Port Hueneme to spend $2 million to fight beach erosion

Port Hueneme has asked the federal government for emergency help to replenish beaches with sand before the rapidly eroding shoreline undermines roads and floods property, including harbor facilities.

City officials also fear that conditions could eventually damage the nearby Ormond Beach wetlands, the site of environmental restoration efforts supported by local and state agencies.

Since January, high winds, abnormally high tides and large waves along the Ventura County coast have washed away most of the sand that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredges and places on Port Hueneme's beach every two years. Those deposits usually amount to about 1 million cubic yards of sand per two-year cycle. But federal budget restraints and rising costs of fuel and equipment cut the previous delivery to 400,000 cubic yards.

City officials aren't optimistic about getting more sand soon, said Greg Brown, Port Hueneme's community development director. "So it looks like we're going to have to take care of ourselves."

For now, the city plans to try to curtail the damage by spending about $2 million of municipal funds on boulders to protect the most eroded stretches of coastline.

Construction of the city's deep water port and its jetties in 1939 sharply altered the downcoast flow of sand along the city's beaches, resulting in erosion and damage to public and private property as well as the port, which is shared by the U.S. Navy and Oxnard Harbor District.

In 1954, Congress authorized the corps to construct a sand trap nearby and undertake biennial dredging of the sand to maintain the shoreline and protect the port.

"Ironically, there's plenty of sand in the sand trap," Brown said. "The problem is finding federal funds to move it over here."

Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Oak Park) is supporting the push for emergency funding. But Jay Field, a spokesman for the corps, said the agency has no money for additional dredging.

Port Hueneme, the only deep-water commercial harbor between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay, was dependent on the Navy for most of its business until 1984.Today, Hueneme is a niche port, relying mostly on imports of automobiles and produce.

The city is scheduled to receive its next load of sand from the corps in late 2014. So for now, Brown said, "We're praying for a mild winter."

With waves lapping against seaside streets, the city of 21,000 people has canceled a sand sculpture contest scheduled for August.

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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UC programs in lieu of affirmative action show limited success

In the nearly two decades since California voters banned the use of affirmative action in college admissions, the two most competitive University of California schools — UCLA and Berkeley — saw enrollments of black and Latino students plunge and have struggled to recover.

The UC system has adopted a number of recruiting and admissions measures to legally work around the 1996 ban, Proposition 209. But the enrollment of these two groups has not completely rebounded. At UCLA, for example, African American freshmen dropped from 7.1% of the class in 1995 to 3.6% last fall. At UC Berkeley, African Americans made up 6.3% of freshmen in 1995 and 3.4% last fall.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday signaled that it was not ready to forbid affirmative action in a case involving the University of Texas. The high court, in returning the case to a lower court, said colleges must first try other ways to diversify campuses before turning to racial preferences.

California public universities have tried new efforts to boost ethnic diversity without using affirmative action, providing a possible example for other states to follow. But those efforts have had only limited success, according to top UC officials, who filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting Texas' use of racial preferences.

Among the approaches UC officials have attempted: Undergraduate applications are no longer reviewed based solely on high school grades and standardized test scores; those still are the most important factors, but they are placed in the context of students' talents, life challenges, language barriers and family income.

A student is now guaranteed a spot in the UC system, although not necessarily at UCLA or Berkeley, by being in the top 9% of his or her high school class, not just in the top tier of students statewide. UC also dropped the requirement for two SAT subject tests, something low-income and minority students were more likely to skip or neglect. Financial aid was expanded.

Recruiting and tutoring were bolstered at high schools with large numbers of low-income and minority students. UCLA, for example, works with students from 58 high schools and 24 middle schools in Los Angeles County to, among other things, prepare them for SATs and advise them on the courses needed for admission.

Some of those measures might violate aspects of Proposition 209, alleged Ward Connerly, a former UC regent and the main backer of the ban. But he said he did not want to pursue his suspicions because he thought such fights would be futile and because it was more important that California universities in general have shifted "from a paradigm in which race seeps out of every pore of higher education to one where they are not expected to use it."

