UC Irvine chancellor takes top job at Ohio State

Michael V. Drake, who as chancellor of UC Irvine enhanced the school's reputation as a first-rate research institution and boosted enrollment, was named Thursday as the new president of Ohio State University.

Drake's appointment was announced at a meeting of the Board of Trustees in Columbus. He was the consensus candidate, officials said.

"He is exactly the right leader at the right moment in the university's history as we address the challenges of affordability and access, while building on the already strong momentum we have generated at Ohio State in increasing the university's academic excellence," board Chairman Robert H. Schottenstein said.

Drake has served as head of the 28,000-student Irvine campus since 2005. He has a medical degree, a background in administration and a reputation as a prolific fundraiser. He will move to the Ohio campus with 57,000 students, top-flight athletics, and a mission to improve its academic ranking and research focus.

He replaces former Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee, who retired in July after six years at the helm. It was his second stint as Ohio State president. Gee, known for his colorful bow ties, left under a cloud after making remarks considered disparaging to Catholics. He is now interim president of West Virginia University.

In an interview, Drake said that he would always be a fan of Irvine but that the Ohio State post was an opportunity to take on new challenges.

"It's similar work, with a little different focus and scope in a different part of the country," Drake said. "Ohio State is a wonderful example of a flagship university, a land grant university that is very connected with the community, that's done wonderful things for the region and nationally and has wonderful potential to do even more."

Drake, 63, will leave the Irvine campus in June. A search committee is expected to begin looking for a replacement in February, UC system President Janet Napolitano said in a statement. Irvine Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Howard Gillman will serve as interim chancellor until the post is filled.

Napolitano called Drake a "dedicated and passionate" leader.

"Chancellor Drake has made the promulgation of values a hallmark of the UC Irvine experience," Napolitano said. "The seven campus values that he suggested at the time of his appointment — respect, intellectual curiosity, integrity, commitment, empathy, appreciation, and fun — have become essential parts of fostering the creative process, building stronger bonds between people, and inspiring a shared sense of purpose among faculty, staff, and students."

Speculation within the UC system held that Drake was on the short list of candidates for the UC presidency that eventually went to Napolitano. Drake did not directly address whether that was a factor in his decision to leave Irvine.

"One of my reservations in leaving is that I won't have an opportunity to continue working with President Napolitano, who brings a great voice and vision to UC," Drake said. "I think she's going to continue to be a terrific leader."

Drake graduated from Stanford University and earned a medical degree from UC San Francisco, where he worked for more than two decades as a professor of ophthalmology. Before taking over UC Irvine, he was the UC system's vice president for health affairs for five years.

At Irvine he presided over a tremendous growth spurt, with applications for undergraduate admissions increasing more than 90%. The university's four-year graduation rate increased 19%, and Drake worked to increase admissions of low-income and minority students.

He also worked to repair the image of UCI's medical school, after The Times reported in 2005 that more than 30 patients died awaiting liver transplants over a two-year period. Since then, the school has built a new hospital and the medical facility is considered among the nation's finest.

The campus attracted controversy in 2010 when the Muslim Student Union was suspended after a protest disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador.

Drake oversaw the opening in 2009 of the first new public law school in California in more than 40 years. But he was criticized when he rescinded a contract with prominent legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky to become the founding dean because he felt the law professor's liberal stances were polarizing. Drake denied being pressured by outside influences and the post was offered again to Chemerinsky, who accepted.

Chemerinsky said any initial tension had long faded. He said he spoke to members of the Ohio State search committee, telling them that Drake would make a "terrific" leader. The two have co-taught a freshman seminar on the history of civil rights for many years.

"I don't think you can find a better campus president anywhere else in the country, though I'm heartbroken he's leaving Irvine," Chemerinsky said.

"He knows when to be hands on and when to delegate and he has a wonderful manner of dealing with people. I can't say we have always agreed on everything, but I know where he stood on issues, and he was always willing to listen."

Officials at Ohio State said Drake's contract and salary are expected to be finalized Friday.

carla.rivera@latimes.com

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Financial audit of Irvine's Orange County Great Park moves forward

Civic leaders in Irvine have authorized the use of subpoenas to help auditors dig deeper into an investigation of the financial management of the Orange County Great Park.

The City Council voted 3 to 2 this week to move forward with a forensic audit after a preliminary report raised questions about spending, contracts and oversight of the planned 1,300-acre park, which has been in the works for more than a decade.

Council members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, who helped steward the project from its beginnings until they lost the council majority in the 2012 city election, denounced the decision, which Krom called a "witch hunt."

"What I fear we are witnessing here tonight is the apex of a campaign of lies, distortions and misrepresentations with respect to the Orange County Great Park," Krom said.

Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Lalloway said Irvine residents want to know how money earmarked for the Great Park was spent.

"The most important question I get," Lalloway said, "is what happened to all that money for what we have out there."

About $215 million has been spent on the ambitious plan to transform the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro into a metropolitan park, but only 230 acres have been developed. When the park plan was pitched to voters in a countywide election, proponents said it would someday rival San Diego's Balboa Park or even Central Park in New York City.

Last year, the council majority abandoned part of the park's grand design and instead approved a developer's proposal to build a golf course, sports complex and other amenities on 688 acres in exchange for the right to build 4,600 additional homes along its perimeter.

The first audit, which was approved by the council last year and presented earlier this month, faulted Great Park leadership for allowing contractors to use excessive change orders, not fully vetting major vendors, and paying a communications and strategy firm $6.3 million under contracts for the park's design.

The report by accounting firm Hagen, Streiff, Newton & Oshiro also found that about 38% of all contracts for amounts more than $100,000 were awarded without competitive bids.

Auditors told the council that the investigation was hamstrung because several key players, including the park's primary contractors, refused to talk with them.

This week, Gafcon Inc., one of those firms, issued a statement saying it had contacted the city's special counsel overseeing the audit to say it will cooperate, though it faulted the audit for containing "numerous factual inaccuracies, incorrect assumptions and speculative preliminary conclusions."

The first audit cost the city $240,000 and the additional investigation will cost $400,000.

paloma.esquivel@latimes.com

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Online credit card privacy bill advances

SACRAMENTO — Californians who use their credit cards for online purchases would gain some protection, and voters would decide whether the state's public universities could consider race and gender for admissions, under measures passed by the state Senate on Thursday.

The Assembly has yet to act on either measure.

Responding to cases in which hackers stole personal financial information on millions of credit card users, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) proposed limiting the details that online merchants may collect from their customers.

Her measure would permit merchants to have only certain information, such as ZIP Codes and maiden names, necessary to combat identity theft. It also would bar them from selling the information or using it for marketing purposes.

In addition, the online retailers would have to destroy the information once it is no longer needed for fraud protection — for instance, when a consumer cancels an account.

"In the wake of recent, highly public data breaches, consumer privacy is at the forefront of all our minds," Jackson said in a statement. "Consumer privacy rights must become a priority as we make more purchases online and become more aware of how easily our privacy can be compromised."

The bill is opposed by groups including the California Bankers Assn., the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Retailers Assn.

Opponents called the bill, SB 383, overreaching and said its limits on information would jeopardize fraud prevention efforts.

Senators also voted Thursday voted to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that, if passed, would allow state universities and colleges to award preferential treatment based on race or gender in deciding whom to recruit and admit.

If approved by the Assembly, the measure could go on the ballot in November, but would be more likely to appear before voters in 2016, to coincide with the next presidential election.

Voter approval of the measure would repeal portions of a 1996 law, Proposition 209, that prohibits preferential treatment using race or gender in admission decisions.

"A blanket prohibition on consideration of race was a mistake in 1996, and we are still suffering the consequences from that initiative today," said Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Los Angeles), the bill's author.

Republicans, including minority leader Bob Huff of Diamond Bar, voted against the measure, SCA 5.

"This bill allows our public schools to use race and gender to discriminate against students," Huff said.

Also on Thursday, the Assembly passed a bill to require additional testing on sewage sludge exported from Los Angeles and other counties to the Central Valley.

Residents of Kern County have objected to the imports of treated human waste, known as biosolids, for recycling as fertilizer. The measure, by Assemblyman Rudy Salas Jr. (D-Bakersfield), would allow the State Water Board to test the biosolids for contaminants twice a year.

The city of Los Angeles opposes the bill, arguing that it already performs extensive tests on its exported waste. Many Los Angeles-area lawmakers abstained from voting on the bill.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Times staff writer Melanie Mason contributed to this report.

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Kuehl takes aim at opponent Shriver's council attendance record

Los Angeles County supervisorial candidate Sheila Kuehl is taking aim at rival Bobby Shriver's absences on the Santa Monica City Council, saying the former local elected official should have made it to more meetings instead of "spending so much time in Hyannis Port."

Shriver, who last week announced his candidacy for the west county seat being vacated by longtime Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, missed nearly one out of five meetings during his eight years on the council, a Times review found.

Shriver is the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy, whose large family, including Shriver's mother, the late Eunice Shriver, and sister Maria Shriver, has famously gathered over the years at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass. A Shriver spokesman, who called Kuehl's remarks "silly," said the former Santa Monica mayor spent time in Hyannis Port in 2009 to attend the funerals of his mother and uncle, the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Kuehl's comment, made in a Times interview, highlighted what she is seeking to make a theme of her campaign: the differing styles and governing experience of two top liberal contenders in a heavily Democratic district.

Kuehl said her 14 years in the state Assembly and Senate helped develop skills important for a county supervisor, including dealing with social services, juvenile justice, foster children and healthcare issues.

"County supervisor is not an entry-level job," Kuehl said. "You really need some understanding, knowledge and experience.... It's much more complicated than being a part-time city council member."

