For Westmont College women, sadness fueled an ardor on the court

MONTECITO — Her final pep talk wasn't a pep talk at all. Kirsten Moore was beyond pep.

Her final pep talk, given while surrounded by her Westmont College women's basketball team before the NAIA national championship game, was her chance to say thanks.

Moore thanked her team for keeping her soul alive. She thanked them for sitting in the third row for her husband's funeral, for playing with her infant daughter in the third row of the team bus, for sharing her pain and embellishing her joy. She thanked them for their patience when she was weeping at an unseen memory, or staring blankly into an uncertain future, or disappearing just before tipoffs to nurse her child.

"Thank you for loving me," she said.

By the time Moore finished talking, most of her players were crying so hard they couldn't see. They couldn't focus. They couldn't move.

They couldn't lose.

::

You want March madness?

"This whole season has been pretty much insane," said Westmont guard Larissa Hensley.

You're looking for one shining moment?

"There have been so many tears this year," said Westmont forward Kelsie Sampson. "But there has also been so much joy."

What happened to the women's basketball team from the tiny school tucked into the lush hills south of Santa Barbara cannot be found in brackets, cannot be wagered in an office pool, and is too outlandish even for a Cinderella.

"It's a story of a team and a community coming together to take care of a coach and take care of each other with unbelievable results," said John Moore, Westmont men's basketball coach. "It's a story of magical synergy."

On May 9, 2012, shortly after undergoing colon surgery, Alex Moore, the husband of Westmont women's Coach Kirsten Moore, died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. Seven weeks later, Moore gave birth to their child, naming her Alexis.

Many in the close-knit Westmont family thought Moore would take a sabbatical. It is difficult enough to be a grieving widow and a single mother. How could anyone possibly carry both burdens while coaching a basketball team?

"I could never coach again right after all that," said Hensley. "How do you go right back into it? Wouldn't you need to take a year off?"

Moore barely took a day off. Buoyed by her late husband's plea that his Crohn's disease never stop her from chasing her dreams, fearful that she would be swallowed in suffering if she didn't keep moving, Moore was at the front of the room when she met her team in August for the 2012-13 season.

"I'm here, and this is going to be a hard road, but I'm here," she told them. "I'm going to be real, you're going to see me cry a lot, but I have to do this."

On the court, an average team with one superstar — Turkish national player Tugce Canitez — won 24 of 27 regular-season games. Off the court, friends and neighbors and wives of faculty members formed a baby-sitting squad that watched Alexis during games, practices and sometimes even at 6 a.m. when an exhausted Moore texted that she needed one more hour of sleep.

"At my very core, this is not a story about me, it's about an incredible community of people that have come together in the wake of a really devastating tragedy and rallied in extraordinary ways," said Moore, 37.

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Tests found major flaws in parolee GPS monitoring devices

A little more than a year ago, California quietly began conducting tests on the GPS monitoring devices that track the movements of thousands of sex offenders.

The results were alarming.

Corrections officials found the devices used in half the state were so inaccurate and unreliable that the public was "in imminent danger."

Batteries died early, cases cracked, reported locations were off by as much as three miles. Officials also found that tampering alerts failed and offenders were able to disappear by covering the devices with foil, deploying illegal GPS jammers or ducking into cars or buildings.

REDACTED: Alarming ankle monitor findings

The state abruptly ordered parole agents to remove every ankle monitor in use from north of Los Angeles to the Oregon border. In their place, they strapped on devices made by a different manufacturer — a mass migration that left California's criminal tracking system not operational for several hours.

The test results provide a glimpse of the blind spots in electronic monitoring, even as those systems are promoted to law enforcement agencies as a safe alternative to incarceration. The flaws in the equipment raise the question of whether the state can deliver what Jessica's Law promised when voters approved it in 2006: round-the-clock tracking of serious sex offenders.

In a lawsuit over the state's GPS contracting, corrections attorneys persuaded a judge to seal information about the failures, arguing that test results could show criminals how to avoid being tracked and give parole violators grounds to appeal convictions.

The information, they warned, would "erode public trust" in electronic monitoring programs. The devices, they said, deter crime only if offenders believe their locations are being tracked every minute.

"The more reliable the devices are believed to be, the less likely a parolee may be to attempt to defeat the system," GPS program director Denise Milano wrote in a court statement.

State officials say the replacement devices have largely resolved the problems, but officials so far have refused to release test data showing what, if any, improvements were gained.

Through interviews and by comparing censored documents obtained from multiple sources, The Times was able to piece together most of what the state persuaded the courts to black out.

GPS tracking devices are designed to alert authorities if the wearer tampers with the device, tries to flee or strays too close to a school or other forbidden area. Currently, 7,900 high-risk California parolees and felons — most of them sex offenders or gang members — wear the devices strapped to their ankles.

The monitors work by picking up signals from GPS satellites and transmitting the location information by cellular networks to a central computer. Just like GPS devices used by drivers or hikers, the monitors can fail where buildings block signals or where cell reception is spotty.

But that is not the monitoring system's sole vulnerability: A Times investigation in February found that thousands of child molesters, rapists and other high-risk parolees were removing or disarming their tracking devices — often with little risk of serving time for it because California's jails are too full to hold them.

The state's testing was conducted as part of a winner-take-all contest for the nation's largest electronic monitoring contract, worth more than $51 million over six years. Industry experts said they were the most exhaustive field trials they had seen.

When statewide monitoring began in 2008, California split the work between a division of 3M Co. and Houston-based Satellite Tracking of People, or STOP. The 3M device was used to track some 4,000 parolees in all but six Southern California counties. STOP had the rest of the state, including Los Angeles.

When California later sought to switch to a single provider, 3M came in with the low bid.

For a week in late 2011, parole agents abused both companies' devices. They were dropped four feet onto concrete, wrapped in foil to block their signals and submerged as long as three hours in a swimming pool. Testers allowed batteries to run dead, cut ankle straps and traveled into areas beyond the reach of satellite and cellular phone signals.

Without revealing full details of the tests, officials declared 3M's devices so faulty that the state rejected the company's bid. When 3M protested, Milano began a second round of tests that she said showed 3M's ankle monitors posed a public safety emergency.

The state claimed that 3M's devices failed to meet 46 of 102 field-tested standards for the equipment, although the company said a fourth of the failures occurred because the state had not provided the phone numbers needed to send automated text alerts.

One agent who participated in the tests, Denise LeBard, said in a court statement that 3M's ankle monitors were "inundated with defects."

Among the problems: 3M's devices failed to collect a GPS location every minute, phone in that information every 10 minutes and forward a text message to a parole agent if a problem was detected. Without revealing how well STOP performed, the state said 3M collected only 45% of the possible GPS points.

Testers also were able to fool 3M's GPS devices by wrapping monitors in foil, something that triggers an alarm on STOP's device because it has a metal detector.

Engineers and experts within 3M's electronic monitoring division vigorously dispute the alleged faults. They accused California of rigging the tests to steer the contract to STOP.

"This is one agency's testing," said Steve Chapin, vice president of government relations for 3M's electronic monitoring division. "We have the most widely used system in the world. It's been proven time and time and time again to be very safe and reliable."

In a heavily censored declaration, Milano also disclosed a test in which the 3M ankle monitor failed to "wake" from a battery-saving sleep mode, creating uncertainty about an offender's location. She cited the rest mode issue, along with what she described as a four-year history of other problems, as grounds to order parole agents in April 2012 to immediately replace every state-issued 3M monitor in California with one from STOP.

3M argued in court that GPS signals are blocked so frequently that no ankle monitor can really distinguish between accidental and deliberate interference. Its device triggers tamper alerts only when both GPS and cell signals are lost for more than two minutes, a feature even the company said is not foolproof.

"Neither 3M nor STOP can produce a device that will read the offender's mind to determine his or her intent, so the devices can only 'assume' that a tamper is intentional," 3M said.

A Sacramento County judge in February ruled that Milano had violated state contract laws, but he upheld her decision that 3M failed state standards.

Industry experts say the issues raised with 3M are not unique to that company, and problems with the state's monitoring system probably still exist.

Peggy Conway, editor of the Journal of Offender Monitoring, said every electronic monitoring system has blind spots and weaknesses.

"There is no one perfect product," she said.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

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L.A. mayor again vetoes pick for fire and police pension manager

For the second time in a year, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has rejected the person picked to run the pension system for police officers and firefighters, antagonizing representatives of public safety employees who rely on the agency's $15.8-billion investment portfolio.

In a tersely worded letter, Villaraigosa informed the nine-member Fire and Police Pensions board last week that he had vetoed their decision to hire William Raggio, who is favored by representatives of the city's sworn employees.

Villaraigosa gave no explanation for opposition to Raggio, who has been running the system for nearly a year and has been rejected twice by the mayor. One pension board member accused the mayor of politicizing their recruitment efforts and pushing for someone who will be less independent.

"He's supposed to rely on us to go through this process, which we've done twice now," said George Aliano, a retired police officer. "We went through the interviews and the applications and all that stuff, and still he's not accepting it. So this is a sham."

The Fire and Police Pensions board will meet Thursday to figure out what to do next, Aliano said. The board has split representation, with five of its nine members chosen by the mayor and the other four elected by a mix of current and retired public safety employees.

"I wish I could tell you exactly what the game plan was, but we don't have one right now," said pension board member Ruben Navarro, who was elected to the panel by city firefighters. He called Villaraigosa's veto disappointing.

Villaraigosa spokesman Peter Sanders issued a one-sentence statement on the matter, saying the mayor wants "fresh leadership focused on controlling costs to the city while providing sustainable benefits to our retirees."