Connerly for decades has argued that affirmative action caused high-achieving minority students to be viewed suspiciously, as if they didn't deserve places at their universities. He said he has no regrets about the law, even though black and Latino numbers have dropped at some UC campuses.

California students, he said, "have so many opportunities to go to college, whether it is at UC, a Cal State or community college."

UC insists the measures are all legal. "We are not breaking the law. We are not — wink, wink — implementing affirmative action by any other name," said system spokeswoman Dianne Klein. If UC's measures were a strong-enough substitute for affirmative action, "UC would be much more diverse than it is," she said.

Across UC campuses overall, the enrollment of blacks has nearly recovered to its levels before Proposition 209. Latinos' presence, after a temporary dip, has grown beyond its pre-1996 peak, partly because of enormous increases in Latino high school graduates.

But the numbers have been stark at UCLA and Berkeley, which have the highest admissions standards of UC's nine undergraduate campuses.

The Latino share of UCLA's freshmen was 21.5% in 1995, dropped to 10.4% by 1998 and has climbed to 18.1%, UC records show. Berkeley's Latino share of freshmen was 15.5%, dipped to 7.3% after the proposition went fully into effect and then climbed to 13% last fall.

UCLA faced sharp criticism in 2006 when the proportion of black students in the entering class plummeted to 2.2%. Southern California's black community was outraged that only about 100 African Americans enrolled that year.

The next fall, black enrollment doubled, to 4.5% of freshmen, after UCLA adopted a more "holistic" application review that considers hardships, among other factors, and black alumni privately raised more scholarship money and persuaded young African Americans to enroll.

Meanwhile, Asian Americans increased to become the largest ethnic group, to about a third of UCLA's freshmen and 43% of UC Berkeley's in fall 2012.

Efforts to boost minority enrollment at UCLA and UC Berkeley are diminished, in part, by the fact that other prestigious universities — private schools such as Stanford and public ones such as the University of Virginia — use affirmative action to attract high-achieving black and Latino students, said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the progressive think tank Century Foundation. Kahlenberg is a proponent of considering economic hardship instead of race in college admissions.

At most schools in the 23-campus California State University system, admissions standards are less rigorous than at UC. As a result, the system has done little to counter the effects of Proposition 209 other than to broaden recruitment from various ethnic groups, according to Cal State spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp.

In 1996, blacks made up 7.8% of all Cal State undergraduates, compared with 4.8% last year. Latinos were 22.4% in 1996 and were up to 32.8% this year.

Black and Latino undergraduates, however, have a relatively small presence at the more competitive and engineering-heavy Cal Poly San Luis Obispo: less than 1% black and 13.4% Latino.

Some UC campuses have significantly larger enrollments of blacks and Latinos than others.

Surveys show that minority students feel more comfortable at campuses like UC Riverside where there are more minorities, potentially improving their chances of graduating, said William Kidder, UC Riverside's assistant provost.

"It's not just about numbers," said Kidder, who has written extensively in favor of affirmative action. "It's about the campus climate."

larry.gordon@latimes.com

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At Crenshaw High, those left behind are skeptical of changes

Alex Caputo-Pearl strides across the blue-and-yellow tile floor at Crenshaw High School, eyeing the teachers standing in a group and the empty lockers lining the hallways he's walked for the last 13 years.

There's the teacher who leads the award-winning debate team who now needs a new job. Another, who after 37 years at the school, was not allowed to return. And the long-term substitute who was asked to come back but can't bring himself to do so.

School is out for the summer. Students won't show up at Leimert Park campus for a couple of months. And more than half of the teachers won't return at all, including Caputo-Pearl.

Because of persistently low test scores and graduation rates, Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy is rearranging the storied campus into three magnet schools — a move that required teachers to reapply for their jobs. Those not rehired can search for openings within the district; if they don't find a position, the district will place them.

"I knew I was a target," said Caputo-Pearl, 44, a history instructor and vocal teachers-union leader. "But I feel good. I feel really grateful to have built the relationships I have built at Crenshaw, and I know those aren't ending — I live down the street, I see people around the neighborhood."