She claims to have one of the better attendance records in the Legislature. A review of 262 Senate sessions during her last two years in Sacramento showed she was present 96% of the time.

The Times review found Shriver missed 46 out of 244 meetings while on the Santa Monica council. Shriver campaign advisor Bill Carrick defended Shriver's record, noting that the City Council is a part-time job. Shriver was busy running two global enterprises — Red and Product One — aimed at reducing poverty and increasing access to AIDS medications in African nations, he said.

As cofounder of the charities with his friend, U2 frontman Bono, Shriver frequently traveled, he said. "He was there for the overwhelming number of meetings," Carrick said.

He added that Shriver has been attending Board of Supervisors meetings for the last six months and conferring with county government staff to learn more about county issues. Kuehl has made other negative comments in recent days, including calling Shriver an "amateur" in a radio interview, Carrick said.

"I hope she can try to elevate the level of this beyond these spitballs," Carrick said.

Kuehl said she has no issue with Shriver's international philanthropy. But Shriver missed public testimony on city issues, as well as debate and discussion among his council colleagues. Absences are like voting no, she said.

"If you're off raising money for Red and you're off with Bono jetting the world, why would you want this workman job?" she said. "This is a very local, detail-oriented systems job of trying to make things work better for people."

Robert Holbrook, who served with Shriver on the Santa Monica council, said he admired Shriver's willingness to help the disadvantaged around the world through his philanthropy and business endeavors. He's a "very busy man," Holbrook said.

"I don't recall him ever missing a life-and-death meeting, like a big budget meeting, or a big project in front of the council," he said. "So many of our meetings are routine."

How much significance voters will place on attendance records depends on other factors in the race, said political analyst Raphael Sonenshein.

On its own, missing some meetings may not resonate. But if it were to play into a broader, unflattering portrait of a candidate, it might prove important, said Sonenshein, who heads the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.

"It's one thing to miss votes because you are pulling people out of burning vehicles," he said. "But missing votes so you can go to Davos and party is another."

Also running for Yaroslavsky's seat in the June 3 primary are West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran and Pamela Conley Ulich, former mayor of Malibu.

catherine.saillant@latimes.com

Times staff writer Garrett Therolf contributed to this article.

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L.A. Unified gets reduction on iPads price

The Los Angeles Unified School District will pay substantially less for thousands of iPads under the latest deal with Apple. The cost of the tablets that will be used on new state tests will be about $200 less per device, although the computers won't include curriculum.

The revised price will be $504, compared to $699 for the iPads with curriculum. With taxes and other fees, the full cost of the more fully equipped devices rises to $768.

The iPads are part of a $1-billion effort to provide a computer to every student, teacher and administrator in the nation's second-largest school system. In response to concerns and problems, officials have slowed down the districtwide rollout, which began at 47 schools in the fall.

L.A. Unified has also been under pressure to contain costs; it recently became clear that the district is paying more for devices than most other school systems. The higher price results mainly from L.A. Unified's decision to purchase relatively costly devices and to include curriculum.

District officials recently restarted negotiations with Apple and achieved two concessions. The first is that Apple would provide the latest iPad, rather than a discontinued model for which L.A. Unified was paying top dollar. The second is that Apple agreed to consider a lower price on machines for which curriculum was not necessary.

Deciding what that reduced price would be took several weeks.

The Board of Education authorized the latest iPad purchase Jan. 14, when price negotiations already were underway. At the time, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy said he needed immediate board approval so the district could buy the iPads in time for this spring's state standardized tests. These exams are being administered by computer for the first time.

After the protracted negotiations, the purchase order finally went out Wednesday.

The lower price applies to about 45,500 iPads. If these devices ever need curriculum, the district would have to pay the balance of the original price. A three-year license to use the curriculum would begin when it is activated. This alleviates some concerns that have been voiced about the curriculum. Critics have worried that the curriculum license could expire before teachers made much use of it.

Another issue is whether campuses will be able to connect properly to the Internet. Other school systems face similar challenges.

L.A. Unified plans to address this challenge with the help of carts that are used to store and charge the iPads. Each cart will be plugged into a school's hard-wired network. Then, the cart will become a "hot spot" to which all the devices in a room will connect wirelessly.

"According to the specs, this will work. Now, the district needs to go out and check that it's that way in the real world," said Thomas A. Rubin, a consultant for a district committee that oversees the spending of voter-approved school construction bonds. These funds are being used to pay for the iPad project.

"Each school has to have a plan on how it's going to do the test," Rubin said. "There is no cookie cutter. And at most schools, no one is capable of putting this plan together. The district still has a ... lot of work to do to make sure this succeeds."

howard.blume@latimes.com

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Roderick Wright will remain in Senate until appeal is decided

SACRAMENTO — State Sen. Roderick Wright will remain a member of California's upper house until an appeal is decided on his eight felony convictions for lying about where he lived.

But the Democratic lawmaker from Inglewood is being removed as chairman of the powerful Senate Governmental Organization Committee, which oversees gambling and liquor laws. He was allowed to keep his membership on the Senate's budget, energy and human services committees.

"Unless and until there is a final conviction for a felony," state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) told reporters, "I do not believe it is appropriate or necessary to expel Sen. Wright or ask him to resign."

Steinberg made his announcement after a closed-door meeting with his caucus, two days after a Los Angeles jury found Wright guilty of voter fraud and perjury. Prosecutors said he falsely claimed to live in his Senate district when he was elected.

Wright plans a vigorous appeal of the conviction, and attorneys advising the Legislature said the matter is not final until a judge rules on the appeal and imposes a sentence, Steinberg said. Sentencing is set for March 12.

If the conviction is upheld, the Senate leader said, he would support an expulsion.

"You can't have anybody convicted of a felony while in office continue to serve, but that's not the current status," Steinberg said.

Wright declined to comment Thursday. He agreed to step down from his chairmanship of the Governmental Organization Committee and two subcommittees, a change that will be ratified by the Senate Rules Committee next week, Steinberg said.

The leader of the Senate's minority Republicans, Bob Huff of Diamond Bar, offered no objections to the Democrats' decision Thursday.

"The removal of Sen. Wright from his committee chairmanship is appropriate," Huff said. "The Senate will be able to make more informed decisions once the sentencing process is completed in March."

But the delay surprised some others.

"Eight felony convictions is very serious," said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor who studies governmental ethics. "So the idea that the Senate is not going to do anything is a difficult path to tread."

Lew Uhler, head of the California-based National Tax Limitation Committee, noted that Steinberg stripped Sen. Ronald S. Calderon (D-Montebello) of all committee assignments over bribery allegations, even though no charges have been filed.

Allowing Wright to keep committee assignments "is a sad abuse of the public trust," Uhler said. "He certainly should not be treated better than Calderon."

Calderon objected too. "I feel that I have been treated unfairly especially since I have not been charged with any wrongdoing," he said in an emailed statement.

Steinberg said that in Calderon's case, "the underlying allegations go to the very heart of what we do inside these chambers, inside this Capitol."

In Wright's case, Steinberg said, there is "ambiguity" in the law governing whether someone has established a domicile in a legislative district or is a resident of that district. That argument was made by Wright's attorney during the senator's trial.

Steinberg said the Legislature should act to make the law clearer.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Times staff writer Jean Merl contributed to this report.

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Woman tells of confrontation with judge over dog waste

The woman who accused a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge of shoving her to the ground for leaving a bag of dog waste near his home testified Thursday that part of her dog-walking routine involved putting the bag down on the street and then picking it up on her way home.

Quivering and crying, Connie F. Romero said one of the three small dogs she was paid to walk didn't like the sound of wind hitting the plastic waste bag. So for a year and a half, she limited the amount of time that she held it during their walk.

Last July though, Judge Craig Richman, hurrying home to take his son to LAX, saw Romero drop the bag and stopped his car to confront her. She explained her routine, but he repeated his demands, yelling as loud as a basketball coach, she testified.

Romero said she dropped the waste into his car. Richman parked in his garage and then continued to confront her on his driveway, she said. The Los Angeles city attorney's office charged Richman with misdemeanor battery for allegedly pushing her from behind without provocation.

"She had a moment of clarity, and she turned to walk away," City Atty. Joshua Geller said during an opening statement. "That's when she felt two hands on her pushing her face-first into the pavement."

Richman told her he was a peace officer and repeatedly tried to calm her down, his lawyer said during opening statements Thursday.

"She's screaming, she's hollering and she pushes him," attorney James Blatt told jurors. "He puts his hands on her, and her feet get tangled in the [dogs'] leashes and she falls."

Jurors face the question of whether Richman shoved Romero from behind in response to vulgarities she directed at him or whether Richman acted in self-defense because Romero trespassed onto his property and pushed him first.

Romero suffered several minor injuries, including a cut above her left eye. Richman, a longtime Los Angeles prosecutor who had been presiding over felony cases downtown, was transferred to the Chatsworth courthouse after charges were filed.

The judge's attorney said he plans to attack Romero's credibility by having witnesses speak about her history of "aggressive and erratic" behavior.

The attorney began Thursday by asking Romero whether she was committing welfare fraud by collecting disability payments at the time she was earning — and not reporting — $250 a month for walking the dogs and cleaning the house of a couple in Richman's neighborhood. She acknowledged that she was.

Blatt also told jurors that Richman was on the phone via Bluetooth with a caterer during most of the argument, and that the man on the other end of the conversation would testify that he heard Romero argue with Richman.

"At the end of this case, it will be overwhelmingly clear that this case should not have been brought here," Blatt said, calling Richman the victim.

The prosecutor alleged that Richman threw a towel at Romero as she was bleeding and told her to leave.

Richman, 55, rejected a plea deal that would have led to a year of anger-management counseling, attorneys said. If he is convicted, he faces up to six months in jail.