The agency administers benefits for 25,000 current and retired employees and manages a $15.8-billion investment portfolio. When those investments perform poorly, the city budget — which pays for basic services —- has to make up the difference.

As L.A.'s pension costs have consumed a greater share of the budget, Villaraigosa has flexed his muscle at two city retirement systems, removing pension commissioners who voiced dissenting views.

In 2011, the mayor tried to persuade the city's civilian pension board to delay a decision to lower its yearly investment assumptions from 8% per year to 7.75%. Similar moves had been taken by other retirement systems in the wake of the recession. But the mayor and others feared the move would increase the size of the city's budget deficit.

Last year, Villaraigosa vetoed the board's decision to hire Raggio moments before he was set to be confirmed by the City Council.

Raggio said he met with Villaraigosa aides before that first veto and was pressed on ways of reducing the impact of the retirement system on the budget. He argued that the agency should be run as efficiently as possible but that there are also limits on what it can do. "Ultimately, the cost of the pensions is decided between the council, the mayor and the unions" during salary negotiations, he said.

After his first veto, Villaraigosa said he wanted a more exhaustive and nationwide search. The board started over and chose Raggio a second time on March 16.

Sources familiar with the process, who sought anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details, said there were three finalists, Raggio and two outsiders: Solange Brooks, an investment officer with the California State Employees Retirement System, and Ray Joseph, who worked until last year at the U.S. Department of Interior.

The board deadlocked on the first vote. On the second, the board voted 5 to 4 for Brooks. Then the panel went 5 to 4 for Raggio, with the majority made up of public safety representatives and one Villaraigosa appointee — Gregory Lippe, sources said. Four other Villaraigosa appointees favored Joseph, who also has worked as a high-level investment executive for the state of New Jersey.

Tyler Izen, president of the union that represents rank-and-file officers, said Villaraigosa should "let the city know what his motivation for his veto is."

"Bill Raggio seems entirely qualified to me," he added.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

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Suspect named in kidnap, sex assault of Northridge girl

Los Angeles police on Saturday identified a suspect in the kidnapping and sexual assault of a young Northridge girl last week as a 30-year-old transient with an extensive criminal history.

Tobias Dustin Summers, who was released from jail in January after serving six days for a probation violation, is the primary focus of the police investigation, LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese said at an afternoon news conference at police headquarters downtown.

Summers has a criminal history dating back to 2002 that includes charges of kidnapping, robbery, explosives possession and petty theft, Albanese said. Summers is not a registered sex offender, but authorities said he was arrested on suspicion of battery in 2009 in a case that involved child annoyance.

He was released from custody in July 2012 because of a new law that transfers authority over some felons from state prisons to county jails and, on their release, from state parole to county probation departments. The law, also known as public safety realignment, was intended to reduce overcrowding in state prisons.

Authorities described Summers as a transient who frequents North Hollywood and other areas of the San Fernando Valley.

It was unknown why the 10-year-old victim was targeted. "We have no information that the family knew this individual or that this individual knew any members of the family," Albanese said.

The girl told investigators that two men were involved in the incident and that she was taken to multiple locations in different vehicles, according to law enforcement sources. But police said Summers was the primary focus of their investigation.

"We're trying to go through this slowly and methodically because we don't want to overwhelm her. She's a 10-year-old girl," LAPD Capt. William P. Hayes said after Saturday's news conference.

On Wednesday, the girl's mother told authorities she last saw her daughter in her room about 1 a.m. About 3:40 a.m., police said, the mother heard a noise. When she went to check on her daughter, the girl was gone.

Police conducted a house-by-house search of the neighborhood, and the FBI joined the investigation. Shortly before 3 p.m., a man spotted the girl in a parking lot about six miles from her home and pointed her in the direction of nearby police.

She was found with cuts and bruises, some to her face, near a Starbucks. In news helicopter footage, she appeared to be barefoot and wearing clothing different from what she had on when she was last seen.

LAPD officials said they believe the girl was dropped off at a Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills. She then walked toward the Starbucks.

The girl was initially identified by The Times, citing authorities, after she went missing. However, it is the policy of The Times not to identify victims in cases of alleged sexual crimes.

Albanese said Summers had been taken into custody Jan. 13 for a probation violation and was released Jan. 16. He did not elaborate on the violation.

Law enforcement sources have said detectives were trying to determine whether there was any connection between this case and a high-profile international child abduction in 2008. Public records and court documents indicated that one of the children kidnapped in the 2008 case was a relative of the Northridge girl.

But police said Saturday that so far there is no clear connection.

More than 40 detectives and the FBI are working on the Northridge case, authorities said, and anyone who sees Summers should call 911 or the anonymous tip line (800) 222-8477.

rosanna.xia@latimes.com

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Town hopes for jobs tapping California's huge oil formation

TAFT, Calif. — This two-stoplight town was built on petroleum, and residents here never miss a chance to pay tribute.

A 38-foot monument to wildcatters stands downtown; locals brag it's the tallest bronze sculpture west of the Mississippi. Every five years, the city throws an "Oildorado" festival. There's even a beauty pageant in which young women dubbed "the maids of petroleum" vie to be crowned queen.

It's all an homage to the bustling days when Taft boasted two giant oil fields and Standard Oil Co. of California was headquartered there. The oil giant left in 1968, jobs dried up, and today the Kern County town is saddled with high unemployment and memories of past glory days.

That could be about to change.

Residents are betting on a second boom from oil trapped miles underground in dense rock formations. It's part of what's called the Monterey Shale, where oil deposits span 1,750 square miles through Southern and Central California.

"Everyone and their dog would be working if they find that oil," said Joe Gonzalez, 53, who began toiling in the oil fields around Taft three decades ago as a roustabout. "It's a huge deal for Taft."

But a key question is: Could these modern-day wildcatters actually squeeze oil out of the rock?

Some believe technology that can reach previously inaccessible oil means it's just a matter of time; others are convinced it's an over-hyped promise.

Oil companies have begun exploring the Monterey Shale underneath towns like Taft that have survived on oil for a century.

More than 15 billion barrels of oil, or two-thirds of the continental United States' total deep-rock deposits, is estimated to be locked in the Monterey, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Extracting it could mean enormous wealth if oil prices stay around $97 a barrel, and could pump billions of dollars into the local economy.

The much smaller Bakken shale formation in North Dakota has fueled a boom that has driven unemployment in the state down to 3.3%, the nation's lowest. Taft's unemployment rate is 13.3%.

But the process is slow going.

"It's not like the old days where you put a straw into the ground, you get a gusher and you dance around," said Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Assn., an industry lobbying group. "It's a very complicated process."

Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and Venoco Inc. of Denver, two of the largest stakeholders in the Monterey, have already drilled exploratory wells.

Federal land leases on the shale are going for $500 per acre at auction, up from $2 to $5 per acre just a few years ago, said Gabriel Garcia of the Bureau of Land Management's Bakersfield office.

Economists say tapping the shale would be a big boost for the Central Valley, which depends heavily on agriculture and petroleum. By 2015, California could see half a million new jobs and $4.5 billion in oil-related tax revenue, according to a USC study.

"It's not the muckety-mucks, the higher-ups, who live here," said Kathy Orrin, executive director of the Taft Chamber of Commerce. "It's the people in cowboy boots and cowboy hats and Wranglers — and they can make a good living in the oil industry."

Around noon in Taft, oil workers in dusty coveralls park trucks outside the few lunch spots in town: the OT Cookhouse & Saloon, where black-and-white photos of California's first gushers line the walls; Jo's Restaurant, where diners sit below painted oil derricks and fields; and a Tex-Mex place.

Rick McCostlin, 45, thinks jobs could come back and revive Taft. Another oil boom might even attract some of the locals who fled to better-paying gigs in North Dakota's oil fields.

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O.C. judge is target of sexual misconduct investigation

An Orange County Superior Court judge is being investigated by the Sheriff's Department on suspicion of improper sexual conduct — allegedly in his courtroom chambers — authorities said.

Deputies are completing a monthlong investigation into Scott Steiner, a former high-ranking prosecutor and the son of former Orange County Supervisor William Steiner, said Jim Amormino, a spokesman with the Sheriff's Department.

Amormino said that Steiner's chambers were searched and potential evidence was taken for DNA testing.

The investigation is expected to be completed this week, and deputies will send a report to the state attorney general, Amormino said.

"We're looking into all the allegations to see if they're criminal or not," Amormino said.

Steiner, a prosecutor in the county for more than a decade, was elected to a six-year term on the bench in 2010.

The district attorney's office was informed last month that Chapman University, where Steiner teaches, was pursuing an inquiry into Steiner's conduct, said Susan Kang Schroeder, the district attorney's chief of staff.

The district attorney's office asked the state attorney general to handle any further investigation because of Steiner's relationship with the prosecutor's office.

Before taking the bench in January 2011, Steiner was a deputy district attorney, starting out as a law clerk and working his way up to special prosecutions and the gang unit, Schroeder said.

When he was elected in 2010, he garnered the endorsement of Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas and Sheriff Sandra Hutchens.

On March 11, Steiner was transferred from the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana to the North Justice Center in Fullerton, said Gwen Vieau, a spokeswoman with the superior court. She said several judges were moved at that time.

Steiner has also been an adjunct faculty member at Chapman University's Law School. Officials at the university could not provide details on Steiner's employment Friday.

"We look forward to working with the inquiry to resolve any questions," said Paul S. Meyer, Steiner's attorney. "We believe that the truth will clear this matter."

In 2011, while working as a prosecutor, Steiner was accused of using an office computer for work related to his unsuccessful campaign for the Orange City Council.

State prosecutors investigated the complaints to avoid a conflict of interest. No charges were filed.

nicole.santacruz@latimes.com

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For Mammoth Lakes weatherman, always a climate of learning

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — Howard Sheckter was a painfully shy 10-year-old when he found his calling in a Glendora hailstorm.