For most of its 45 years, Crenshaw High has served as a landmark in L.A.'s African American community — a neighborhood hub known for championship athletics teams and arts programs and for sending graduates to top colleges.

But the South Los Angeles campus has declined in recent years. It had the lowest Academic Performance Index score, a rating based on standardized test results, in the district. Deasy called it one of the district's biggest disappointments.

Efforts to improve achievement have largely failed.

The most recent attempt, called the Extended Learning Cultural Model, involved training teachers on the culture of their students and assigning more relevant projects. It attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside financial support.

District officials believed the campus needed more aggressive change.

At a Board of Education meeting in January, Deasy spoke sharply about the school. "It is a civil right for students to be able to read and do mathematics. It is a fundamental right to graduate — and it is not happening at Crenshaw," he said.

Many at the school view Deasy's revamp as a deliberate attempt to get rid of outspoken veteran teachers and an attack on the union. Along with Caputo-Pearl, union rep Cathy Garcia wasn't asked back.

They see the restaffing of Crenshaw as part of a counterproductive effort nationwide to turn around long-established schools in low-income, minority areas. And they view it as a push for a more compliant faculty.

The superintendent and his staff, however, say they are trying to change the culture of low achievement on the campus, which is now 29% Latino. They say the new faculty must be accountable for the success of students and rebuild a strong neighborhood school.

George Bartleson, an L.A. Unified School District official who is overseeing the change, said the idea that certain teachers were targeted is false. Community members and parents participated by sitting on panels that interviewed candidates. Crenshaw Principal Remon Corley had final say.

Corley, who was the principal last year, himself interviewed for the new position in charge of magnet schools. He was chosen from a pool of applicants by Deasy.

Caputo-Pearl has long been an outspoken critic of the district's changes on campus. He helped organize student protests and brought community organizations together to rally on their behalf.

His detractors, however, contend that he's been an impediment to progress.

In 2006, he was involuntarily transferred from Crenshaw for allegedly blocking reform efforts by driving out a highly regarded principal at a time when the campus was struggling to regain its long-term accreditation. He was reinstated after a massive outcry from the union and others.

At the time, he called his transfer "an attack on people of color." Caputo-Pearl is white, but he said he was referring to the Crenshaw community.

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San Francisco gay pride revelers thrilled by marriage ruling

SAN FRANCISCO — The crowds come every year, lining Market Street to dance, wave rainbow flags and cheer on the city's gay pride parade.

But revelers celebrated with renewed exuberance Sunday, thrilled by last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision that paved the way for gay marriage to begin again in California.

"Where else would you want to be?" said Sarah Heinen, 20, who scaled a lamppost clutching a flag in her teeth to watch her first parade.

Pride veterans said the crowd was louder and happier than usual, and probably even bigger, surpassing the typical turnout of 1 million people.

"It feels more celebratory," said Miriam Geller, who marched with her wife, Terri Westerlund, and their twin 8-year-old daughters. "This year there's a real sense of recognition by the federal government."

Sealing the deal was Justice Anthony Kennedy's decision to reject a last-ditch attempt to halt gay unions by supporters of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage when approved by voters in 2008.

The decision, announced shortly before the parade began Sunday morning, came "not a moment too soon," said California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris as she prepared to ride in an antique Buick convertible down Market Street.

"This parade is a celebration of all the parades before it," she said.

Dozens of motorcycles, trolleys, fire engines and floats rolled down the street, some blasting music. Near the front of the parade were members of the San Francisco sheriff's color guard.

"I've been married 28 years, but legally for three days," said one member, Capt. Kevin Paulson.

Spectators wore rainbow tutus, superhero costumes, leather pants and occasionally nothing at all. Many stood on trash cans and newspaper boxes to get a better view, and others waved flags and snapped photos with cellphones. A gay couple wearing matching rainbow robes posed for photos with passing women.

Cleve Jones, a gay rights activist who worked with the slain San Francisco gay rights icon Harvey Milk, marveled at the size of the celebration.