In between bursts of tears on the stand, Romero locked eyes at least four times with a stone-faced Richman.

She recalled that after being knocked to the ground and nearly blacking out, she asked Richman "Why did you have to hurt me?"

In response to questions from Blatt, Romero admitted to suffering from depression, but she said she had been happy while walking the dogs because she was planning to celebrate her birthday one night early with her family.

paresh.dave@latimes.com

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Garcetti names new DWP head, dismisses senior official

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Thursday stepped up his effort to overhaul the leadership of the city's much-criticized municipal utility and curb the influence of its powerful employees' union by nominating a new agency boss and dismissing a top-ranking executive.

Garcetti nominated Anaheim City Manager Marcie Edwards to take charge of the Department of Water and Power, which has been struggling to manage a series of controversies over spending and customer service.

Edwards, who ran Anaheim's utility and previously worked at the DWP for more than two decades, was picked because she has the experience to run one of the nation's largest municipal utilities like a business and the toughness to "take on the status quo at the DWP," Garcetti said.

"During the mayor's race, L.A. voters gave me a mandate to reform the DWP, and with Marcie Edwards, we're going to make sure the DWP is more efficient," Garcetti told reporters at the utility's downtown headquarters. After taking office in July, Garcetti initiated a new study of agency salaries and how they compare to workers at other utilities.

Two years ago, city consultants reported that DWP workers were receiving significantly more pay than their counterparts in the industry. A Times analysis last year found that DWP employees are paid roughly 50% more than workers at other city agencies.

Edwards, who must be confirmed by the DWP Board of Commissioners and City Council, would be the first woman to run the DWP. She has deep roots at the department: Her father and grandfather worked there, and she started her career at the DWP as a clerk typist at the age of 19. She was the first woman to hold several job titles as she worked her way up the department ladder, Garcetti said.

If confirmed, Edwards will replace General Manager Ron Nichols, who announced his resignation earlier this month. Garcetti had publicly voiced a desire for Nichols to be more aggressive with the DWP union, notably in the administration's effort to determine how two utility-funded nonprofit trusts have spent more than $40 million in ratepayer money.

During his three-year tenure, Nichols was a co-director of the nonprofits with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18, Business Manager Brian D'Arcy. Nichols has said that he could not provide detailed financial records to the mayor's office without D'Arcy's consent, and that D'Arcy threatened to sue him personally if the records were made public.

On Thursday, Edwards said she would support the mayor's efforts to make the documents public and cut off the nonprofits' money "until we can account for the activities and spending."

Also on Thursday, Senior Assistant General Manager Aram Benyamin was placed on administrative leave. A 33-year veteran of the department, Benyamin was in charge of the utility's massive power grid, and one of two senior assistants who report to the general manager.

Benyamin was considered a close management ally of D'Arcy, who strongly backed Garcetti's opponent in last year's mayoral campaign.

Benyamin said he was given no explanation for his removal. Asked if he thought it was due to his ties to the union chief, he said, "I grew up with Brian D'Arcy, I came up through the ranks of the IBEW. If that's the reason, I'm proud of that."

Mayoral spokesman Jeff Millman declined to comment directly on the reasons for Benyamin's removal, saying only that Garcetti "wants new leadership to reform the DWP. More changes are likely in the future."

Benyamin said he plans to exercise an option to go back to the DWP Civil Service job he had before rising to the executive offices. "I've been there 33 years. I don't think I've taken a single day off," he said. "I'm not planning on retiring."

He also has served as a trustee of the nonprofit training and safety institutes that have been resisting attempts by Garcetti's DWP commissioners and the city controller to get a detailed accounting of how the nonprofits have used tens of millions of dollars in public money since 2000.

The battle over the records began in September after The Times reported that DWP officials had only scant information documenting how the nonprofits were spending up to $4 million a year.

D'Arcy has fought efforts to get the records, including a subpoena from City Controller Ron Galperin, arguing that the institutes are not subject to state public records laws.

The controversy escalated Tuesday when the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said its prosecutors and investigators were also seeking the nonprofits' records to determine if any crimes had been committed.

Edwards would take over an agency that is also trying to fix a new, $162-million computerized billing system that sent as many as 70,000 late or inaccurate bills to customers in recent months.

In addition, city officials say that the agency will soon have to make the case for raising customer rates to fulfill city obligations to replenish water supplies in the Owens Valley and increase the amount of power obtained from renewable sources, among other things.

jack.dolan@latimes.com

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Cachuma Lake, a crystalline mountain resource, is disappearing

When Jeff Bozarth retired after 20 years as a police officer and signed up as a park ranger here last spring, he knew what to expect and relished every bit of it.

Hidden in the folds of the Central Coast mountains, Cachuma Lake featured the largest campground in Santa Barbara County and one of the area's most popular outdoor playgrounds.

Here, Bozarth knew, was 190,000 acre-feet of crystalline water that splashed into clay washes and lapped at primeval rock formations. There would be bobcats, wild pigs, migrating grebes who acted out an elaborate courtship dance. Hawks would ride the thermals — plumes of air that jetted up the cliffs and allowed the birds to stay motionless in the air without rising, without falling, without even flapping their wings.

"But I didn't expect this," Bozarth said.

Cachuma Lake, the source of drinking water for 200,000 people on the southern coast of Santa Barbara County, from Goleta to Carpinteria, is disappearing. It is becoming a startling emblem of California's debilitating drought, with little hope that conditions will improve any time soon.

Bozarth walked to the base of Bradbury Dam, because you can do that sort of thing right now, and stabbed the toe of his boot into the dirt. The dam was finished in 1953, built to rein in the water of the Santa Ynez River, forming a reservoir — Cachuma Lake — for a booming stretch of California.

In years past, the spot where Bozarth was standing was under 30, 40, even 50 feet of water. It wasn't all that long ago that Cachuma "spilled" — filled to the brim, to the point where millions of gallons of clean, fresh water was released through the dam's gates and cast into the sea, a display of surplus that is laughable today.

That was only three years ago. Now, said Tom Fayram, Santa Barbara County's deputy public works director, "it's just empty."

Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown declared an official drought emergency, urging California residents to cut water use by 20% and directing state agencies to launch a conservation campaign and hire extra seasonal personnel to confront a heightened risk of wildfires. It was a formal recognition of something that had become terribly evident: California is dry as dust.

Not only did numerous places in California suffer their driest year on record in 2013; it wasn't even close. In San Francisco, the driest year was 1917, when 9 inches of rain fell; in 2013, it was about 51/2 inches. San Luis Obispo County typically receives almost 2 feet of rain each year; that fell to 41/2 inches in 2013, obliterating the previous record of 7 inches, set in 1898.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 62.7% of the state has suddenly tumbled into "extreme" drought conditions. That's up from 27.6% at the start of the calendar year — the year that began less than four weeks ago. The agency's new drought map shows a crimson splotch stretching from Orange County in the south to Mendocino County in the north.

"We're right in the heart of it," Fayram said.

Cachuma Lake, which is at 39.7% of capacity, has been in trouble before. In 1990 and 1991, water levels were even lower. "We were that close to being out of water," Fayram said, holding two fingers a centimeter apart. Back then, some residents were catching excess shower water in buckets and using it to flush the toilet.

The difference, Fayram said, was that in those days, the law of averages worked. Eventually, the assumption went, it was going to rain — and it did. The "miracle March" rains of 1991 pulled Cachuma Lake out of a dire state, and then a healthy rain year in 1992 filled it back up.

Now forecasters don't see any rain on the horizon.

"And we don't need a good rainstorm," Fayram said. "We need a good rain year. That's not within view right now."

Fayram and other water officials along the southern coast of Santa Barbara County have begun preparing for the shortages to come. There is discussion, for instance, of tapping more aggressively into groundwater sources and the California Aqueduct.

Those decisions lie ahead in the coming weeks and months. For now, all Bozarth sees is dust — land, acres and acres of it, littered with sun-bleached clamshells, that is suddenly re-emerging from the depths as Cachuma Lake fades away.

Chunks of the past are strewn about the former lake bed as the water recedes — overturned rowboats, anchors, buoys, maritime cables, even fishing lures that snagged on branches decades ago.

Arrowhead Island, long an iconic land structure in the middle of the lake and, some claim, one of the best bass-fishing spots in the state, "isn't an island anymore," said Bozarth, the recreation area's supervising ranger. "I can walk there now," he said.

Rangers had to scramble to move their floating boathouse before it became stranded on land. New, smaller lakes have been created as the water has receded. One was full of carp before it dried up altogether. The carp died on a bed of cracked clay. The buzzards ate the carp.

In 2008, officials opened a new, slanting boat ramp, which was used heavily by pleasure-boaters and fishermen. Today, you can walk to the end of the ramp, where you should be under water. There, it dangles in the air, 60 feet above the lake's new surface. Rangers are preparing to use the remnants of an old highway, submerged since the Eisenhower administration, as a new boat ramp.

Bozarth tried gamely to explain the impact of the drought by boat, but he didn't get as far as he wanted. An alarm on the console erupted time and again, warning him that he was entering dangerously shallow water.

"It's still a beautiful place. I love it. I'm so glad I work here," he said. "But this is sad. It's just sad."

scott.gold@latimes.com

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Puzzling silence after woman's fatal beating

I can't understand the beating death of Kim Pham, the 23-year-old woman kicked and pummeled to death outside a popular nightclub in Santa Ana.

I can't understand the silence of her friends, who were with her that night and must have seen the altercation but refuse to talk to police.

I can only understand the pain and confusion of Pham's father, who is trying to come to grips with the sudden loss of a much-loved daughter who seemed destined for success:

She'd graduated from college, recently moved out of the family home and had just begun a new job. A few hours before she was beaten unconscious, she was reportedly texting her buddies about how she should wear her hair.