As lightning and thunder crackled all around him, he looked up and felt chunks of ice bounce off his cheeks.

The experience ignited an obsession.

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FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this article misspelled Sheckter's name as Schecter.

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"My mother's telephone bills were huge because I was calling the weather service 10 times a day," said Sheckter, now 62. "One day, my mother called the operator and asked, 'What number is this?' The operator said, 'It's the weather service. You must have a weatherman in the family.'"

She did, and her son's fascination only grew. Sheckter taught himself meteorology, and through it the withdrawn, nerdy boy found a way to relate to the world — and for the world to relate to him.

For the last three decades, the lanky real estate agent has doubled as the weather sage of the eastern Sierra, with forecasts presented daily on his Mammoth Weather website and on KMMT, KIBS and KRHV radio. His predictions trigger flurries of excitement or anxiety in the Mammoth Mountain ski resort, which draws about 1.3 million skiers a year.

Sheckter is still quite shy. But when he's talking about the weather, as they say around here, you can't shut Howard up. His forecasts can be spellbinding and numbingly complex.

"When there's a storm coming in, Howard gets real excited and tends to go on about oscillations, flows and millibars," Stacy Powell, news director at KMMT in Mammoth Lakes, said with a laugh. "So, I break in and ask the question keeping our listening audience at the edges of their seats: Howard, is it going to snow or not?"

On a recent weekday, Sheckter sat in a small home office, his desk covered with computer screens filled with isobars — those squiggly concentric circles that encircle high- and low-pressure areas.

With animated expressions and rapid-fire explanations, he spoke of meteorological challenges ahead. It's springtime in the eastern Sierra, he explained, and the warmer temperatures, rain and melting snow mean that the ski season is coming to an end in a town where skiing and related operations employ nearly half of the area's 7,500 residents.

Business owners were praying for a few more forecasts of snow in March and April.

"I can feel the pressure," he said, poring over satellite photos, data from weather stations and three decades' worth of personal records. "The business community up here thrives on snow."

Sheckter tries to lighten the technical load in his forecasts with corny jokes, some of them borrowed from Bill Keene, the late Los Angeles traffic and weather reporter who peppered his bulletins with cheesy puns such as: "The temperature is going lower than a snake's vest button."

But trying to suss out the bottom line from his forecasts — is it going to snow or not? — requires patience and concentration.

"The fact is, nobody knows what the hell Howard is talking about most of the time — and I find that totally charming," mused George Shirk, managing editor of Mammoth Times/Mammoth Sierra magazine. "It's endearing to listen to him ramble on about how an isometric low system bulging over Iceland and breaking down over the Azores signals a certain weather pattern just over the horizon."

Sheckter has been studying local weather patterns since he moved to Mammoth Lakes in 1978 and landed a job as a boot fitter in a sporting goods store. The owner of that store nicknamed him "Dr. Howard" because Sheckter spent his lunch hours drawing isobars on a chalkboard.

He's been known as "Dr. Howard" ever since. Today, his forecasts help snowplow companies determine how many days they can expect to remain working, and how much the town should allocate for road maintenance. They are also used to predict when the region's 26 black bears will be coming out of winter hibernation.

"Howard has his finger on the pulse," said Steve Searles, a wildlife specialist who has gained a national reputation as a bear whisperer, someone who can deal with problem bears without killing them. "Around here, if the subject is weather, sure as heck someone will pipe up, 'What does Howard have to say?'"

That was not an easy question to answer on March 20, the first day of spring.

"A high-pressure block near Greenland has been correlated with a drier winter for California," Sheckter mumbled to himself, scanning data streaming over multiple computer screens. "However, this pattern is forecasted to break down over the next week to 10 days, allowing the possibility of storminess to return.

"If the upper wind flow at 10,000 feet has a lot of moisture and moves from the southwest," he added with a smile, "I predict that the storms that arrive around the end of March and early April will produce more precipitation. In fact, I'm banking on it."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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Minority of L.A. County voters quashed transit tax extension

A minority of voters living in a daisy chain of small, suburban and relatively upscale enclaves around the county's outer rim were largely responsible for last fall's razor thin defeat of a $90-billion transit tax that received lopsided ballot box support, a Times analysis shows.

The review comes as several of Los Angeles' senior politicians have joined state lawmakers to push for a reduction of the threshold for passage of such measures, arguing that the current two-thirds requirement is undemocratic and hinders the region's growth.

The transit tax extension, known as Measure J, was approved by 66.1% of some 3 million voters but fell 0.6%, or just 16,000 votes, shy of the required two-thirds supermajority.

Regions such as the South Bay, with higher concentrations of staunchly anti-tax voters, played a decisive role in defeating the proposal.

Elsewhere more than two-thirds of voters did approve the measure, which would have extended a half-cent sales tax for at least three decades, allowing borrowing that could have accelerated expansion of the county's rail network.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and other elected officials have bemoaned the ability of a slim margin of voters to block the will of the majority.

"Only in California can 66% be considered a loss," said Yaroslavsky, who supported Measure J. "It's an absurd threshold that's been imposed on us."

Villaraigosa has said that after he leaves office in June, he will continue his campaign to complete 30 years' worth of transit projects in a decade. Villaraigosa has tried various as-yet unsuccessful strategies to fund his so-called "30/10" program — including Measure J, partnering with the Chinese government and advocating fiercely in Washington.

The mayor recently told The Times he was working with state legislators on a proposal to reduce the approval threshold for transportation projects to 55% — an idea that has faced stiff resistance in the past. He said he would continue to pursue the local sales tax extension.

"I intend to bring it back on the ballot whether or not I'm mayor," Villaraigosa said. "It's critical."

MoveLA, a pro-transit group that supported the tax extension, also is promoting a lower approval threshold.

Since Measure J's defeat, eight bills have been introduced in the state Legislature to reduce the passage threshold, said Denny Zane, executive director of the group.

Some apply to parcel taxes for schools and community colleges, and others would affect special taxes to fund libraries, according to a MoveLA analysis. "But five of the eight would reduce the threshold for 'special taxes' for transportation projects," the group's website notes.

But at least one influential group that fought Measure J — the county's Bus Riders Union — also opposes lowering the approval threshold for transit taxes.

Both candidates vying to replace Villaraigosa — City Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel — supported Measure J and say they also plan to continue pursuing Villaraigosa's stepped-up transit construction strategy if elected in May.

The incoming mayor will face a powerful minority of political leaders who have been critical of recent transit tax measures, including Republican Supervisors Don Knabe and Michael D. Antonovich, who sit on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board.

Antonovich opposed Measure J and its 2008 predecessor, Measure R, which increased county sales taxes by half a cent. During one tirade on the issue, Antonovich infamously compared Villaraigosa's campaign tactics on Measure R to "gang rape."

The Times analysis suggests that similar tax increases could face narrow swaths of steadfast voters that can hold considerable clout. Chuck Anderson, a Manhattan Beach accountant, said he has voted in every election for more than four decades.

"I vote no on every single thing dealing with taxes. I don't care what it is," said the 68-year-old registered Republican. "I work my tail off."

Kris Vosburgh, Los Angeles-based executive director of the statewide Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said the two-thirds requirement is necessary so voters like Anderson are protected from politicians determined to fund pet projects.

"These people who want more of the public's money are always saying this. The whole idea behind the two-thirds vote is to give a little added protection to those who are going to have to pay the tax," Vosburgh said.

The Times analysis found that coastal city support for the proposed sales tax extension had eroded significantly from four years earlier when county voters approved Measure R by a two-thirds majority. That sales tax increase is helping to fund projects such as a Westside subway and a key rail connection under downtown L.A.

Measure R expires in 2039. The failed November proposal, Measure J, would have extended the added tax until at least 2069, allowing officials to borrow billions of dollars to speed up rail construction.

In Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance and Rolling Hills, the analysis found, support for Measure J dropped between 6 percentage points and 10 percentage points compared with Measure R. Several other areas on the edges of L.A. County showed drops of more than 10% in support for Measure J, including Malibu and Agua Dulce.

Overall, support for Measure J dropped by more than 6 percentage points compared with Measure R support in 34 L.A. County communities.

The lingering effects of the recession and low voter turnout were probable factors, some observers believe, but there were other issues at work. In Beverly Hills, support fell 16%. Metro critics there have been fighting a proposed subway alignment that calls for tunneling underneath the city high school. Construction would probably have accelerated if Measure J had passed.

A number of communities pivotal to the November vote, some represented by Knabe and Antonovich, have voter profiles that are more fiscally conservative than the county as a whole. For example, in the South Bay, 39% of registered voters in Manhattan Beach are Republican — nearly twice the countywide average. Thirty-six percent of Torrance voters are registered as Republican, as are about one-third in Redondo Beach.

"What was Measure J?" asked 46-year-old Redondo Beach investor Jay Markham, drying off next to his silver Audi after an afternoon surf. "Anything with a tax, I don't think I voted on it.

"I was pretty much thinking there's probably too much waste, or there's not enough oversight to see where that money actually goes," he said.

Several South Bay voters expressed similar sentiments, but one, attorney William Joseph Thesing, said he voted for the transit tax extension.

Parking along a popular stretch of restaurants and boutiques, the 50-year-old Lomita resident hopped out to grab lunch at an upscale Manhattan Beach cafe.

"I actually am in favor of things like that," he said, "that collectively help the community."

ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com

ben.poston@latimes.com

Times staff writer Rich Simon in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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U.S. report backs bullet train revenue forecasts

The California bullet train project has reasonable ridership and revenue forecasts, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, but it could be doing a better job at producing cost estimates.