"We've won the hearts and minds of the American people," he said. "You see a massive turnout of heterosexual supporters."

One of those people was Joe Rubin, a high school physics teacher marching in his first parade. His white T-shirt stood out among the sequins and rainbow-colored outfits worn by many marchers.

"I'm straight, but it doesn't matter. It's time to stand up," Rubin said. "It's a matter of equality, a matter of justice."

The parade converged on the area around City Hall, where people danced to music, basked in the sunshine or sought shelter in the shade. Some hardy parents pushed strollers with children, squeezing between girls in bikinis and guys in tiny shorts and stockings.

Inside City Hall, marriages continued unabated. Licenses issued Sunday tallied 236, bringing the total to at least 563 in the city since the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals officially allowed gay unions to resume Friday afternoon.

San Francisco was believed to be the only place in California with a clerk's office open through the weekend, and scores of couples queued up, some waiting three hours to complete their ceremonies.

A few wanted to make it official as soon as possible, concerned about the possibility of new legal challenges to gay marriage.

Annie Ebiner, 34, and Jen Berman, 33, drove an hour and a half from their home near Santa Rosa, even though Ebiner is nine months' pregnant. In fact, she was due Friday.

"We weren't certain whether this window [to get married] would stay open," Ebiner said. "When this became available, we wanted to get it done before the baby."

C.J. Price, 45, and Dylan Hatami, 40, marched in the parade with their friends, then headed to City Hall to exchange vows. It wasn't part of their original plan for the day, but at the last minute they decided to make their relationship official.

"As the day progressed, I just started thinking more and more about it," Price said. "I didn't want to waste any more time. We've waited long enough."

chris.megerian@latimes.com

joseph.serna@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maura Dolan contributed to this story.

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Garcetti sworn in as L.A. mayor with a 'back to basics' focus

Eric Garcetti promised to "work hard on the basics" of running the city as he was sworn in Sunday as the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles in a no-frills ceremony staged to present him as a man of the people.

Garcetti vowed to focus relentlessly on guiding the city's economic recovery, slashing business taxes, keeping film production from fleeing L.A. and spurring high-tech jobs on the Westside.

"These times demand a back-to-basics mayor, focused above all else on our economy and jobs," Garcetti told the crowd before outlining plans for "a customer-friendly government, one you can actually reach on the phone."

Garcetti, 42, thanked outgoing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for leaving Los Angeles "safer, greener and stronger," even while weathering a brutal economic crisis.

But eight years after Villaraigosa set far-reaching goals for schools, public transit and the environment, Garcetti said his priority would be to "fix the potholes and pave the streets, pick up the litter, fix the sidewalks and trim the trees."

"It's no use painting a lofty picture if you don't have the brass tacks to pin it up on the wall," Garcetti told several thousand people gathered outside City Hall on a sweltering summer afternoon. Much of the crowd looked on from the newly opened Grand Park, across Spring Street, where an evening of free entertainment featured L.A.-based acts Buyepongo, Jungle Fire, Moonlight Trio and the Lula Washington Dance Theatre.

"A lot of people are going to be watching his administration with high expectations," said John Wirfs, a Silver Lake architect who packed a picnic with his friend Colin Chow and rode the Red Line downtown to see the ceremony from a rare shady spot on the lawn.

Befitting his populist message, Garcetti spoke not from a raised platform but from the bottom of the City Hall steps, which were covered in blue carpet. For Villaraigosa's first inauguration, the carpet was red.

Both the musician Moby, wearing a black T-shirt and speaking partly in Spanish, and late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel joked about the Silver Lake councilman's ties to cutting-edge culture. Kimmel said during his introduction that the blazing heat was "the responsibility of the previous administration."

"Mayor Villaraigosa, this is on your watch," Kimmel joked. "When Eric takes over as mayor, it'll be cool all the time."

Garcetti also reminded the city of his mixed heritage: Jewish on his mother's side, Mexican on his father's.