Police have arrested two young women — one has been charged with murder — and are looking for another. They have surveillance videos that show Pham being beaten, but don't know enough yet to reconstruct what happened that night.

What bothers me most about that night is that dozens of people watched the melee but no one managed to stop it, and everyone involved is now clamming up rather than helping police find the guilty parties.

That reflects a lack of empathy; a purposeful disconnect. We can hold trouble at arm's length as long as we minimize it: If it's not happening to us, then it's no big deal.

That sort of "see no evil" ethos does not just apply to crime in the streets. We see it in play on college campuses, where reports of sexual assaults are ignored and racial harassment tolerated.

Last fall, three San Jose State students were charged with hate crimes for allegedly bullying their black roommate. They'd called him names, barricaded him in the room and clamped a bicycle lock around his neck. It wasn't until the boy's parents visited and saw racial epithets, Nazi paraphernalia and a confederate flag on display in the dorm that college officials were informed and police got involved.

The torment had been going on for months. Four other students lived in that suite, but none of them complained or intervened to stop the harassment.

Last week, a federal task force was formed to address campus sexual assaults amid a wave of complaints by female students that college officials, including locally at Occidental and USC, downplay allegations of sexual abuse, stigmatize the victims and fail to punish the offenders.

I guess it's easier to ignore the crime when you label it "non-consensual sex" — as some universities do — instead of calling it rape.

And it's easier to remain a spectator if you believe that a young woman being stomped and punched is not the victim of a vicious beating, just part of a nightclub brawl.

Campus sexual assaults, racial harassment and a random sidewalk beating may not seem logically connected, but they have managed to coalesce in my worried-mother mind.

Maybe it's because they all remind me of how vulnerable even grown-up daughters are. We arm them with a million admonitions to be safe and be careful, but danger tracks them down.

I think back to a few years ago, when my middle daughter was celebrating her 21st birthday with friends at an upscale Hollywood club. A gun went off on the darkened dance floor. She was close enough to see the muzzle flash. Her friends thought it was a champagne cork popping, until people started screaming and security guards cleared the club.

That put a damper on her club-going, but only for a while. She trusts her ability to steer clear of trouble. Her mother is not so sure.

I've tried to raise my girls to look out for others, and I'd like to think that others are looking out for them. But they're circulating in a world of hard hearts, warped minds and hair-trigger tempers. What's a parent to do?

Warn them not to wander into anyone's cellphone photo shoot?

That's what may have led to the altercation that cost Kim Pham her life.

Her father, Dung Pham, finds that unfathomable. "I can't imagine it starts with someone interrupting a photo," he told Times reporter Anh Do, through tears on Sunday night. "I don't know what to think."

Then he excused himself to attend a prayer vigil for his daughter. I hope he prayed that someone finds the courage to speak up.

sandy.banks@latimes.com

Twitter: @SandyBanksLAT

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State court bans ex-reporter Stephen Glass from being a lawyer

SAN FRANCISCO — A former journalist who fabricated magazine articles lost a years-long bid to become a lawyer Monday in a court ruling that faulted his character and a failure to atone for his prior misconduct.

In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court said Stephen R. Glass must be denied a law license not only because he deceived readers and editors as a journalist but because he failed to be completely candid in later years about his transgressions.

Glass' deceit was "motivated by professional ambition, betrayed a vicious, mean spirit and a complete lack of compassion for others, along with arrogance and prejudice against various ethnic groups," the court said in an unsigned ruling. "In all these respects, his misconduct bore directly on his character in matters that are critical to the practice of law."

Legal ethicists said the court's decision means that Glass, who graduated from law school in 2000, is unlikely to ever get a license to practice law. Glass has worked as a law clerk and lived in Los Angeles with his girlfriend since 2004.

"I think this is the end of the line," New York University Law professor Stephen Gillers said. "California is among the more forgiving states, and if he can't get past the California Supreme Court, he is blocked everywhere."

Glass, 41, was in his 20s when he fabricated more than 40 articles for the New Republic, Rolling Stone and other magazines. His stories generally disparaged his subjects, and he made up phony notes, business cards, a website and voice mails to cover his tracks.

When the extent of his deception was uncovered, a national debate about journalistic standards and practices ensued. A movie, "Shattered Glass," chronicled his road to disgrace. Glass also wrote a novel about his misdeeds, explaining how he had hoodwinked his editors and fact-checkers and revealing his shame and suffering after he was caught.

During a 2010 California bar hearing, his current employer, law professors and psychiatrists testified that he had shown years of steadfast honesty and posed no threat to the legal profession. A bar judge and a bar review panel decided that Glass should get a license, but an admissions committee balked and asked the state's highest court to intervene.

The court, agreeing with the bar examiners, said Glass was evasive and hypocritical even during that 2010 hearing, when he testified about his earlier efforts to win admission to the New York bar. During the New York proceedings, Glass failed to list all his fabrications and exaggerated the amount of help he gave to editors who were attempting to correct his falsehoods, the court said. Glass withdrew his name from the New York bar just as it was about to reject him on character grounds.

"Many of his efforts from the time of his exposure in 1998 until the 2010 hearing … seem to have been directed primarily at advancing his own well-being rather than returning something to the community," the court said. "His evidence did not establish that he engaged in truly exemplary conduct over an extended period."

Glass graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and passed the bar examinations in New York and California. He works as a law clerk at Carpenter Zuckerman & Rowley, but because he has no license, he cannot address a jury or a judge and cannot examine witnesses. He can draft motions and briefs and prepare witnesses, however.

"Glass, with his remarkable verbal skills, which are just off the charts, and intelligence can do a great deal and be worth more to a law firm than a traditional paralegal," said Gillers, a legal ethicist.

Glass' psychiatrists told the state bar that he was not a sociopath, and one compared his misconduct to compulsive gambling. The doctors said he fabricated magazine articles out of an excessive need to please and had grown up with parents who pushed him relentlessly and made him feel like a failure. Glass said he wanted his editor "to love me, like I wanted my father to love me."

The court said his years in therapy were admirable, but not enough. "Honesty is absolutely fundamental in the practice of law," the ruling said.

The justices noted that Glass had not offered to give back his magazine earnings when his fabrications were first discovered and failed to write letters of apology to all those he harmed until he was getting ready to apply for admission to the New York bar.

"Once he was exposed, Glass' response was to protect himself, not to freely and fully admit and catalog all of his fabrications," the court said.

Legal analysts said the ruling represented a warning for other bar applicants that serious past misconduct would be forgiven only if the aspiring lawyer had spent years doing good works and fully revealed every single transgression. The greater the misconduct, the more evidence of rehabilitation the applicant must show, the court said.

Stanford Law professor Deborah L. Rhode, an expert in legal ethics, said the court gave "short shrift" to the many positive character references Glass received. "I don't think that is a good signal to other potential applicants to the bar who really do want to turn their lives around," she said.

Jon B. Eisenberg, Glass' lawyer, said: "Mr. Glass appreciates the court's consideration of his application and respects the court's decision." Glass could not be reached for comment.

Luis J. Rodriguez, president of the State Bar of California, said the ruling "vindicates the idea that honesty is of paramount importance in the practice of law in California."

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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State revokes license of store that sold drugs to patients who died

A Burbank pharmacy that dispensed painkillers and other narcotics to five young patients who later died of overdoses had its license revoked Monday after the state pharmacy board found that its employees failed to properly scrutinize prescriptions that contributed to patient deaths.

The pharmacy, Jay Scott Drugs on Glenoaks Boulevard, catered to patients of doctors Bernard Bass and Massoud Bamdad, both of whom were later convicted of crimes in connection with their prescribing.

Pharmacists are required by law to scrutinize prescriptions, size up customers and refuse to dispense a drug if they suspect a patient does not have a legitimate medical need for it.

Many of Bass' patients were in their 20s and traveled more than 40 miles from their homes in Ventura County to see Bass in North Hollywood, and then another five miles to Jay Scott Drugs where they typically paid cash for a combination of prescription drugs favored by addicts. Though Bamdad was a general practitioner, three-quarters of the prescriptions his patients filled at the store were for painkillers or other commonly abused drugs, the California Board of Pharmacy alleged.

The board faulted lead pharmacist Albert Daher and two colleagues for unquestioningly filling prescriptions, despite multiple red flags that should have caused them to become suspicious. The board's decision noted that the pharmacy "received huge financial gains" of about $1.7 million from Bass' prescriptions.

During an interview in his store Monday, Daher said he felt unfairly targeted by the board and resented the notion that he put profit before patient care.

"I am not a bad person," he said.

Four Bass patients between the ages of 21 and 31 died of overdoses over the span of a month in 2008 after filling prescriptions at Jay Scott Drugs. A fifth patient fatally overdosed at age 23 after filling a prescription from Bamdad, according to pharmacy board documents.

Among those who died was 22-year-old Andrew Snay. An empty pill vial listing Bass as the doctor and Jay Scott Drugs as the pharmacy was on the night table next his body, according to the board's decision.

The board faulted the pharmacy for feeding the addictions of four other patients who later died with the same kinds of drugs that were filled at Jay Scott Drugs. Even if there was insufficient evidence to prove that the lethal pills were the same ones obtained at Jay Scott, the board's decision said the pharmacy had been routinely filling the prescriptions and therefore fueling addiction.

"If [the Jay Scott pharmacists] contributed to the drug addiction, they contributed to the end result: Death," the 47-page report by board President Stan C. Weisser said. The revocation order was issued Dec. 27 and took effect Monday.

The board took the unusual step of rejecting the proposed decision of Administrative Law Judge Daniel Juarez, who presided over a 16-day hearing that ended last June.