The report, which was leaked Thursday to the news media, appears to run counter to widespread criticism of the state rail authority's ridership revenue estimates and is likely to provide a dose of good news to the controversial project. But at the same time, the 90-page report renews concerns about future funding for the $68.4-billion venture. It will depend on the federal government for $38.7 billion and private sources for $13.1 billion, which the report terms "one of the biggest challenges to completing this project."

The report was requested by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), the House Republican Whip and a strident bullet train critic who has worked to block additional funding.

"Apart from the questionable business plan, fluctuating cost estimates and lack of public support, the California High-Speed Rail Authority's continued reliance on additional federal spending is naive and misguided at best," McCarthy said in a statement Thursday. "The authority's plan is irresponsible and reckless, and that is why I am developing legislation to stop more hard-earned taxpayer dollars from being wasted on California high-speed rail."

A spokesman for the rail authority said it had not seen the report and could not comment on it.

The GAO had been recommending to the authority that it use a set of guidelines to estimate the cost of the project and said that the authority has only adopted some of its recommendations. As a result, it could face "increased risk of such things as cost overruns, missed deadlines and un-met performance targets."

Separately, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday appointed Katherine Perez-Estolano, an adjunct professor at USC and co-founder of urban consulting firm Estolano LeSar Perez Advisors LLC, to the authority's board of directors.

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

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Nobody is declaring a state of drought in California, but ...

When snow surveyors headed into the Sierra Nevada on Thursday for the most important measurement of the season, they found only about half the snowpack that is normal for the date.

It could have been a lot worse — considering that the last three months in California have been the driest of any January-through-March period on record, going back to 1895.

It has been a winter of extremes in the state, beginning with an unusually wet November and December and ending with a string of parched months. "It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — the changes we've had," said climatologist Kelly Redmond of the Western Regional Climate Center.

Storage in the state's two largest reservoirs, Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville, is a bit above normal for the date, thanks to the big storms in the Northern Sierra that turned the final three months of last year into the 10th-wettest on record for that region.

But with statewide snowpack at only 52% of the norm for this time of year — when it is usually at its peak — state and federal water managers are expecting below-normal runoff this spring and falling reservoir levels.

Although no one is declaring drought, the state last week cut projected water deliveries to Southern California. And farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley may get only a fifth of the federal irrigation supplies they have contracts for.

The delivery cutbacks have underscored problems with getting supplies through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the perennial bottleneck in north-to-south water shipments.

Water officials say protections for the imperiled delta smelt severely restricted delta pumping when the early winter storms were pouring water into the system. Had a controversial diversion system proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration been in place, they say the big government water projects could have shipped a lot more water south to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

"If we had that delta fix in place, we'd have moved another 800,000 acre-feet plus already," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. (One acre-foot is enough to supply two average families for a year.)

Metropolitan is a major backer — and future funder — of a proposed $14-billion tunnel system, which would carry supplies from the Sacramento River to existing pumps in the south delta. Proponents hope that changing the diversion point will improve the ecological health of the delta and loosen environmental restrictions on pumping. Opponents, who include delta farmers and commercial salmon fishermen, say the answer to the delta's problems is to take less water from it, not to construct two massive tunnels they fear will increase exports.

Although the State Water Project, which supplies Metropolitan, expects to meet only 35% of contractor requests this year, Kightlinger said Metropolitan has ample reserves stored in the Southland to tide the region over. "We're in solid, solid shape," he said.

It is rare that the giant Westlands Water District and other irrigation districts on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley get full contract deliveries from the federal Central Valley Project. But this year's allocation of 20% is particularly low, eliciting protests that the west side's farm economy is being sacrificed for the delta smelt.

"The decrease in our water allocation once again demonstrates how broken the state's water system has become.... Our priorities are misaligned," Tom Birmingham, Westlands' general manager, said in a statement. He said fields will be left unplanted for lack of water.

But the west side's supply picture is not as bad as a 20% allocation would suggest. According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Westlands and other districts have about 400,000 acre-feet stored in San Luis Reservoir, the south-of-the-delta holding pool shared by the federal and state water projects. More than half of that amount is left over from last year's deliveries and the rest was purchased from other irrigation districts.

Elsewhere in the Central Valley, farmers with senior rights to large volumes of water on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers will get 100% of their contract supplies this year.

Metropolitan is also expecting normal deliveries from the Colorado River, even though the Colorado Basin remains stuck in a stubborn drought. A wet year in 2011 boosted levels of the Colorado's two main reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Two years ago Powell was the fullest it had been in a decade, raising hopes that the drought was finally easing.

But since then the Colorado's flow has been well below average. The river system's total storage is only 54% full, compared with 63% last year.

"We are closer than ever to getting shortage" on the Colorado, Kightlinger said.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

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Claim by group backing Trutanich draws fire

Longtime Westside leader Barbara Broide said she quickly grew suspicious of a telephone call she received a few days ago. After giving his first name and that of an independent group supporting Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich's reelection, the caller dropped a political bombshell:

Broide said he told her that former lawmaker Mike Feuer, Trutanich's opponent in the May 21 runoff, had promised to hire former City Councilman Jack Weiss — a hot-button figure to some Westside voters — as his chief of staff if Feuer won.

That seemed preposterous to Broide and some others who heard similar rumors from the independent campaign group or in emails or phone calls from individuals backing Trutanich.

"'That's the stupidest thing I ever heard of,'" Venice Neighborhood Council President Linda Lucks said she told another Westside activist who called her a few days ago and repeated the rumor. "I said, 'There's no way Feuer would ever do that. Where did you hear that?' "

Weiss, an attorney and businessman who has shown no interest in returning to public life, called the rumor "ridiculous." Feuer spokesman Dave Jacobson called it "complete and utter nonsense."

"Mike has had no conversation — with anyone — about who might serve as his chief of staff were he to win," Jacobson said.

Reached by telephone this week, Broide's caller identified himself as "Andrew" and the organization he represented as L.A. Residents for Accountability to Support Carmen Trutanich for L.A. City Attorney 2013. Records on file with the city Ethics Commission show the group formed shortly before the March 5 primary and spent about $67,000 on mail and consulting services to support Trutanich.

Such "independent expenditure" groups are permissible under campaign finance laws so long as they do not coordinate with the campaign of the candidate they are supporting and comply with city disclosure rules. Records show the group appears to be funded largely by businesswoman Tammy Garcia of Rolling Hills, who also has contributed to the campaigns of Trutanich and other Los Angeles elected officials.

Andrew — who would not give his last name — said he had made "a handful" of calls for the L.A. Residents group to people who had been supportive of a failed attempt to recall Weiss in 2007. He said the calls were "based on a rumor we had heard and would like Mike to respond to." He said he had "never intended to give the impression it was confirmed." When told of Feuer's and Weiss' responses, he said the calls would stop.

Rick Taylor, a consultant for underdog Trutanich, said he had "heard the rumors, just like everybody else," but said that the Trutanich campaign had nothing to do with the phone calls.

Lucks, who supports Feuer, said she heard the rumor from another Westside leader, Jay Handal. Handal said he backs Trutanich but asked Lucks about the rumor only to find out if it was true. Lucks said it could have caused a lot of mischief for Feuer. "It's an obvious lie," Lucks said, "but a dangerous one."

jean.merl@latimes.com

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Kidnapped Northridge girl was sexually assaulted, police say

A 10-year-old girl kidnapped from her Northridge home in the middle of the night was sexually assaulted, and detectives are still struggling to determine why she was targeted, according to law enforcement sources.

The girl has told investigators that two men were involved and that she was taken to multiple locations in different vehicles. She was found bruised and scratched Wednesday near a Starbucks about six miles from her home.

"This 10-year-old child was traumatized after a very traumatic experience," Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Andy Smith said Thursday.

He declined to provide details about her ordeal, saying police wanted to protect her privacy. Detectives said at this point there was no indication she knew her attackers.

"Right now, we are looking at this as a stranger abduction — one of those things that is very rare in this country, but it does happen," Smith said.

The girl was identified by The Times, citing authorities, after she went missing. However, it is the policy of The Times not to identify victims in cases of alleged sexual crimes.

When asked whether the community should be concerned, Smith said that there were no indications the case was part of a series of kidnappings and that no similar incidents had been reported.

"However," he said, "as a parent, I think every parent knows that until these two individuals are captured and taken into custody, we should use all the caution we can with our children.... We don't know what they are capable of."

Detectives were chasing a variety of possible leads, including looking at registered sex offenders in the area and examining the girl's Internet activity.

Law enforcement sources said detectives also were trying to determine whether there was any connection between this case and a high-profile international child abduction in 2008.

Public records and court documents indicated one of the children kidnapped in the 2008 case was a relative of the Northridge girl.

In that case, two brothers took their sons out of the country without their ex-wives' permission.

Court documents indicated that federal authorities pursued leads in Guatemala, Turkey, Canada and Mexico before tracking the brothers and the children to the Netherlands, where they were found in November 2010.

The brothers pleaded guilty to charges of international parent kidnapping and were each sentenced last year to 27 months in prison. They were released Oct. 23, having served most of their sentences in the Netherlands and in federal custody before the plea.

The source said the brothers continued to be under court supervision after their release, and an attorney for one of the brothers said he had not been contacted by authorities.

The sources emphasized that it is one of many lines of inquiry and that they have no evidence the brothers were in any way involved in this week's kidnapping.

The girl's mother told authorities she last saw her daughter in her room about 1 a.m. Wednesday. About 3:40 a.m., police said, the mother heard a noise. When she went to check on her daughter, the girl was gone.

Authorities combed the area house by house, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined the search effort. Shortly before 3 p.m., a man spotted the girl in a parking lot about six miles away and pointed her in the direction of nearby police.