"My family's story in Los Angeles begins humbly — one side of my family crossing an ocean and a continent to flee persecution in Poland and Russia, the other side crossing a river, escaping war in Mexico, looking for a better life," he said.

Alluding to last week's U.S. Supreme Court rulings clearing the way for same-sex marriage, Garcetti described Los Angeles as "a place where difference and diversity aren't castigated, they're celebrated — long before the courts rule in their favor."

The inauguration marked the most dramatic transformation of the city's political leadership since 2001, with nine of its 18 elected offices changing hands. Among those sworn in at the ceremony were incoming City Atty. Mike Feuer and City Controller Ron Galperin, accompanied by his husband, Zachary Shapiro.

On Monday, Garcetti will set to work forming his administration. Among the first moves planned is a review of top officials at dozens of agencies, including the fire, airport and harbor departments. Garcetti said he expected general managers to reapply for their jobs and demonstrate ways to cut costs and set performance benchmarks.

But Sunday was largely about ceremony and symbolism. On a morning visit to First African Methodist Episcopal Church in South L.A., Garcetti said he picked Kenia Castillo, the 13-year-old daughter of a janitor, to swear him in rather than "some big elected official or my father," former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti.

"I wanted this city to understand that I know the power comes from you, from the least among us, from the most humble, from the forgotten, from those voices and those faces who aren't even in the pews today," he told parishioners.

Garcetti told the congregation that he'd chosen fifth-grader Lily Newman to lead the Pledge of Allegiance because when he saw her at her Porter Ranch school, she gave him a jar full of nickels, dimes and quarters that she'd collected from classmates for his campaign.

"That jar will be by my side," Garcetti said. "And it will remind me that it is time for us to raise up a generation that believes that Los Angeles is not just a big city … but a great city. And greatness is defined not by how much wealth we have in the best places, but by how much we lift up the worst, how much we welcome back those coming home from prison, those coming back from war, those sleeping under a bridge no more, and those who need just some hope."

Garcetti also signaled that he plans to give vanquished rival Jan Perry a senior role in his administration. Perry, whose 12 years on the City Council came to an end Sunday, won nearly every precinct in South Los Angeles in the March mayoral primary but did not make it into the May runoff.

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Yes, Death Valley was hot, but did it set a record?

DEATH VALLEY — Blame it on dueling thermometers.

The National Weather Service's mercury thermometer recorded a peak of 128 degrees Sunday at 4 p.m in Death Valley National Park, tying the record for the hottest June day anywhere in the U.S.

The National Park Service thermometer — about 200 yards away — recorded a temperature of 129.9, shattering that record. But the weather service has the final say, and its official readings won't be available until Monday morning.

PHOTOS: Heat wave heats the Southland

"There's only one thermometer that counts," said Charlie Callagan, the park's wilderness coordinator and former head of its weather station.

Dozens of visitors gathered at the park's headquarters here expecting to learn that they had sweated through a historic high. Late Sunday afternoon, they still didn't know the outcome. And they were still sweating.

Some meteorologists had expected the mercury to soar to about 130 degrees for the first time anywhere in the country in nearly a century. The highest temperature ever recorded on the planet was in Death Valley on July 10, 1913 — 134 degrees.

The park's headquarters in Furnace Creek is 190 feet below sea level. Nearby Badwater, at 280 feet below sea level, is the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere. On Sunday, visitors cracked eggs there just to watch them fry in the heat. A few added strips of bacon.

Throughout Southern California, temperatures Sunday broke decades-old records. Lancaster reached an all-time high of 115 degrees, breaking a 1950 record of 110.

The heat reached into the three digits across the region, with Woodland Hills and Riverside reaching a high of 105.

Downtown L.A. topped out at 94 degrees. In Pasadena, six runners who braved a half-marathon were hospitalized for heat-related conditions. The heat was of particular concern to firefighters because of record dry conditions that have already figured in several major brush fires. Fireworks also went on sale Friday in some areas, adding another fire danger.

Since January, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has responded to about 2,900 fires, many more than in other years, department spokesman Daniel Berlant said. Current weather conditions are more typical of late August or early September, he said.