Juarez found that Bass — but not Bamdad — had an obvious prescribing pattern and patient profiles that should have drawn the attention of Daher and his colleagues. He also found that the pharmacists committed professional misconduct by dismissing the long distances traveled by patients and cash payments for commonly abused narcotics as red flags for abuse.

The judge wrote that he found no evidence that Daher or any of the pharmacists had "an improper alliance" with Bass or Bamdad. Their transgressions, he wrote, were committed "without the intention of violating the law."

Juarez wrote that the evidence did not prove that the drugs dispensed by Daher contributed to any of the deaths, including Snay's.

Juarez concluded that license revocation would be "too severe" and recommended a five-year probationary term.

The board disagreed and imposed revocation.

Daher's lawyers requested a stay from a judge Friday so the store could remain open pending an appeal, but it was denied.

On Monday morning, Daher and his employees scrambled to deal with about 7,000 prescriptions that needed to be filled within the next few days, the vast majority for elderly patients in nursing homes, he said.

"They are hurting over 5,000 patients as we speak right now," he said from behind the counter of the pharmacy, which was closed for business due to the revocation. "I had people crying in here yesterday."

Daher, who broke into tears himself at one point, said he was devastated when he learned of patient deaths, including that of Snay, whose mother, Kim, confronted him at the pharmacy.

Daher did not accept blame for Snay's death, but said he still thought of the young man and his family.

"I've prayed the rosary every day for the past several years so that they can have peace and I can have peace," he said. "And I pray for forgiveness."

Daher said he raised concerns about Bass' prescriptions with a medical board investigator and pharmacy board officials before the deaths but was not told to stop filling them. He also pointed out that an earlier investigation based on the same evidence ended with an investigator determining there was "insufficient evidence" against him.

"I made my case in court, and I think I won it," he said.

Ron and Arlene Clyburn, the parents of 23-year-old Alex Clyburn, who fatally overdosed after filling a prescription at Jay Scott, said in an email that they were gratified by the board's decision.

"The pharmacy is one link in the chain of people illegally supplying prescription drugs to the public for the sole purpose of making money off the misery of others," they wrote.

Kim Snay said she was surprised and delighted by the decision. "The system took a long time, but it does work," she said.

scott.glover@latimes.com

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Much of old Irvine air base is removed from list of hazardous sites

More than 1,900 acres of the retired Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Irvine have been cleaned up and removed from the list of the nation's most hazardous sites after more than two decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday.

Officials said that $165 million in soil removal and groundwater treatment by the U.S. Navy and local water agencies has cleaned up contamination at much of the old World War II-era air base, to the point it no longer poses a risk to human health or the environment.

The deletion of all but 600 acres of the El Toro site from the federal Superfund list, finalized last week, clears one obstacle to turning some of the old military property into the Orange County Great Park and thousands of homes.

"It will allow us to move forward with development of the Great Park in an accelerated manner," said Jeff Lalloway, mayor pro tem of Irvine and chairman of the Great Park board of directors.

The 4,700-acre El Toro air base is one of 20 current and former Department of Defense facilities in California undergoing long and costly EPA cleanups, largely because of polluted soil and water. The list includes the former Norton Air Force Base near San Bernardino, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County and the former McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento.

Built in 1942 to train pilots during World War II, El Toro was later developed into a permanent base for jet fighters on the West Coast.

El Toro was named to the Superfund list in 1990 because of contamination caused by decades of aircraft maintenance and repair, which left the soil laced with compounds known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. A plume of groundwater tainted with trichloroethylene and other hazardous compounds migrated more than three miles from the base beneath Irvine. But wells in the area are used for irrigation, not as a source of drinking water.

For more than a decade, Irvine has tried to transform about 1,300 acres of the old base into a sprawling public park surrounded by homes and businesses. But the recession and the housing market collapse took a toll on the plan. Only about 230 acres of the park have been opened to the public, including its signature orange balloon ride, athletic fields, festival space and an arts complex.

"Being able to remove the Superfund name removes a stigma and helps the community grow," said EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld. "People should feel confident that they can play and recreate and use the land."

Most of the 230 acres open to the public remain on the Superfund list because contaminated groundwater beneath it is still being treated. But the soil has been cleaned and no longer poses a health risk, EPA officials said. And the trichloroethylene in the groundwater, which sits about 100 feet below the surface, is at such low concentrations that it is close to meeting federal drinking water standards, they said.

After the base was decommissioned in 1999, the Navy auctioned off much of the property for $650 million through a 2005 deal with home builder Lennar Corp., which transferred about 1,300 acres in the middle of the base to Irvine to build the Great Park.

The portion of the Superfund site that was delisted includes about 700 acres of city-owned land, some of which is leased out for farming. The other 1,200 acres are being developed by FivePoint Communities, which has an agreement with the city to build 688 acres of public parkland in exchange for the rights to construct up to 9,500 homes nearby.

"FivePoint is gratified that this major milestone has been completed in the process of returning the former land of El Toro to productive, public use," Chief Executive Emile Haddad said in a written statement.

Work to extract and treat groundwater and monitor capped landfills on remaining parts of the base list is expected to take years and an additional $50 million, according to the EPA.

"This has been a long, quiet, expensive process," said Larry Agran, an Irvine councilman and Great Park board member. Still, he cautioned that more cleanup remains. "We have a number of areas that are still on the Superfund list, still require remediation and in some cases, pose a hazard."

tony.barboza@latimes.com

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Irvine council to consider issuing subpoenas for Great Park audit

Irvine city leaders on Tuesday will consider whether to issue subpoenas to help auditors continue their investigation into the financial management of the Orange County Great Park.

An audit presented to the council early this month raised questions about spending, contracts and oversight of the planned 1,300-acre park and noted that auditors were stymied by uncooperative employees and contractors and lack of access to information that city officials deemed to be outside the audit's scope.

About $215 million has been spent on the ambitious park plan, but only 230 acres have been built.

Arguing that it was out of options, the council majority last year abandoned part of the park's grand design and instead approved a developer's proposal to build a golf course, sports complex and other amenities on 688 acres in exchange for the right to construct thousands of additional homes along its perimeter.

The audit faulted Great Park leadership for allowing contractors to use excessive change orders, not fully vetting major vendors and paying a communications and strategy firm $6.3 million under contracts for the park's design.

One contract, for the construction of a preview park, was originally bid at $1.7 million but ended up costing $9.4 million. Another, for tree care, was bid at $395,330 but ultimately cost $913,758, according to the audit, which was performed by forensic accounting firm Hagen, Streiff, Newton & Oshiro Accountants.

The report also found that about 38% of all contracts for amounts more than $100,000 were awarded without competitive bids.

Auditors said they were unable to answer some questions because several key players, including park designer Ken Smith and a former Great Park employee, refused to speak with auditors.

The expanded audit would allow a council subcommittee made up of council members Christina Shea and Jeff Lalloway to issue subpoenas to witnesses and for documents that "may be necessary to complete the investigation," according to a city staff report.

Shea and Lalloway are longtime critics of the park's financial management under council members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, who helped steward the project from its inception until last year when they lost their council majority in the city's elections.

Lalloway said he was disturbed that contractors refused to speak with auditors, though some had offered to answer questions in writing.

"I think the public has a right to know where all that money went," he said.

Agran called the additional investigation, which would cost up to $400,000, a waste of money.

"They didn't seem to me to find anything to warrant going ahead," Agran said.

He was particularly critical of one of the audit's main findings: that $38 million in tax increment revenue collected by the city's redevelopment agency was not handed over to the Great Park. In fact, he said, it was simply set aside as required by law.

paloma.esquivel@latimes.com

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Assembly OKs beach fire ring, prison condom and gambling measures

SACRAMENTO — The state Assembly on Monday overwhelmingly passed a measure intended to preserve beach fire rings and, more narrowly, approved a proposal to make condoms available in California's prisons.

Beach fire rings have been at the center of a protracted battle in Southern California's beach towns, particularly Newport Beach, where local air-quality authorities have stepped up their regulation of the fires because of concerns over their effect on the environment and residents' health.

Opponents of the regulations say they threaten to end a beloved beachfront tradition and jeopardize tourism revenue.

The bill by Assembly members Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) and Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-Fullerton) would put off a new rule that would effectively remove rings in Newport Beach. The delay would give the city time to form a plan to move the rings, addressing authorities' concerns.

It is "intended to protect not only historical California tradition but millions in revenue for cities, counties and the state," Allen said on the Assembly floor.

The bill, AB 1102, passed 64 to 0.

Another measure, by Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Alameda), would require the state's corrections department to craft a five-year plan to make condoms available in prisons.

"This is simple and sound preventative public health policy that is data-driven and informed by a highly successful pilot project," Bonta said. "It will save lives."

The Legislature passed a similar Bonta measure last year, but Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed it, noting that family visitors are already allowed to bring condoms for overnight visits.

This year's bill, AB 966, passed with a 45-26 vote.

Both measures now move to the Senate.

Also Monday, the Senate moved to require a review of the growing gambling industry in California. State officials would examine existing regulations and the possibility of imposing new taxes on gambling under SB 601, by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco). Senators approved the bill 32 to 0 Monday and sent it to the Assembly.

melanie.mason@latimes.com

Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report.

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Trial over California teacher protection laws opens

Attorneys seeking to overturn several of California's controversial teacher protection laws argued in court Monday that these statutes prevent the removal of "grossly ineffective" teachers from schools — contributing to an inadequate education for students assigned to them.

The opposition, however, countered that it is not the laws but inept management that fails to root out incompetent instructors.

Lawyers opened their case Monday in a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the laws that govern teacher tenure rules, seniority policies and the dismissal process — an overhaul of which could upend controversial job security for instructors.

