduced SCRAA amid much fanfare in the hope that the group would fulfill a campaign promise to cap the number of flights coming into and out of LAX.
With the presidential primary less than three months away, Los Angeles County supervisors will ask California's secretary of state today to allow the county to use a vote-counting system that has not yet been reviewed by the state. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.
The request - with just 77 days to go before voters head to the polls - comes after vendor Premier Election Solutions failed earlier this year to submit its vote-counting equipment and software quickly enough for a statewide review of election systems.
With little time left, Board of Supervisors Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky said the county has to move forward to seek approval to use its existing, county-owned Microcomputer Tally System.
Bucking the national trend, the number of reported hate crimes fell slightly last year in Los Angeles, according to FBI statistics released Monday. Rachel uranga in the Daily News.
In Los Angeles, 211 hate crimes were reported in 2006, compared with 219 the year before. Most were based on race, mirroring national trends.
"We are trying to do more education with the community to report more hate crimes," said LAPD Capt. Ann Young, who oversees a three-person Hate Crime Unit. "I think in certain communities it's under-reported for fear of retaliation. Many people are still very fearful. We can understand that."
The Antelope Valley's population growth is driving the region's economic engine, adding more households with spending power and fueling local job growth. Karen Maeshiro in the Daily News.
Nearly 2,150 additional households a year have moved to the Antelope Valley since 2005, and the average household income of those living in the region less than four years is $67,900 - 3.5 percent higher than the overall area's average household income, a study has found.
"It's household economic stimulus to the economy and the job market," said Alonzo Pedrin, who led the study. "Every dollar spent by new households generates $1.28 in economic activity in the Antelope Valley."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has become the most prolific campaign fundraiser in California history, taking in more than $125 million for his various political committees, according to an Associated Press review of fundraising records. Associated Press in the Daily News.
In doing so, he has surpassed Gray Davis, the governor he ousted four years ago in a recall election that focused in large part on Davis' seemingly incessant fundraising.
Schwarzenegger's political committees have taken in $125.8 million since he jumped into the gubernatorial recall campaign in August 2003. Davis took longer - seven years - to raise $120 million for two gubernatorial campaigns and to fight the recall effort against him.
Even as Los Angeles faces severe financial problems, city officials were sharply divided Monday over whether to accept a recently announced pay raise that would boost their annual salaries to $178,000 or higher.Daily News.
The 4.16 percent raise, retroactive to July 1, is their fourth major salary hike in two years because of a policy that ties the pay of City Council members - as well as the mayor, city attorney and controller - to judges' salaries.
Seven council members and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said Monday that they will accept the raise. But four council members, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Controller Laura Chick said they will reject the extra money.
Los Angeles taxpayers are subsidizing more than half the cost of processing new development approvals in the city, according to a Daily News review. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
In many cases, the planning fees developers pay cover just 40 percent of the expense of staff review and public outreach. In controversial or complicated projects, the fees might cover only 20 percent of the cost.
Taxpayers pick up the rest of the tab, which can top $10,000 in some cases.
Tipoffs: The Courage Campaign seeks to make a name for itself, falls short in getting censure of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Salaries, pensions and benefits for Los Angeles city workers have soared in the past seven years, outstripping revenue growth and pushing the city toward a serious budget crisis, according to a Daily News study. Beth Barrett in the Daily News.
Since 2000, Los Angeles workers' costs have surged 53 percent - to $4 billion a year - rising an average 7.5 percent every year.
General fund revenues also grew strongly but only at an average 5.7 percent a year.
The result is a swing of almost $1 billion, pushing the city from a surplus to an anticipated shortfall of $300 million next year.
When traffic backs up, it takes LAPD Officer Janet Zunstein 25 minutes to get from the West Valley station to West Hills, where she's the community's primary link to the police. Rachel Uranga in the Daily News.
Gripping the wheel in frustration, she lists things she could be doing with the time she wastes on the road - finishing reports, attending community meetings or just getting to a crime scene faster.
But next year, with the opening of an LAPD station in Canoga Park, she said she will finally be more efficient.
"I can't get there quick enough. Say you need an ambulance. You want them there in two minutes not 10 minutes," she said.
As costs continue to soar on the new Los Angeles police headquarters, City Controller Laura Chick said she wants to look at what is being done by city overseers and subcontractors to catch any mistakes before they happen.Daily News.
"I want this to be a story of how we got where we are and, if we can, catch some mistakes and see if we can fix them," Chick said.
Chick has issued a $200,000 contract with KPMG to complete an audit of the project by February as construction proceeds on the 11-story building at First and Spring streets that is set to replace the aging Parker Center.
When President Jimmy Carter came to town in late October for a weeklong Habitat for Humanity project in South Los Angeles, the city's Housing Department encouraged employees to volunteer. Kerry Cavanaugh in the Daily News.
And 31 department employees responded to the challenge, "volunteering" during regular work hours on the project for full pay.
In addition, some 14 employees in Councilwoman Janice Hahn's office volunteered half or one full workday at the San Pedro project site.
As the 2008 Summer Olympics in Bejing approaches, several lawmakers are beating the drum on human rights abuses in China.
Among them is Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, who as co-founder of the Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press urged the President of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games to improve freedoms for journalists.
"We regret that the highest authorities of the People's Republic of China are not giving a guarantee for more freedom of expression before the Games, especially considering that several aspects of the current situation in China contradict with the Olympic Charter's universal and humanistic values,'' he wrote.
Schiff and other lawmakers chided the Chinese government for forcing journalists to "accept the dictates of the Propaganda Department, which imposes censorship on a wide range of subjects" and urges the body to commit to improving freedom of expression.