In Death Valley, a large digital thermometer prominently displayed at the park headquarters entrance showed temperatures above 130 degrees for much of the afternoon, attracting hundreds of visitors who posed for snapshots. Park rangers, however, sheepishly apologized later for what they described as errant figures on a thermometer they acknowledged was no more than "a photo op for tourists."

The National Weather Service's official thermometer sits inside a small metal box, protected behind a 5-foot fence just behind park headquarters.

Ravens huddled in the shadows of desert scrub, panting with their beaks open wide. The desert pupfish in Salt Creek swam for cover in the deeper, cooler pools near the stream's headwaters. A sign posted at the entrance to the Furnace Creek Golf Course said, "Closed at 12:30 p.m. due to extreme heat."

"Our main concern is safety," said Carole Wendler, interpretive park ranger. "We're advising visitors that this is not the weekend to go hiking."

But Jon Rice, 42, of Longmont, Colo., decided to run a mile in a heat-absorbing black Darth Vader costume replete with a large plastic black helmet. He was hoping to record the "hottest verified run" for Guinness World Records. Rice ran on the center white line of Highway 190 in the heart of Death Valley so his shoes wouldn't melt on the asphalt.

He described the experience as "abject pain. The first hundred yards are fine. The second hundred yards are all about 'Gosh. What the heck was I thinking?" Finishing, he said, took "grim determination."

PHOTOS: Heat wave heats the Southland

As the sun set in Death Valley on Sunday, Pelle Uvebrant, a tourist from Las Vegas, looked up at one of the thermometers. It read 132 degrees.

"I came out here to experience a world record broken," he said. "That didn't happen. But I'll be coming out here every time a record might be broken."

Louis.sahagun@latimes.com

Times staff writer Victoria Kim contributed to this report.

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Pasadena same-sex couple is buoyed by high court's marriage ruling

In the moments leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Maggie Cooper-Harris of Pasadena was nervously awaiting word online.

"And then, all of a sudden, it's real," she said. "I froze for a second. And then I instantly realized: 'Wow, my marriage is not just a California marriage. I now have a marriage that is recognized by the United States.'"

Her wife, Tracey Cooper-Harris, 40, is a military veteran who served in the Middle East training dogs for support in combat operations.

The couple married in Los Angeles in 2008 shortly before California voters banned same-sex marriage with the passage of Proposition 8, which the Supreme Court also struck down in its rulings Wednesday.

In the meantime, Tracey Cooper-Harris filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs after it denied Maggie, 36, military spousal support benefits.

The arguments in that case have been made, and both sides are awaiting summary judgment, but the 5-4 decision Wednesday by the Supreme Court to strike down DOMA — adopted by Congress in 1996 — on the grounds that it denied same-sex couples equal protections puts the couple on a path to victory.

"We feel very, very confident after this decision that we'll prevail," said their attorney, David Dinielli, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing the couple.

For Tracey Cooper-Harris — who collects disability compensation for a number of conditions, including multiple sclerosis — it amounts to a huge sigh of relief.

"I just wanted to make sure Maggie had everything that should be available to her as my wife, should something happen to me," she said, noting that her spouse was ineligible for death benefits under DOMA. "It's a big relief to me that this has happened."

jason.wells@latimes.com

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Sierra pot-growing sites may be lethal for rare forest animal

The illegal marijuana-growing operations that have proliferated in remote areas of the Sierra Nevada appear to be taking a toll on the fisher, a forest animal whose numbers are dangerously low.

Researchers studying fishers in the Sierra National Forest in the southern Sierra found that mortality rates were significantly higher for females living in areas with a number of marijuana-growing sites.

Liberal amounts of pesticides and anticoagulant rodent poison are commonly used at the operations, tainting small prey the fisher eats.

Although consuming contaminated prey may not kill the fishers outright, it could make them more susceptible to disease and parasites.

"Exposure may predispose an animal to dying from other causes," wrote the authors, who summarized their findings in a paper published this week in the journal Conservation Letters.