Vergara vs. California, filed on behalf of nine students and their families in Los Angeles County Superior Court, contends that the laws are a violation of the Constitution's equal protection guarantee because they do not ensure that all students have access to an adequate education.

The suit seeks to revamp a dismissal process that the plaintiffs say is too costly and time-consuming, lengthen the time it takes for instructors to gain tenure and dismantle the "last hired, first fired" policies that fail to consider teacher effectiveness.

The state Department of Education and teachers unions are opposed to the lawsuit. They have said the laws are essential for recruiting and retaining instructors.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who represents Students Matter, the nonprofit that brought the suit, said in his opening statements that his side will prove that the laws themselves prevent administrators from removing ineffective teachers, thus lowering the quality of the teacher pool and contributing to an inadequate education for some students.

Many students — overwhelmingly those who are minority and low-income — are destined to suffer from ineffective and unequal instruction because administrators are unable to remove ineffective teachers from schools, he told the packed courtroom.

"These statutes work together in a vicious cycle," Boutrous said. "The system harms students every day."

Deputy Atty. Gen. Nimrod Elias countered that the laws themselves do not pair students with ineffective teachers. It is districts and administrators who have the opportunity and sole discretion to remove ineffective teachers from classrooms and decide whether to grant tenure. The laws are crucial safeguards, he said.

"It does not take 18 months to identify those incompetent teachers," he said.

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy, the first witness, said the time frame for granting tenure is far too short to make a decision on a teacher's fitness for the classroom.

"There is no way this is a sufficient amount of time to make, in my opinion, an incredibly important judgment," he said.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has been unable to dismiss all its "grossly ineffective" teachers because of the time and costs involved, Deasy said. He bristled when asked by an attorney for the plaintiffs why he disagreed with the defense assertion that ineffective teachers remain at schools because of poor management.

"Because LAUSD schools are not poorly managed," said Deasy, whose testimony is to continue Tuesday.

The case is being heard by Judge Rolf M. Treu, without a jury.

stephen.ceasar@latimes.com

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For Los Angeles, list is a first step toward improved quake safety

The University of California's release of data on nearly 1,500 older concrete buildings across Los Angeles marks a key step in the city's efforts to improve earthquake safety.

Now the hard part begins.

UC researchers spent several years compiling the list of buildings, a first-of-its-kind effort to help identify a type of building that earthquake experts have long said poses the greatest risk of death.

Of all the older concrete buildings in Los Angeles, the researchers estimated that only about 75 would collapse during a huge quake.

But determining which ones are structurally at risk will require individual inspections.

Experts say the cost for just a preliminary examination could range from $4,000 to $20,000, depending on the size of the building. Retrofitting problem buildings would cost property owners much more, from the tens of thousands of dollars to perhaps more than $1 million for large office or residential towers.

The list underscores the scope of the challenge: More than 220,000 people live or work in the listed buildings, according to a Times analysis of the researchers' data.

For city leaders, the next step is deciding how to inspect and repair the buildings — and who should cover the costs. Mayor Eric Garcetti has said getting quake-vulnerable concrete buildings retrofitted is a top priority and partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey to make recommendations on how to get it done.

Some City Council members have been exploring the idea of a state bond initiative to help defray some of the costs for building owners.

The University of California sent the list of addresses to the city Tuesday, after Los Angeles officials had asked for it. After months of debate about whether to make the list public, UC provided a copy to The Times in response to a public records act request.

The release of the list moves Los Angeles closer to addressing the dangers of concrete buildings after four decades of inaction.

Earlier efforts to identify and fix problem buildings died amid opposition from property owners after the 1994 Northridge quake. Concrete buildings collapsed during both that temblor and the 1971 Sylmar quake, in which hospital buildings crumbled, killing about 50 people.

Concrete buildings can be particularly vulnerable when they lack adequate steel reinforcement. As a result, their frames are brittle and can crumble during heavy shaking. Concrete buildings are found across Los Angeles but particularly in older commercial districts such as downtown, Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire. A Times survey last year found heavy concentrations of concrete residential towers and office buildings in those areas as well in Westwood and Encino.

Los Angeles is now the first city in California with a public list of older concrete buildings, and seismic safety experts said they hope this raises awareness of the issue.

"This challenge our communities face is now out in the open … and tells the community that something needs to be done," said Craig Comartin, a structural engineer and past president of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, based in Oakland.

Some Los Angeles officials said the city must act by determining which buildings are actually at risk.

"We need to ensure that, as best as we can, that our residents are safe," Councilman Bernard C. Parks said. "It's absolutely important."

Councilman Mitch Englander said the UC researchers' work gives the city a rare opportunity to move forward, saying the city did not produce a list on its own "because of the political fallout, quite frankly."

"What do you do with it, once you have it? That's the million-dollar question," he added.

Business groups and property owners have long opposed mandatory retrofitting, saying they cannot shoulder the costs alone.

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LAX handles record number of foreign travelers in 2013

Bolstered by an improving economy, Los Angeles International Airport handled more than 17.8 million foreign travelers in 2013, a record for the West Coast gateway that struggled for years to recover that portion of its market.

The previous peak for the nation's third-busiest airport was about 17.5 million international passengers in 2005, but a global economic slowdown triggered a steep decline in air travel and hampered further growth.

Gina Marie Lindsey, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, the operator of LAX that announced the passenger figures, attributed the record to an improving worldwide economy, especially in Asia, and a modest strengthening of the Southern California economy.

She also said international carriers were starting or expanding service at LAX as a result of an ongoing modernization project that includes at least $4 billion in improvements to the Tom Bradley International Terminal, taxiways and the airport's central utility plant.

"This ratifies the priority of the investment we have made at LAX and it demonstrates that we have more yet to build so we can adequately accommodate the international market," Lindsey said.

The improvement in foreign travel is important economically for the region and to the airport's modernization and expansion plans.

A single international flight traveling round-trip daily for a year from LAX generates $623 million in business activity and supports 3,120 jobs locally, according to a Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. study.

More international passengers also translates into increased revenue for LAX that can be used to finance additional improvements to terminals, runways and transportation, such as a planned people-mover and a transit hub.

The recovery has not been easy, however. For years, LAX lagged behind other big-city U.S. airports in the effort to regain that portion of the market at levels seen before the recession.

Large airports in California and most other regions of the country surpassed their pre-slump foreign traffic numbers from 2005 faster than LAX, sometimes dramatically so, according to passenger figures.

A number of factors stalled the resurgence at LAX, including the economic downturn, changing travel patterns, the bankruptcy of Mexicana Airlines and natural disasters overseas, most notably Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

In addition to the surge in international travel, overall passenger volume at LAX increased from 63.7 million in 2012 to 66.7 million in 2013.

The number is roughly 1% below the airport's record of 67.3 million in 2000. Air travel plunged a year later after the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center. The decline continued as the economy headed into recession.

"Barring any events impacting air travel, 2014 could be the year that we finally surpass the record level in 2000 and get past the impacts of 9/11 and the Great Recession," said Nancy Castles, an airport spokeswoman.

Despite the improvements at LAX, the number of passengers at LA/Ontario International Airport slid an additional 8% last year, dropping from 4.3 million in 2012 to 3.97 million. In 2007, the airport handled about 7.2 million passengers.

At Van Nuys Airport, a general aviation facility, the number of flight operations increased almost 4%, the first gain in years after steady declines. The number of takeoffs and landings last year was 268,531, compared with 259,132 in 2012.

dan.weikel@latimes.com

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Checking out Broadway's old theaters of the superb

All that was missing Saturday were the searchlights as thousands filed through theater lobby doors to get a rare glimpse of the grand old movie palaces that line Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.

"This is like discovering treasure in an old tomb," marveled Venice architect Peter Culley as he stepped from the opulent 2,000-seat Los Angeles Theatre, which opened in 1931. "This is the first time I've been here. We're really surprised because it doesn't give the impression of being this large from the street."

His wife, high school English teacher Lynn Culley, was amazed by the ornate decorative touches: the crystal chandeliers, the marble women's restrooms in the basement, the 60-foot-wide curtain with three-dimensional figures sewn on it to re-create a 1800s French scene.

"The fixtures are so detailed. I don't think people realize there are still places like this here," she said.

Six of the street's dozen movie theaters were open to the public Saturday, and representatives of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation were on hand to lead tours.

"It's a big surprise to a lot of people today to see these theaters are still here. A small number of people have known about these for decades," said Escott Norton, a downtown home designer who is the foundation's executive director.

Not on public view were the 1931 Roxie, which houses a clothing store, and the Arcade and the Cameo, which opened in 1910 and are taken up by a storage space and a jewelry store. Also missing were the 1921 State, now used as a church, the 1917 Rialto, now an Urban Outfitters store, and the 1927 United Artists Theatre at the new Ace Hotel.

The Ace Hotel's theater was being readied for a Sunday night Grammy party but will be open to visitors on Feb. 1, said Hillsman Wright, a co-founder of the 27-year-old foundation.

Wright termed the Roxie, Arcade and Cameo theaters "the orphans of the street." They sit in a row in the 500 block of Broadway and are ripe for development as entertainment venues, he said. "They could share the sidewalk and a joint lobby. These three have amazing potential, and their owner, Joseph Hellen, is open to finding someone to insure these theaters' long-term survival," he said.

Wright, a 62-year-old semi-retired special events consultant from Venice, characterized the conversion of the Rialto into a clothing store and the restoration of its bright neon marquee as "a win," explaining that it could easily be converted back into an entertainment venue if Urban Outfitters ever leaves. He said the clothing chain is keeping the theater's past alive by projecting videos on the back wall where the Rialto's screen once hung.