LAPD officials said they believe the girl was dropped off at a nearby Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills. She then walked toward the Starbucks.

She had cuts and bruises, some to her face, and was "in shock," Capt. Kris Pitcher said. In news helicopter footage, she appeared to be barefoot and wearing clothing different from what she had on when she was last seen.

It remains unclear who dropped her off and how she may have left or been lured from her Northridge home. Detailed descriptions of the perpetrators were not available, though authorities said the girl guessed one was about 18 years old.

More than 20 detectives and the FBI continue to pursue the Northridge case, and broadened their investigation to an empty house near the girl's home and a storage facility less than a mile away. The house was later ruled out, LAPD Capt. William Hayes said, but police found a pickup truck at the storage facility they believe was involved.

kate.mather@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

Times staff writer Joseph Serna contributed to this report.

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Deaths tied to painkillers rising in the U.S.

Despite efforts by law enforcement and public health officials to curb prescription drug abuse, drug-related deaths in the United States have continued to rise, the latest data show.

Figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that drug fatalities increased 3% in 2010, the most recent year for which complete data are available. Preliminary data for 2011 indicate the trend has continued.

The figures reflect all drug deaths, but the increase was propelled largely by prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin, according to just-released analyses by CDC researchers.

Times investigation: Legal drugs, deadly outcomes

The numbers were a disappointment for public health officials, who had expressed hope that educational and enforcement programs would stem the rise in fatal overdoses.

"While most things are getting better in the health world, this isn't," CDC director Tom Frieden said in an interview. "It's a big problem, and it's getting worse."

Drugs overtook traffic accidents as a cause of death in the country in 2009, and the gap has continued to widen.

Overdose deaths involving prescription painkillers rose to 16,651 in 2010, the CDC researchers found. That was 43% of all fatal overdoses.

The numbers come amid mounting pressure to reduce the use of prescription painkillers. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering a proposal to limit daily doses of painkillers and restrict their use to 90 days or less for non-cancer patients. The proposal also would make such drugs available to non-cancer patients only if they suffer from severe pain.

"The data supporting long-term use of opiates for pain, other than cancer pain, is scant to nonexistent," Frieden said. "These are dangerous drugs. They're not proven to have long-term benefit for non-cancer pain, and they're being used to the detriment to hundreds of thousands of people in this country."

Among the most promising tools to combat the problem, Frieden said, are computerized drug monitoring programs that track prescriptions for painkillers and other commonly abused narcotics from doctor to pharmacy to patient. Frieden said such programs should be used to monitor doctors' prescribing as well as patients' use.

"You've got to look at the data to see where the problems are," he said. "You don't want to be flying blind."

In California, officials do not use the state's prescription drug monitoring program, known as CURES, to proactively seek out problem patients or physicians. The state's medical board initiates investigations of doctors only after receiving a complaint. Legislation awaiting action in Sacramento would increase funding for CURES and provide more investigators to police excessive prescribing, among other measures.

Frieden, a physician trained at Columbia and Yale universities, said patient safety should be placed above the concerns among some doctors about scrutiny of their prescribing patterns.

"We all take an oath to, above all, do no harm," he said. "And these medications do harm. You're free to practice medicine however you want. But you're not free to do things that hurt people."

President Obama's drug czar, R. Gil Kerlikowske, echoed Frieden's call for aggressive monitoring by state medical boards.

"You can't just sit back, have a big database and then say, 'Well, we'll wait till there's a complaint that comes in,'" he said in an interview. "You have to use it proactively."

Lynn Webster, president-elect of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, said the new figures underscored the need for further action, such as educating physicians to recognize patients who are at risk for abusing painkillers.

"This is not the trend anyone wants to see," Webster said.

CDC mortality data, culled from death certificates, do not detail how the decedents obtained the drugs that killed them.

A Los Angeles Times analysis of coroners records published last year found that prescriptions from physicians played a substantial role in the death toll. Of 3,733 prescription drug-related fatalities in Southern California examined by The Times, nearly half involved at least one drug that had been prescribed to the decedent by a physician.

Seventy-one doctors prescribed drugs to three or more patients who later fatally overdosed, the analysis showed. And several of the doctors lost a dozen or more patients to overdoses.

The latest CDC figures predate a broad attack on prescription drug abuse and misuse launched by the White House in April 2011. The preliminary figure for 2011 is down slightly but is expected to grow by at least 5% — exceeding the 2010 level — when all death certificates are in and counted, experts said. That's what has happened in previous years.

Kerlikowske, who heads the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said efforts to hone the response to measures that show results were frustrated by the lagging mortality data. But, he said, anecdotal evidence and surveys of younger Americans suggest "there's a lot going on that's moving in the right direction."

He declined to predict when there would be downturn in deaths.

"It won't be overnight, certainly," he said. "But we didn't get here, with these kinds of numbers of deaths and overdoses, overnight."

scott.glover@latimes.com

lisa.girion@latimes.com

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An email out of the past tests time and memories

The email was an invitation to step back in time, from someone I hadn't seen or talked to since 1965.

Joe Migliore had noticed my byline on a column in our hometown paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It was about the shift in racial labels — from Negro to black to African American — during our lifetime.

"It was very interesting and brought back some memories of time gone by," he wrote. "I was just wondering if you are the same Sandy Banks that I went to school with at Miles Road Elementary School" nearly 50 years ago. Joe remembered "a girl named Sandra Banks in French class taught by Mrs. Cassanova. At that time, we would have been in the 'enrichment' program at the school. Does that sound familiar?"

I remember the school, the teacher and the class. I could picture Joe in my mind's eye. But I wasn't sure about the girl he recalled.

I'd like to say she was friendly. Smart. Well-liked. But I hesitated before calling him back. I'm old enough to know that memories sometimes lie. And I wasn't sure that I wanted his recollections to be the test of mine.

::

We were in school together during an era when Cleveland was bitterly, racially divided. The year after we graduated from sixth grade, riots racked the city.

My classmates were the children and grandchildren of immigrants from the city's ethnic enclaves: Migliore, Slivka, Trankito, Kowalski, Milojevic, McFarland and Manzo. I was among a handful of black children assigned to Miles because there were no "gifted" classes on our neighborhood campuses.

I remember good teachers, good grades, good friends — and a few searing, awkward moments. Like the time Mrs. Cassanova singled me out in class as one of Cleveland's "good colored people," and meant it as a compliment.

But race back then, seen through young eyes, was not the subtext of our lives.

"We were just normal kids; same parents, same values, same work ethic." That's how Joe Migliore remembers it, and how Sandra Banks would like to.

His parents were Italian immigrants. Mine were refugees from Alabama and Georgia. He didn't speak English until he started kindergarten. And if I felt out of place because of my skin color, he "felt like a wimpy little kid, just off the boat" because of his history.

Joe and I spent almost an hour on the phone this week, sharing memories of mornings spent on safety patrol and afternoons in the school garden, where we grew exotic vegetables like kohlrabi and Swiss chard. Joe played violin in the orchestra. I made ceramic jewelry in art class.

But not every memory could be burnished by nostalgia.

He remembered a French class routine that I had forgotten. The young monsieur would introduce himself to mademoiselle, bow and kiss her hand. Every time we were partners, he confessed, he kissed his own finger instead.

I hadn't known, and felt a twinge of hurt. "I guess I bought into my family's expectations," Joe tried to explain.

His parents would have been horrified at the thought of him kissing a black girl. His mom had made it clear that his future girlfriends had better be Italian.

I understand that now in a way I couldn't have back then. We are all a product of our families, our era and our culture.

::

I lost touch with my elementary school friends after graduation. The junior high we were supposed to attend was virtually all black. The first day of seventh grade was enough to scare off most white kids.

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Faith in a kosher butcher is shaken in wake of video

For five decades, Doheny Glatt Kosher meat market has been one of California's preeminent suppliers of food that meets the requirements of Jewish law, offering staples such as brisket and chicken as well as bison, prime steak and grass-fed beef.

But on Friday, the esteemed butcher was at the center of an angry debate that had spread across L.A.'s Jewish community. The owner of Doheny faces accusations of selling meat that was not properly certified under kosher rules. Longtime customers doing their shopping before Shabbat were forced to decide how much they trusted their butcher.

Earlier this week, a council of rabbis pulled Doheny's kosher certification and, in a statement Friday, raised the possibility of "legal action," a recourse to secular courts that would be rare. Other prominent rabbis have stood by the meat shop.

Charges of fraud on the one side have been met with accusations of favoritism on the other, with some of Doheny's defenders suggesting that the shop has been under attack by disgruntled competitors.

In a letter emailed to congregants Friday, the chief rabbi of one of the city's largest synagogues, Rabbi Adam Kligfeld of Temple Beth Am, urged continued patronage of Doheny "because by doing so we can make a statement that kashrut" — Jewish dietary law — "should be about kashrut ... and not monopolies or power plays or raising suspicions."

At stake is not just the integrity of people's kitchens but also millions of dollars in sales to retail customers as well as to caterers, hotels and institutions that serve meat to Jews who follow the religious laws that govern what meat can be eaten.

On Pico Boulevard, opinion remained sharply divided.

"If [the butcher] did it in Israel, New York or Chicago, he'd be dead by now," said Shein Epstein, who lives a few blocks from Doheny in the heavily Orthodox Jewish Pico-Robertson district.

"How are they still open?" shouted another woman outside the store.

"It's just an allegation," longtime customer Rick Scott shot back. Scott had driven down from Bel-Air to buy a chicken and, after talking to some of the workers at Doheny, decided to stick with the butcher.