Their research was a follow-up to an earlier study that found that tissue of 85% of 46 dead fishers contained traces of anticoagulants. Most of those animals had been killed by predators.

The fisher is a cat-size animal that is a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act. For the latest study, the scientists trapped fishers, outfitted them with radio collars and released them. The team then compared the animals' movements with the location of marijuana-growing sites found by national forest law enforcement officers.

The final analysis excluded male fishers because their extensive movements made it harder to gauge exposure to the marijuana plots.

Noting that some of the pesticide compounds used at the sites were first developed as nerve agents during World War II, the researchers likened the pot operations to leaking chemical weapons stockpiles.

The association between growing operations and fisher mortality is "strong yet speculative," wrote the authors, who noted it was difficult to determine a specific cause-and-effect relationship.

But they said the contamination raised serious conservation concerns.

"By increasing the number of animals that die from supposedly natural causes, these pesticides may be tipping the balance of recovery for fishers," warned Craig Thompson, the study's lead author and a U.S. Forest Service wildlife ecologist at the Pacific Southwest Research Station.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

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Prop. 8 sponsors ask U.S. Supreme Court to stop same-sex weddings

SAN FRANCISCO — As same-sex couples raced to marry in California, the sponsors of Proposition 8 filed an emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to stop weddings on the grounds that its decision was not yet legally final.

"If courts were free to disregard well-defined procedures at their whim, the public's confidence in the judiciary would suffer," lawyers for ProtectMarriage said in their 12-page application.

An attorney for the challengers of Proposition 8 expressed certainty that the request would be denied.

It went to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who hears matters involving the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit issued an order late Friday that allowed gay marriages to resume, a decision ProtectMarriage said was premature and in violation of procedural rules.

Kennedy wrote Wednesday's ruling that required the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages. He dissented in the Proposition 8 decision, which said ProtectMarriage and other initiative sponsors could not stand in the place of state officials to defend their measures in federal court.

UC Davis law professor Vikram Amar said Kennedy would agree to stop the marriages only if the court was willing to consider reopening the Proposition 8 case at the request of ProtectMarriage. Amar estimated that only one or two such requests are granted in a decade.

"I would be pretty shocked if he granted a stay," Amar said.

ProtectMarriage contended that the 9th Circuit should not have taken any action in the case until Wednesday's Supreme Court decision on Proposition 8 was technically final. The group said high court rulings are not binding for 25 days, a period in which a party in a case can ask for reconsideration.

The 9th Circuit normally waits 25 days before acting on a case just decided by the Supreme Court. But in a surprise move, a three-judge panel that included liberal jurist Stephen Reinhardt lifted a hold it had placed on a 2010 injunction ordering state officials to stop enforcing the gay marriage ban.

Gay couples were marrying up and down the state within hours.

Amar said the appeals court had the power to take such action. Chapman University law professor John Eastman, a supporter of Proposition 8, disagreed, saying the court's action had violated legal rules.

The couples who filed the federal challenge of the 2008 ballot measure headed out to get marriage licenses within an hour of the 9th Circuit's decision. One couple married Friday evening at Los Angeles City Hall, the other at San Francisco City Hall. San Francisco will continue to issue licenses and perform marriages through the weekend.

ProtectMarriage said the 9th Circuit's decision smacked of "corruption."

"Suspiciously, the 9th Circuit's announcement late Friday ordering same-sex marriages came as a surprise, without any warning or notice to Proposition 8's official proponents," ProtectMarriage said in a statement.

"However, the same-sex couple plaintiffs in the case, their media teams, San Francisco City Hall, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the California attorney general all happened to be in position to perform same-sex marriages just minutes after the 9th Circuit's 'unexpected' announcement."

The Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California by deciding 5 to 4 that ProtectMarriage did not have the legal authority to appeal the injunction against the measure. State officials, who did have the power, refused to appeal the injunction by now-retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker.

ProtectMarriage has argued that the injunction applied only to the two same-sex couples who sued, and the group has not ruled out a long-shot challenge in a state or federal district court to limit the effect of Walker's ruling.