The Globe Theatre, which opened in 1913 as the Morosco Theatre, is already being turned into an entertainment center by Frenchman Erik Chol. Its sloping floor was leveled out in 1987 when the movie house closed and the space was used as a swap meet. Aldric Angelier, an associate of Chol, said corporate gatherings, fashion shows and rock music performances will be scheduled once construction ends later this year.

"Even though they filled in the orchestra pit, I'm thankful it's still around," said Kim Rawley, a college English teacher from Lancaster, after emerging from the Globe.

At the 1918 Million Dollar Theatre, El Segundo account manager Robyn Walsh stepped from the auditorium and pronounced it "absolutely gorgeous … it's a hidden treasure."

And Michael Hart, a magazine editor from Mount Washington, said he was making a mental note to return to the Million Dollar to experience a movie. The theater is used for occasional screenings.

Kevin Truong, an insurance contractor from Westminster, was surprised that downtown's stand-alone theaters have survived in the era of multiplexes.

But a friend, Brea medical biller Staci Louie, said Broadway is the perfect place for such spectacular venues.

"This whole street is filled with old buildings and great architecture," she said.

bob.pool@latimes.com

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Homeboy Industries, a success story, still faces a daily struggle

It was Father Gregory Boyle's first invitation to address the Los Angeles Police Commission, and he had something to get off his chest.

For a quarter of a century, Boyle has steered boys and girls, and men and women, out of the gang life through Homeboy Industries, which offers job training, counseling, tattoo removal and more. The model Boyle built has been replicated around the country and abroad.

Here in Los Angeles, some 120,000 gang members have voluntarily asked Father Boyle for help starting over. They struggle daily against the socioeconomic forces that drew them into gang life. But Homeboy itself confronts another daily struggle.

Making ends meet.

"Our government funding has gone in the last three years from 20% of our annual $14-million budget to 3%," Boyle told the police commissioners.

And then he had this pithy observation:

"I suspect if we were a shelter for abandoned puppies we'd be endowed by now. But we're a place of second chances for gang members and felons. It's a tough sell, but a good bet."

Boyle has been making that bet for 30 years, never excusing the violence, but also trying to understand where it comes from. He told the commission he lives by two rules of refusal:

"Refuse to demonize a single gang member, and refuse to romanticize a single gang."

Steve Soboroff, the commission chairman who invited Boyle to speak, told me he did so for a specific purpose. Crime rates are down, and Soboroff considers gang intervention a key part of the reason. Earl Paysinger, an LAPD assistant chief, said he shudders to think what shape the city would be in without Homeboy.

"I'm heartened that in 2012, gang-related crime has been reduced by 18% and gang-related homicide by nearly 10%," Boyle told the commission. "And I think Homeboy has had an impact on that."

But Boyle didn't hide his frustration, arguing that Homeboy's services save the public millions of dollars in reduced violence and incarceration.

"We shouldn't be struggling this much. God love the Museum of Contemporary Art, which can raise $100 million in 10 months to endow itself," he said. "They were so successful they moved the goal posts to $150 million, and we're just trying to keep our heads above water."

Warhols and puppies, Boyle shrugged. "Go figure."

I had reached out to Boyle because I'd heard that both he and Homeboy were having health problems. It turns out that Boyle is OK after the latest round of treatment for his chronic leukemia, and he told me he's not even thinking about slowing down.

"Jesuits retire in the graveyard," he said.

But yes, he conceded, Homeboy could use some vitamins.

We had lunch at Homegirl Cafe on Wednesday and I got more of the details. Homeboy had to lay off about 40 people last fall and projects another 60 layoffs this year unless it can plug a roughly $1-million budget deficit.

A few years ago, things were even worse. Homeboy had to tighten its operation, but that time the county also pitched in, with the first of three payments totaling $3 million. Today, the only government funding is a small sum from the state.

But that doesn't stop the county from relying on Boyle. At lunch, Boyle told me that another bus had arrived at Homeboy just that morning from one of the juvenile detention camps, carrying kids who wanted their gang tattoos removed.

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Investigation into Santa Ana beating death hits a wall of silence

She was beaten and stomped to death in the early morning hours outside a Santa Ana nightclub amid a group of fellow Vietnamese Americans.

Some of her friends may have seen who knocked the 23-year-old Huntington Beach woman to the ground or who kicked her in the head as a crowd encircled them. Some may hold the clues that could bring Kim Pham's killers to justice.

But as Santa Ana police detectives try to make sense of the melee that led to her death, the investigation is running into a wall of silence. Pham's friends have failed to come forward. One flatly refused to meet with law enforcement, despite pleas from the police.

Longtime observers of Orange County's sprawling Vietnamese population say the dynamic doesn't surprise them in a community where distrust of authority — and reluctance to cooperate with police — still runs through generations. Many arrived in America with fresh memories of the deeply corrupt government back home.

"People worry that there will be retaliation," said Cmdr. Tim Vu, the highest-ranking Vietnamese American in law enforcement in Orange County. "They don't know the court system and are intimidated by it."

Vu said it is hard to convince some in the community that retaliation against witnesses is rare. "We need to reassure immigrants or potential witnesses that it's not about them," he said. "It's about all the evidence and all other witnesses."

Though many young Vietnamese Americans, like Pham, are deeply Westernized, some are living with older family members who put little faith in cooperating with police.

"Culture comes into play when they're heavily influenced by parents or grandparents who cannot forget the distrust," Vu said. "If the elders say 'Don't talk,' they may not talk."

Pham was a recent Chapman University graduate and an aspiring journalist. So far, police have arrested two women in connection with her death and are looking for a third. A reward for information has climbed to $11,000.

Ken Nguyen, a volunteer who acts as Santa Ana's liaison to the local Vietnamese community, said at least eight Vietnamese American youths were with Pham in the early hours of Jan. 18, waiting to celebrate a birthday at The Crosby, a trendy Santa Ana nightspot.

One of Pham's friends, who was not in the crowd that night, said the fight may have started after the victim unintentionally stepped into another group's photo.

Nguyen said Pham's ex-boyfriend, who was in her entourage, tried to rescue her from her attackers but was pulled away by a bouncer.

Despite public pleas for assistance, detectives have not been able to find the former boyfriend or learn the identities of Pham's other friends, with the exception of one young woman named "Katie," he said.

Nguyen said he personally appealed to her and to her parents, but they expressed fear and have hired a lawyer.

Civic leaders are now reaching out to witnesses through the Vietnamese-language media, stressing they will be treated with respect if they come forward and can meet privately with the police chief or even the mayor.

"Their identities will be protected if they wish," Nguyen said. "These are the things we offered the youths, and so far, they are quiet."

Police said some in Little Saigon — which stretches across central Orange County — still cling to a "code of silence."

"But this is a crime and a tragedy," Nguyen said. "We need witness help."

Nghia X. Nguyen, who heads the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California, a community group that promotes cultural ties and social services, said he hopes the witnesses will realize how much they can help.

"We need to have faith in the law," he said.

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To fight the cartel, Mexican emigrants return to their hometowns

Martin Cruz was chopping onions in the cramped kitchen of the Birrieria Apatzingan restaurant in Pacoima and talking with his co-worker Bertha Infante about the violence that has gripped their hometown — the namesake of the eatery where they work.

Cruz, 47, and Infante, 36, are from Apatzingan in the Mexican state of Michoacan, where armed vigilante militias have recently made headlines around the world for their efforts to drive out the dominant Knights Templar drug cartel.

The Mexican government sent thousands of troops and federal police into the state last week hoping to avert a showdown as the vigilantes seized control of communities around Apatzingan and threatened to attack cartel members there. The vigilantes said they will not disarm until the government arrests the cartel's top leaders.

Cruz said he has not been back home in 11 years but has heard the stories about how the cartel had made Apatzingan its stronghold, burning down businesses, kidnapping residents and leaving decapitated bodies in town plazas.

Infante chimed in: "Over there, better to be silent, or end up on a street corner without your tongue or your head."

But despite the violence, both said that if they could, they would return to Apatzingan, if only to see home again.

"It's where I was born, where my father and my brothers are," Cruz said with a bittersweet smile. "You miss home. If I could return, yes, I would."

The conflict in Michoacan may be 1,500 miles away from Southern California, but it is deeply resonant with the more than 1 million residents here who have roots in the central Mexico state. By some estimates, there are nearly 5 million people with connections to Michoacan in the United States, with the largest communities in California.

One can see the Michoacan influence in popular carnitas shops and restaurants that bear the names of cities like Zamora and Uruapan and in paletas Michoacanas — popsicles with flavors such as mango and tamarind.

But Andrew Selee, executive vice president of the Woodrow Wilson Center policy think tank in Washington, said few groups of Mexicans in the U.S. have forged as tight a connection with their home state as Michoacanos.

"They're particularly good at organizing and keeping in touch with their home communities," he said. "They have high rates of participation in hometown associations."

Historically, experts say, the central Mexican states of Michoacan, Jalisco and Zacatecas have sent more people to the United States than any other areas.

So it makes sense, some say, that many of the ragtag soldiers in the self-defense groups had been immigrants in the U.S., including some who had been deported. Jesus Martinez, an immigrant advocate in Fresno who served as a state congressman in Michoacan from 2005 to 2008, said he understands how some immigrants from Michoacan who have been in this country for years would voluntarily return home to help in the struggle for its future.

"It doesn't surprise me that some people decided to go back on their own, or that some individuals here in the U.S. have publicly expressed support for the auto-defensas," or vigilante militias, he said. "And it doesn't surprise me that among the auto-defensas, some leaders have been migrants."

Jose Sandoval, an activist in San Jose from Tepalcatepec in the region known as Tierra Caliente, or Hot Land, has helped organize demonstrations to rally support — including money, food and medicine — for the self-defense groups, which some of his own family members have joined.