The controversy started Sunday when a video taken by a private investigator surfaced, purporting to show Doheny workers bringing in boxes of meat late at night without the required supervision of the independent inspector, known as a mashgiach, tasked with overseeing the store. The video later aired on KTLA-TV Channel 5.

After viewing the videotape, the Rabbinical Council of California pulled Doheny's kosher certification.

A group of rabbis also met with Michael Engelman, Doheny's owner. According to the council, Engelman initially denied any wrongdoing but later "admitted to bringing unauthorized products to the store on two to three occasions."

The rabbinical council said in Friday's statement the organization had previously investigated complaints from Doheny's competitors but had found "no evidence of wrongdoing." The council has suspended the mashgiach who was on duty at the time the videotape was made and said it's also investigating allegations that Doheny used false labels on some products.

Engelman could not be reached for comment. On Friday, a new kosher supervisor, Rabbi Menachem Weiss, tried to reassure customers that the problems had been solved.

"We're 100% sure that all the meat being sold out of this place is glatt kosher," he said outside the store. "Mike is running the business. He's under a lot of pressure.... We just took over the kosher certification."

Weiss cited a series of improvements made at the shop this week, including a new security system with eight cameras that is being supervised off-site by Weiss' father. They also hired a new supervisor who will remain on the premises and threw away any meat that had come to the store before their arrival.

Some supporters of Engelman have suggested that he might have been set up because of his success and questioned why the private investigator targeted him with the video sting.

"I've known Michael for 30 years. He wouldn't do this. He just wouldn't," said Heather Broidy, who has been shopping at the market for 30 years. "This is a huge deal because this is the political side of kosher supervision and the rabbis who supervise. You can't run a kosher business without that certification, so you have to bow to the political pressure. They make money on it."

Kosher meat is considerably more expensive than meat found in a regular supermarket because of the extra supervision and inspections required.

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O.C. woman who gave money to fund terrorism gets five-year term

An Orange County pharmacist who admitted to wiring $2,050 to Pakistan to be used to fund terrorist activities was sentenced Friday to five years in federal prison.

Oytun Ayse Mihalik, 40, a Turkish national and a permanent U.S. resident, pleaded guilty in August to one count of providing material support to terrorists for three money orders she sent over a month's time in late 2010 and early 2011. Mihalik used a false name, "Cindy Palmer," to send the funds, according to authorities.

Federal prosecutors had asked for a 12-year sentence for Mihalik, alleging that she provided the money to a man she met through a website, believing it was going to be used to harm U.S. troops. She was motivated by a "desire to participate in jihad" and knew the sum was "more than enough to finance an entire operation against the United States military forces," they wrote, citing her email communications with the man.

They also noted that she had created a "favorite" tab for "The Al Qaeda Manual" on her laptop and in "privacy" mode had searched the terms "true jihad" and "Jihad in Afghanistan" on her Web browser.

Defense attorneys argued she was not motivated by radical ideology but acted during a time of vulnerability in her marriage, after she and her husband had difficulty getting pregnant and then experienced a miscarriage. She accessed the website out of worry for her brother, who was going on a pilgrimage to Pakistan, they contended in court filings.

"A reading of the emails themselves reveals that Ms. Mihalik was being solicited, and even manipulated," they wrote, asking that Mihalik receive a 24-month sentence.

The woman came to authorities' attention when her husband, Errol, called Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late 2010 after she moved out of their home for a trial separation, alleging she had married him under "false pretenses" for a green card. He described a new religious fervor in his wife after she took a monthlong trip to Turkey two years into their marriage.

"I go, 'Listen, did you marry … me for my citizenship and do you want to harm someone here.' And she looked at me blank and she said, 'If I have to kill people for Allah, I will,'" Errol said in his initial report, according to a transcript filed with court papers.

Authorities said Friday that despite the small sum, Mihalik's conduct was a serious crime.

"Money is the mother's milk of terrorism, and we will move aggressively against those who provide financial support to groups and individuals bent on harming the U.S. and its allies," Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for ICE's Los Angeles office, said in a news release.

Mihalik, who was arrested in August 2011 as she was about to board a flight to Turkey on a one-way ticket, is expected to be deported after she finishes her sentence.

U.S. District Court Judge Josephine Staton Tucker handed down the sentence after considering a plea from Mihalik's husband, who in a letter to the judge called the crime "completely out of character." He wrote that his wife is "extremely dedicated to her family, work, love for America, and is entirely peace-loving."

"I have never met such a remarkable individual and [am] completely in love with her," Errol wrote.

victoria.kim@latimes.com

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Low-income California seniors to move into new managed care plan

In a major shift triggered by the national healthcare law, nearly half a million low-income California seniors and disabled patients will begin moving into a new managed care program this fall.

The patients, who receive both Medi-Cal and Medicare, are among the most costly in the state. Officials believe that the program, Cal MediConnect, will reduce spending and improve care by shifting the patients out of a fragmented system and into one that is more coordinated.

The state and the federal government signed an agreement Wednesday officially establishing a test program for the patients, known as dual eligibles.

"We believe it will transform the state's healthcare system," Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley said.

Advocates, however, continue to worry that the transition could affect patients' access to doctors and medications.

"We are concerned about how this is going to translate in the real world for beneficiaries," said Kevin Prindiville, deputy director of the National Senior Citizens Law Center. "There is a lot of change happening very quickly."

Deborah Doctor, legislative advocate for Disability Rights California, said many people will benefit from the transition. But she expressed concerns about whether the state or the health plans would be ready in time. She also said she wondered about the projected Medi-Cal savings, estimated to be just 1% in the first year.

"Why are we going ahead at this pace in California if the money savings are going to be so small?" she said.

Under managed care, health plans will be paid to coordinate all of a patient's care rather than doctors being paid based on the number of services provided. Experts say this could reduce costs by helping more patients stay in their homes and reducing unnecessary trips to nursing homes and hospitals.

The state plans to begin notifying beneficiaries this summer and enrolling them in October. The state had originally planned to transition 800,000 dual eligibles, but officials said Wednesday that they would cap enrollment at 456,000 patients, including a maximum of 200,000 in L.A. County.

The project is planned to last three years, but state officials hope to continue beyond that and to expand the number of participants.

In addition to getting medical and mental health services, beneficiaries in the program will have access to dental and vision care and nonemergency transportation.

Under the agreement, beneficiaries will be able to opt out of the project for their Medicare services and will have other protections designed to ensure continuity of care.

Cal MediConnect is the fifth such project approved by the federal government as part of the federal healthcare overhaul, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The project will take place in eight counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Mateo, Alameda and Santa Clara.

anna.gorman@latimes.com

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Ex-girlfriend recounts Rockefeller impostor's paranoia

When Christian Gerhartsreiter learned a detective was searching for him, he became paranoid and started living a more clandestine life, a former girlfriend testified Wednesday.

He dyed his dark hair and eyebrows blond. He disposed of his garbage in public trash bins. He had his live-in girlfriend, Mihoko Manabe, walk on the opposite side of the street and refused to exit buildings with her at the same time, Manabe said.

Gerhartsreiter's odd behavior began in 1988 shortly after Greenwich, Conn., police Det. Daniel Allen left a phone message seeking to meet with him, Manabe said. Allen was assisting San Marino police with an investigation into a young couple's disappearance three years earlier.

Prosecutors contend that Gerhartsreiter avoided Allen because he killed his San Marino landlady's son and buried his body in her backyard. John Sohus' body was dug up in 1994, nearly a decade after he and his wife, Linda, vanished. Gerhartsreiter, now on trial for Sohus' murder, was known as Christopher Chichester when he also disappeared from San Marino in 1985. He later resurfaced on the East Coast as Christopher Crowe and, later, Clark Rockefeller.

As Christopher Crowe, Gerhartsreiter had given a Connecticut acquaintance a white pickup truck registered to the Sohuses, prosecutors said. When authorities learned of the truck's whereabouts, they sought to interview Gerhartsreiter about the couple's disappearance.

Manabe said she met Gerhartsreiter in 1987 at Nikko Securities, a Japanese brokerage firm with a New York City office. Manabe worked there as a translator, and Gerhartsreiter, whom she knew as Crowe, was the head of a bond trading department, she said. Within a few months, they began dating, and Gerhartsreiter moved into her Manhattan apartment.

He was fired from Nikko Securities, Manabe said, because "human resources found out that his name wasn't real." He told her his real name was Christopher Chichester Mountbatten. He then took a job with Kidder, Peabody and Co., another New York securities firm, she said.

When Manabe told her boyfriend that Det. Allen had called, Gerhartsreiter said Allen wasn't with the police, that "he was [himself] in danger and that there were people coming to get him and his family," Manabe recalled.

Gerhartsreiter "was an unusual person, but after the call, it was markedly different," she said.

Defense attorney Brad Bailey last week said that his client may have been evasive and tried to avoid Allen, but that did not prove he was a killer.

Shortly after Allen's call, Gerhartsreiter proposed to Manabe, she said. She accepted, though Gerhartsreiter "wanted me to break ties with my family and friends so we could go into hiding," she said. "We were going to go to Europe."

Prosecutors said records show Gerhartsreiter, who was born in Germany, renewed his passport three days after Allen's call.

The couple never went to Europe, Manabe said.

They had their mail sent to post office boxes instead of their address, she said, and Gerhartsreiter shredded their garbage because "he was always paranoid that somebody would be rifling through our trash."

Gerhartsreiter also got rid of his car, telling Manabe he left it on the side of a street because something was wrong with it, and he never drove again, she said. He left his job at Kidder, Peabody "because of his family and his own safety," and never worked again, she said.

"He had no job; he had no ID; he had left society," Manabe said.