But Gov. Jerry Brown and Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, supporters of gay marriage, said Walker's order compelled them to stop enforcing the marriage ban statewide.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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In San Francisco, a weekend of gay weddings at City Hall

SAN FRANCISCO — They piled into their white Prius in Los Alamitos at midnight and arrived at City Hall here not long after sunrise Saturday with one simple goal in mind: A marriage license. Right now.

Sandy Palmer and Mary Dang knew they couldn't get the crucial piece of paper over the weekend in Orange County, where they have lived together for 10 years. And they worried that the right to marry granted by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday afternoon could be taken away again Monday morning.

Such a matrimonial bait and switch had happened to gay and lesbian couples before — not once, but twice. Hence the sleepless night, the moonlit sprint up Interstate 5, the 90-minute wait on the steps of City Hall as early morning traffic rushed by and the line for licenses swelled.

PHOTOS: Gay marriage

"We had a wedding in 2010," said Palmer, 33, a pirate-themed affair with swords and hats, friends and family. "It was amazing, but the legal piece was missing. I wanted to make this a part of my personal history, to grab the moment, be part of something special — not just for me, but for the country."

That combination of joy and tension radiated throughout the beaux-arts building all day Saturday, as couples from throughout the state converged on what was believed to be the only government office in California issuing marriage licenses. By the time the ornate doors swung open at 9:10 a.m., a line of more than 100 people snaked along the building's north side.

And on its south side? That's where a miniature tent city for the San Francisco Pride Celebration & Parade opened for business Saturday afternoon. The two-day fete usually draws a million people; organizers expect the crowd to swell by 20% because of last week's court decisions legalizing same-sex marriage in California and striking provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

For some couples, Saturday in San Francisco offered a chance to make up for lost opportunities, for not having wed during the brief windows in 2004, when more than 4,000 same-sex marriages were performed in San Francisco, and in 2008, when such unions were legal statewide before Proposition 8 was passed.

For others, such as Greg Van Dyke and Andrew Zack, lining up for a marriage license "was completely serendipitous." Saturday was Van Dyke's 43rd birthday, and the Los Angeles couple had bought plane tickets weeks earlier so they could celebrate his big day here.

The dermatologist and the Hollywood agent have been together for a year. They have a house in Mid-City. They have a wedding planned for Santa Barbara on Thanksgiving weekend. Zack's cousin, a rabbi, is flying in from London to do the honors. A surrogate is pregnant with their son, due in January.

But "we got in late last night," Van Dyke said, "had dinner, got up this morning, walked over to City Hall to see it."

And ended up in line for a marriage license.

In the first hour of business Saturday morning alone, San Francisco officials issued about 100 marriage licenses. All told, 246 were granted and 188 couples were married on the first full day of legal, post-Proposition 8 marriage.

The process was summed up nicely by a small sign outside the county clerk's office: "License = $99. Ceremony = $75. Both = $174. Equality = Priceless."

Everyone working at City Hall — which will be open again Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. — was a volunteer, from the cashiers taking the license payments to the greeters keeping the process running smoothly and the marriage commissioners in their long black robes intoning, "By virtue of the authority vested in me by the state of California, I now pronounce you spouses for life."

The grand rotunda with its sweeping marble staircase rang with cheers, "I do's" and the sounds of decisions made on the fly: Are the witnesses here? Shall we do the ceremony by the steps? Do you have a ring? Where did my family go?

Wedding photographers Danielle Fernandez, 33, and Janeen Singer, 32, had planned to celebrate Pride weekend together in Dolores Park, home of Saturday's Dyke March, with a bottle of champagne.

Instead, they headed to City Hall in matching black shirts emblazoned with "lesbian and wedding photographer." Rates started at a discounted $40. Until Friday, Fernandez said, their job has been "pretty hetero."

But not anymore. "There's something about the energy around today," Fernandez said. "It's validation…. People are glowing. It makes for good photographs."

When Tom Rothgiesser and George Lucas (no, not that one) arrived at the Civic Center to cap off half a century of togetherness, they did not need a marriage commissioner to officiate.

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