Sandoval said it would be foolhardy for the self-defense groups to put down their weapons, as the federal government has asked them to, until the leaders of the cartel are arrested or killed.

He said Mexican immigrants in the U.S. can play a powerful role because their relative earning power has allowed them to send money back to their hometowns, where it can make a difference.

"It's not just Michoacan, but all of Mexico itself. We have to make a change for the good of all Mexicans," Sandoval said. "We need to unite to form auto-defensas in all the ranchos, and all the towns and cities, to send all these corrupt criminals fleeing."

After 25 years in Modesto, Luis Alberto Rivera, 46, moved with his wife and three young U.S.-born daughters about a year ago to his hometown of Coalcoman, a city of roughly 20,000 in the Tierra Caliente. There, he said, the cartel had "taken ownership of people's lives." Even the police waved hello to the armed drug dealers as they drove through the streets.

"I had a patriotic dream of returning to my homeland for many years. The lack of safety was a concern, but my rationale was, if 20,000 people were surviving in these conditions, then we would survive too," Rivera said. "It caused me a lot of anger that people were not even putting their mind to getting rid of these criminals. I was anxious to return to help be a part of a solution."

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Lawsuit takes on California teachers' job protections

Local school districts, state legislators and even a California governor have tried to limit teachers' job protections, among the most generous in the country. Efforts have all failed to rid public schools of ineffective teachers by making it easier to fire them and tougher for them to gain tenure and by stripping them of seniority rights.

Now proponents are taking their fight to another venue: the courtroom.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge will hear arguments this week over the constitutionality of laws that govern California's teacher tenure rules, seniority policies and the dismissal process — an overhaul of which could upend controversial job security for instructors.

The lawsuit, filed by the nonprofit, advocacy group Students Matter, contends that these education laws are a violation of the Constitution's equal protection guarantee because they do not ensure that all students have access to an adequate education.

Vergara versus California, filed on behalf of nine students and their families, seeks to revamp a dismissal process that the plaintiffs say is too costly and time consuming, lengthen the time it takes for instructors to gain tenure and dismantle the "last hired, first fired" policies that fail to consider teacher effectiveness.

The lawsuit aims to protect the rights of students, teachers and school districts against a "gross disparity" in educational opportunity, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.

The debate over teacher effectiveness has become increasingly contentious in recent years as school systems, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, try to link students' standardized test scores to instructors' evaluations, rather than keep using reviews in which no test data are included and nearly all teachers are rated as satisfactory. The dismissal process also has come under fire in recent years for the difficulty it causes school districts that seek to fire teachers accused of misconduct against students.

Teachers unions have vigorously defended tenure, seniority and dismissal rules, calling them crucial safeguards and essential to recruiting and retaining quality instructors. The lawsuit, they contend, is misguided and ignores the true causes of problems in education, such as drops in state funding.

"If you give teachers resources and appropriate class sizes, principals and superintendents that support them — they will be successful in increasing student achievement," said Jim Finberg, an attorney representing the California Teachers Assn.

Finberg said wealthy benefactors and special interests are attempting to use their money to force their policy views on the state.

"California teachers care deeply about students and welcome a policy debate on how best to improve California schools," he said. "But that debate should be in the Legislature, not in a courtroom."

The plaintiffs, meanwhile, will try to prove that the laws themselves prevent administrators from removing ineffective teachers, thus lowering the quality of the teacher pool and contributing to an inadequate education for some students.

And the courthouse is just the place to do that, their attorneys said.

"The job of the court is to make sure the laws don't hurt kids," said Marcellus McRae, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who also represents the plaintiffs, said the laws far exceed reasonable job protections and create an environment in which ineffective teachers are immune to scrutiny and consequences for poor job performance. Many students — overwhelmingly those who are minority and low-income — are destined to suffer from ineffective and unequal instruction because administrators are unable to remove ineffective teachers from schools, he said.

"It is virtually impossible to get them out of the system," Boutrous said.

The California Department of Education defended the laws. It contends that districts have the opportunity and discretion to remove ineffective teachers from classrooms and to decide whether to grant tenure.

"There is nothing in the law that prevents districts from making sure unqualified or unsuitable teachers don't become permanent, just as there is nothing that prevents them from removing teachers from the classroom when necessary," the department said in a written statement. "In fact, as the evidence will show, it's quite the opposite."

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy, who declined to comment because he is a witness in the case, is a supporter of the effort to repeal the statutes. The lawsuit initially targeted the Los Angeles Unified School district and two other school systems, as well as California officials and state government. But the organization instead decided to focus on the state, dropping L.A. Unified.

In a recorded deposition, Deasy expressed frustration about having little time to decide whether to grant tenure to a teacher and about the laborious, expensive process of dismissing them.

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For the record

New Orleans recovery: In the Jan. 19 Section A, an article about the recovery of the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans said that the nonprofit group Make It Right had built 100 homes and planned to erect an additional 150. The group plans to build a total of 150 homes, 100 of which have been built.

Mideast allies: In the Jan. 25 Section A, an article about U.S. allies' concerns that the Obama administration is scaling back its role in the Middle East said that Iran agreed Jan. 20 to a six-month interim deal that calls for a partial lifting of sanctions in exchange for a partial freeze on its nuclear enrichment work. Iran agreed to a deal in November, and it took effect Jan. 20.

Homicide Report: In the Jan. 19 Section A, an article about the neighborhood with Los Angeles County's highest homicide rate gave the wrong age for Jacky Pineda, whose fiance was killed in December. She is 27, not 22.

Sheriff's candidate: An article in the Jan. 23 LATExtra section about who might be appointed to replace resigning Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on an interim basis misspelled the last name of a candidate for sheriff in the election later this year. The candidate is Assistant Sheriff Jim Hellmold, not Hellmond.

9/11 museum: In the Jan. 25 Section A, an article about the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York said that Charles G. Wolf is a member of the 9/11 museum board. He is not.

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Singer-actress Courtney Love wins landmark Twitter libel case

Courtney Love, known for her brash behavior and four-letter words, won a landmark Twitter libel case Friday in which a Los Angeles jury determined the musician did not defame her former attorney in a tweet.

Wearing a black dress, a cream cardigan and a string of pearls, Love was ecstatic outside the courthouse and kissed and hugged her attorneys.

"It was a really great learning experience," she said, adding that she had avoided Twitter during the trial out of respect for the case.

Dubbed "Twibel," the civil suit seeking $8 million was filed by Rhonda Holmes, who had once acted as Love's fraud litigation attorney. The singer-actress filed her own complaint against Holmes, claiming legal malpractice.

Holmes had been hired in December 2008 to look into missing funds from the estate of Kurt Cobain, Love's late husband.

Holmes and Love parted ways after less than six months. The attorney alleged that the relationship had been contingent on Love refraining from substance abuse, a stipulation that eventually angered the singer. The attorney also said that Love became a difficult client and wouldn't return calls. She accused the Golden Globe-nominated actress of taking to Twitter as an act of vengeance.

"@noozjunkie I was ... devastated when Rhonda J Holmes Esq of San Diego was bought off @fairnewsspears perhaps you can get a quote," Love tweeted in June 2010 under @CourtneyLoveUK.

But the lead singer of Hole has maintained that she believed she was sending a direct message, not a tweet visible to the public. She quickly erased it.

"Twas the tweet in the forest that no one saw, with the exception of one or two people," Love said in court documents. "That is, of course, before and until Holmes filed this lawsuit and published the tweet to the public at large, seeking to recover money from me."

The Twitter handle @noozjunkie belongs to someone who goes by the name Ethan V. and calls himself an "infoseeker" and journalist. Carmela Kelly, who no longer uses @fairnewsspears, has a website in which she refers to herself as an award-winning investigative reporter based in Phoenix.

It's not the first time someone has filed suit against Love for her tweets. In 2009, Dawn Simorangkir accused the celebrity of publishing defamatory statements under the handle @courtneylover79. The two met through the website Etsy, where the aspiring fashion designer known as Boudoir Queen sold clothes.

Simorangkir said that things went sour when she attempted to collect payment and that Love retaliated through vicious tweets and comments on Etsy. Love was accused of saying that Simorangkir dealt cocaine and may have been a prostitute. The case was settled out of court.

Love's most recent battle is the first Twitter libel case to go to trial. A jury of six men and six women listened to eight days of testimony and statements, then deliberated for just three hours. They determined that although Love's statement had a natural tendency to injure Holmes' business, they did not believe she knew the statement was false.

One juror said that although the decision was swift, it was not without debate. "Everybody took it very seriously," said Joseph Lee, a 45-year-old accountant. "We were arguing and trying to follow the instructions."

Holmes' attorney, Mitchell Langberg, said that he was disappointed in the verdict but that his client was vindicated.

"Really what this case was about was Rhonda Holmes getting her reputation back," Langberg said, referring to the fact that the jury determined Love's tweet to be untrue.

"At the end of the day," he said, "her biggest asset in life is her reputation and that she got back today."

John A. Lawrence, an attorney for Love, said his client deserved a lot of credit for taking the stand and letting it be known she wouldn't be used as "a slot machine."

"I'm gratified that the jury found that Mrs. Cobain did not act recklessly, that she had in her mind some justification for doing what she did," he said.

Love said outside court that she had worried that jurors would have difficulty relating to her and admitted that she was "controversial."

She said she has since been more careful about what and how she posts. "I've been tweeting nicely for like three years now," said Love, whose handle is now @courtney.

An hour later, she resurfaced on Twitter: "I can't thank you enough Dongell Lawrence Finney LLP, the most incredible law firm on the planet. We won this epic battle."

corina.knoll@latimes.com

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