In 1989, Manabe and Gerhartsreiter took a trip to Camden, Maine, to look for wedding venues. Gerhartsreiter made a reservation at a restaurant using the name Clark Rockefeller. It was the first time he used the name, she said.

He continued to use it, she said, because "he liked the attention that he got."

Manabe, who spoke quietly on the witness stand, said she was embarrassed to answer questions about the couple's relationship, which lasted until 1994, when she broke up with him.

"It's not part of my life I like to talk about or remember," she said.

jack.leonard@latimes.com

hailey.branson@latimes.com

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UC to pay $1.2 million to settle suit targeting UCI Medical Center

The University of California has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a federal whistle-blower lawsuit charging falsification of records and poor supervision of patients by UC Irvine anesthesiologists.

The suit said anesthesiologists at the university's medical center filled out patient care reports before procedures started, "making it appear the anesthesiologist was present" when he or she wasn't.

The lawsuit was brought by Dr. Dennis O'Connor, a former professor of anesthesiology at UCI School of Medicine, who will receive $120,000 of the settlement. The remainder goes to the federal government.

O'Connor alleged in the 2008 suit that anesthesia was administered by nurse anesthetists or residents with no supervising anesthesiologist in the immediate area, as regulations require. He said in an interview that anesthesiologists were sometimes in a different building.

"Our view is UCI placed profits over patient safety," said Louis Cohen, O'Connor's attorney.

In a statement emailed Wednesday, UC Regents denied the allegations.

UCI Medical Center had come under fire in the past for similar accusations. The medical center was placed under state supervision in 2008 because of the anesthesiology department's "inability to provide quality healthcare in a safe environment," according to a federal report. Among the most serious failings federal inspectors cited was filling out reports in advance of care.

In 2008, the California Medical Board accused the former head of the anesthesiology department, Peter Breen, of gross negligence and incompetence. Two years later, the medical board gave him a public reprimand for writing that a patient was "stable" and "comfortable" during each phase of the procedure before anesthesia had been administered.

Breen was ordered to take ethics and medical record-keeping courses. He also was reprimanded by the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation.

Breen, who remains at UCI, did not return phone calls or an email Wednesday.

The UCI statement said "new leadership took over and transformed" the anesthesiology department in 2008, putting in place new training and policies, including "an electronic record keeping system that does not permit the practices alleged."

O'Connor, who now works at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach, remains wary of UCI Medical Center. "I won't go there, and I wouldn't take my family there," he said.

The medical center has suffered a number of scandals in the last 18 years. In 1995, fertility doctors were accused of stealing patients' eggs and embryos and implanting them in other women without permission.

In 2005, the hospital shut its liver transplant program after federal funding was withdrawn. The action came after The Times reported that 32 people died awaiting livers, even as doctors turned down organs that later were transplanted elsewhere.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

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Feuer accused of improperly obtaining taxpayer matching funds

A longtime Westside activist Wednesday filed a lawsuit accusing Los Angeles city attorney candidate Mike Feuer and his political consultant of improperly obtaining taxpayer matching funds by hiding the true cost of his campaign.

Working with the nonprofit group Fix the City, former City Council candidate Laura Lake alleged that Feuer and his consultant, John Shallman, failed to comply with laws governing campaign contribution limits and disclosure of election spending.

The lawsuit mirrors complaints filed with the Ethics Commission earlier this year. Both the lawsuit and the complaint target a consulting agreement that allowed Shallman to run Feuer's campaign for $1 and receive a "win bonus" if he won outright.

Lake — a supporter of Feuer's opponent, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich — said the consulting agreement masked the true cost of Feuer's campaign, which included work by Shallman on campaign communications and strategy. By avoiding payment to Shallman, Feuer kept his expenses below $1.26 million and fraudulently qualified for $300,000 in taxpayer matching funds from the city, the suit said.

"We want these laws taken seriously," she said, adding: "We're putting all candidates and politicians on notice."

Feuer said he consulted the Ethics Commission about the agreement and was told that it complies with all applicable rules. And he indicated Wednesday that he reworked his contract with Shallman one week after the March 5 primary to make regular payments to him throughout the remainder of the campaign.

Feuer said he rearranged the agreement with Shallman because of the quality of his work, not because of the ethics complaint. "I decided that I wanted to ensure that he was compensated no matter the outcome of the race," he said.

The lawsuit seeks to force Feuer to give back the $300,000 and prevent him from receiving additional taxpayer money during the runoff campaign unless he makes regular payments to Shallman. Lake also suggested that she and her allies are looking at other candidates to see if they are obeying the city's rules regarding contribution limits, taxpayer matching funds and disclosure of campaign spending.

Feuer's campaign said other experts on city and state ethics rules consider the agreement legal. He also released a statement from Stephen Kaufman, an election law attorney, calling the "win bonus" proper under campaign finance laws.

"Whether a consultant chooses to get paid up front or defer his payment to the end is a business decision the consultant is entitled to make," Kaufman said.

Ethics Commission officials will not comment on whether they have received citizen complaints or whether advice was sought.

Fix the City is a group that has focused on Fire Department response times and other city issues and is led by two neighborhood activists — Mike Eveloff and James O'Sullivan. Both are supporters of Trutanich.

In her lawsuit, Lake also asked that a judge from another county handle the case because Feuer's wife, Gail Ruderman Feuer, is an LA. County Superior Court judge.

jean.merl@latimes.com

david.zahniser@latimes.com

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Girl who vanished from Valley home is found six miles away

Authorities late Wednesday were trying to unravel how a 10-year-old girl vanished from her Northridge bedroom in the middle of the night, then mysteriously reappeared with cuts and bruises half a day later and miles away.

Police said they were looking for two men they believe were involved and have recovered a black pickup. The LAPD has nothing to connect the men to the girl in terms of previous contact, police sources said.

"I've got a young lady that was abducted. I don't know the reason," said Los Angeles Police Department Capt. William P. Hayes.

At a news conference earlier in the day, LAPD officials said they believe the girl was dropped off at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills, six miles from her home. She was seen wandering in a nearby parking lot and recognized by a bystander, who pointed her out to police on patrol.

It is unclear who dropped the girl off and how she may have left or been lured from her Northridge home. She reportedly disappeared from her bedroom sometime between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m.

"We don't know what happened inside of the house," said Los Angeles police Cmdr. Andy Smith. "But it certainly would appear that she didn't make it from her house over here a distance of some six miles all by herself."

The girl's mother told authorities that she saw her daughter in her bedroom about 1 a.m. She checked on her about two hours later because she noticed the bedroom door was ajar. She looked in and saw that the girl was gone. She searched the entire house, then called police.

Police said they took the missing child report extremely seriously because the girl had no behavioral issues or problems with her parents. She had never run away before, police said.

"She wasn't that kind of kid," Smith said.

About 2:50 p.m., the girl was found near Oxnard Street and Canoga Avenue. She had cuts and bruises, some to her face. In news helicopter footage, she appeared to be barefoot and wearing clothing different from what she had on when she was last seen.

"She basically is in shock right now," Capt. Kris Pitcher said.

A manager of a nearby animation studio, who saw the girl when he went to a gas station near a Starbucks and Goodwill store where she was found, said the preteen looked drained.

"Her face was white. She looked very tired and worried," said Nicolas Jackson, manager of Moonscoop. "You could see she had some worries for the past few hours."

Authorities are reviewing security camera footage from every business in the area. A house-to-house search in a two-mile-wide grid around the girl's home was launched after she disappeared but turned up nothing.

Late in the day, however, Hayes said authorities had secured several locations where they believe the girl had been taken and said multiple cars had been used.

Pitcher said police are "turning over every stone so we can catch up with" the people responsible for the girl's abduction.

Still, Smith cautioned, there is no evidence someone is roaming neighborhoods looking to kidnap children.

"We're going to search every facet of this case, to find out what happened, and to get to the bottom of it," he said. "It's every parent's nightmare: In the middle of the night you go check on your child … your child is gone."

joseph.serna@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ari Bloomekatz contributed to this report.

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L.A. wants Convention Center alternatives to AEG stadium plan

Los Angeles officials agreed Wednesday to pursue a parallel track for redeveloping the city's Convention Center in the event that Anschutz Entertainment Group and the National Football League fail to reach agreement on the Farmers Field stadium downtown.

Jan Perry, chair of a special City Council committee overseeing the AEG deal, said she remains hopeful that the city can continue to work with the entertainment giant in both drawing an NFL franchise and building the stadium in the L.A. Live area.

But with a recent management shake-up at AEG, the city must begin looking at other ways of expanding and redesigning the Convention Center — a primary goal of its AEG agreement, she said.

That hasn't changed, Perry said Wednesday, and it's important "to look at other ways to achieve this goal."

Committee members asked the city's chief legislative analyst, Gerry Miller, and its chief administrative officer, Miguel Santana, to come back within 30 days with other options for renovating the Convention Center's aging West Hall and other properties.

Miller and Santana will work with the Urban Land Institute to evaluate various options, getting assistance from a technical advisory panel with expertise in design, finance and land use.

Alternatives include operating a new hotel to bring in revenue, as has been done in Chicago, or floating bonds and implementing new taxes to help pay for a renovation, Santana said. Updates are needed, officials said, because the Convention Center is too small and outdated to draw the kind of large conventions that would bring more tourists to the downtown area.

Initial euphoria at the prospect of attracting an NFL team has soured in recent weeks with steady reports that AEG and the league owners are at loggerheads in striking a deal.

In September, the City Council approved agreements for the construction of a stadium to accommodate an NFL team on the West Hall site of the Convention Center. That agreement is contingent on AEG identifying and bringing a team to Los Angeles by October 2014.

Shortly before the issue came before the council, AEG's owner, Phil Anschutz, announced that he was putting his entertainment conglomerate, which includes L.A. Live and Staples Center, on the market.

Then two weeks ago Anschutz stunned the City Hall establishment by announcing that he was taking AEG back off the block and that he had parted ways with Tim Leiweke, AEG's longtime public face in the city and the key deal maker on the stadium project.

Anschutz and the NFL have each said they are continuing to work together to bring an NFL franchise to the city. But frustrated City Hall officials say they have no choice but to begin making other plans.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a committee member, said he was "still outraged" that Anschutz had cut ties with Leiweke, a respected figure in Los Angeles business, political and labor circles. "I'm very disappointed to hear that AEG is playing some games with us," he said.

catherine.saillant@latimes.com

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Jan Perry to endorse Eric Garcetti in mayoral race

Jan Perry, the strong favorite of African Americans in the March 5 primary for Los Angeles mayor, plans to announce Thursday that she is backing her ex-rival Eric Garcetti in the May runoff, her spokeswoman said.

Perry's endorsement is one of the most prized in the May 21 contest between Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel. Perry has been a colleague of Garcetti's on the City Council for almost 12 years

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FOR THE RECORD:
Mayoral race: An article in the March 28 LATExtra about endorsements in the Los Angeles mayor's race misidentified Mike Garcia, president of the Service Employees International Union, United Service Workers West, as Mike Perez.

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Neither Garcetti nor Greuel emerged from the primary with significant backing among black voters, one of the biggest blocs up for grabs in the runoff. For weeks, the two have been competing fiercely to line up support from high-profile African Americans.

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Greuel, who often reminisces about working as an aide to the city's first black mayor, Tom Bradley, scored endorsements this week from Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and former President Bill Clinton, a popular figure among African Americans.

Those announcements deflected attention from turmoil in Greuel's campaign. She hired a new campaign manager, Janelle Erickson, to take charge of day-to-day operations last week, removing those duties from another top advisor, Rose Kapolczynski.

In addition, Greuel's field director and three others quit the campaign. All four had worked in the get-out-the-vote operation of President Obama's reelection campaign. The shake-up came after Greuel finished second in the primary, in which she and her allies far outspent Garcetti.

FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor 

The final tally for the primary, released by the city clerk's office Tuesday, confirmed that Garcetti led with 33%, followed by Greuel at 29%. Talk radio personality Kevin James came in third with 16%. Perry finished fourth, also with 16%. Emanuel Pleitez, a former aide to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, won 4%.

With all the ballots counted, turnout was 21% of the city's 1.8 million registered voters, up from a preliminary turnout rate of 16% based on ballots counted on election night.

The results confirmed that Perry swept the most heavily African American neighborhoods of South Los Angeles and the Pacoima area of the San Fernando Valley, underscoring the value of her support in the Greuel-Garcetti runoff.

Spokeswoman Helen Sanchez said Perry "examined both of their records very carefully and felt that Garcetti had a very solid record and was the best candidate to move the city forward."

There was a personal dimension to Perry's decision. In her campaign's closing days, Perry was deeply offended by Greuel attacking her for a 1994 personal bankruptcy tied to the failure of her ex-husband's law practice. Greuel, who lives in Studio City, served on the council with Perry for seven years.

But Perry's endorsement of Garcetti was no sure thing.

She felt betrayed by Garcetti last year when he voted for new council district boundaries that took away nearly all of Perry's cherished downtown turf, leaving her mainly with impoverished neighborhoods along the Harbor Freeway. Perry's role in downtown's economic comeback was a key focus of her campaign. She lives on Bunker Hill, outside her new district.

Greuel stayed on the attack Wednesday. Speaking from a lectern outside City Hall, she blamed Garcetti for the city's surge in unemployment during his watch as council president.

"Eric Garcetti has also left Los Angeles with huge budget deficits," Greuel said.

Like Garcetti, Greuel voted on the council in 2007 for raises of up to 25% over five years for thousands of city workers, despite the budget shortfall that the city was facing as the economy was turning downward. Speaking privately to union audiences during the mayoral campaign, Greuel has criticized Garcetti for backing layoffs and furloughs of city workers to balance the budget.

Unions representing the bulk of the city workforce have lined up behind Greuel and spent heavily to get her elected. Also backing her is the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Garcetti sought to highlight his own labor support Wednesday at a rally of more than 100 workers at a union hall south of downtown.

"He is ready to fight for us," said Mike Perez, president of SEIU's United Service Workers West, which represents more than 40,000 janitors, airport workers, security officers and others. Perez was interrupted by chants of "Si se puede!" and "Garcetti!"

After the rally, Garcetti dismissed Greuel's contention that he was to blame for the city's high unemployment. "There was a countrywide recession happening," he said. "That's what I read in the newspapers."

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

james.rainey@latimes.com

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Fire ring opponents are blowing smoke

We Southern Californians love our beach bonfires. The marshmallow roasts and fireside family singalongs are a rite of summer that exemplifies our do-your-own-thing, hang-loose lifestyle.

The fires have been under attack for decades, most recently by the city of Newport Beach, which is trying to yank dozens of fire rings off the sand on the Balboa Strand and Corona del Mar State Beach. Newport Beach, which has long complained of late-night partying and the messes left behind, cited health risks from the smoke, and safety issues for people who might fall in a fire ring with hot ashes.

Last time I checked in, the Coastal Commission was fighting back, saying the fire pits offer needed low-cost recreation to the public.

In the latest chapter in this beach blanket bingo, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has stepped in with a proposed year-round ban on open burns at all beaches in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The district staff cites the health of coastal residents and visitors exposed to fine-particulate pollutants. But those pollutants can come from many sources. What's really going on, it seems to me and others, is that a small contingent of wealthy residents don't want other people running around what they think of as their front yards.

Residents who like the fire rings wrote in to the Coastal Commission saying some of their neighbors don't like the riffraff, as they see the rest of us, that gets dragged in. Southern California communities have a long history of trying to boot outsiders off their beaches. Before fire ring opponents brought up the particulates, it was kids hurting themselves on hot coals.

A Newport Beach city councilman once said he was against expanding grassy areas at Corona del Mar State Beach because "with grass, we usually get Mexicans coming in there early in the morning, and they claim it as theirs, and it becomes their personal, private grounds all day."

That was 10 years ago, and the councilman's remark is wildly out of touch with the diverse Orange County of today. Thousands of people, among them Newport and Corona del Mar old-timers, petitioned the Coastal Commission to save the fire rings, which have been there longer — up to 60 years — than most of the complainers.

"I grew up in the area, and some of my best summertime memories involve afternoons and evenings at the fire pits roasting marshmallows with friends and family," Catherine Anderson of Newport Beach wrote.

"I was brought to these fire pits as a child, and now as a new dad, want the opportunity to carry on that tradition when my son is old enough," Timothy Kennedy of Santa Ana wrote.

The problem is the naysayers have the ear of the Newport Beach City Council. When the Coastal Commission didn't give Newport Beach what it wanted, fire-ring opponents poked around for someone who would. The state has hundreds of boards and authorities, and given the chance, people will go forum-shopping.

The air quality district had been floating a proposal to increase no-burn days for residential fireplaces. But beach fires were not part of the package.

Air quality board chairman William A. Burke, who also sits on the Coastal Commission, met in late February with John Hamilton, one of the leading fire-ring opponents, at the Luxe Hotel in Brentwood. Burke agreed to "look into the [air quality] district's position on the [particulate] matter and our regulation of the same," according to a disclosure form he filed with the agency's office in San Francisco.

Later, Burke spoke forcefully at a Coastal Commission meeting against the fire pits, linking them to brain cancer and fetal damage. "I'm very passionate about this issue. I've spent half my life studying this issue," he said. "...Don't come to me and tell me you've got to have fire rings because you need a good time."

Hamilton, a Corona del Mar resident, testified before the Coastal Commission that he opposed the fire rings because he had recently been diagnosed with emphysema. "I love nostalgia. I collect nostalgia. I'm crazy for nostalgia," Hamilton said. "For me my health is more important."

But Newport Beach has been unable to show the fire rings are the main or even a significant source of pollutants for neighbors. There's no doubt particulates are harmful. But backyard fire pits, wood-fired ovens, hamburger grills and diesel-powered yachts also spew particulates, in some cases, in far greater amounts than the beach fires.

But the air quality district is going after only the fire rings.

"There is no data," said air board member Shawn Nelson, who also heads the Orange County Board of Supervisors. "If you're standing next to a fire, sure there's soot. But I don't believe in the sincerity of Newport Beach's health concerns."

The district says it has to go after every possible pollution source to meet state and federal air quality standards. But the ban would be silly at Dockweiler State Beach, the last major outpost of beach fires in L.A. County.

Flanked by a refinery and a sewage plant, Dockweiler doesn't have residential neighbors. Hundreds of homes were removed from the bluff overlooking the beach because of the racket from jets taking off from LAX nearby. Those of us who go there to sit around a fire don't need a government board to protect us from the soot. We'll take our chances.

Reached by phone, Burke says he is in meetings to convert the fire rings to clean-burning fuel sources, possibly natural gas or propane. A district spokesman said it's "premature" to say how the plan would be carried out, or who would pay for it. But the idea received nearly unanimous support from fire ring backers who spoke at a public meeting Thursday, the spokesman added.

Newport Beach proposes to replace the fire rings with volleyball courts. What family or church group is going to play in the dark?

"A volleyball court is not going to do anything for a family from Stanton, who can't afford coastal property but just want to enjoy being by the water," Nelson said. "Clearly they want to run people out by sunset."

"We're not trying to take anyone's fun away," said Sam Atwood, the air quality board spokesman. Well, then don't.

gale.holland@latimes.com

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