Michael Jackson's eldest son recalls pop star's final moments

Michael Jackson's son Prince was in the sitting room of the family's rented Holmby Hills mansion when he heard screaming. He ran to the kitchen and saw Dr. Conrad Murray dash upstairs.

Prince, 16, said he followed, and when he looked in the bedroom, he saw his father lying half off the bed, his eyes rolled back in his head and the man he called "Dr. Conrad" giving the pop singer cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

After the entertainer was rushed by ambulance to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Prince said he and his two siblings saw Murray again.

"Sorry, kids — Dad's dead," he said the doctor told them.

"We just cried," Prince said.

In sometimes dramatic testimony, Prince spent 90 minutes Wednesday detailing his father's frenzied final moments and the chaos that erupted in their house. Prince is the first family member to take the stand in the wrongful-death case that he, his two siblings and his grandmother have brought against AEG Live, the promoter and producer of Michael Jackson's comeback concerts in London.

Prince was ushered into the downtown Los Angeles courthouse through a garage below to avoid paparazzi and others seeking a peek. He wore a black suit and tie and white shirt, and his brown hair was tucked behind his ears, touching his shoulders.

The pop star's eldest child came across as a bright, composed teenager, a member of the National Honor Society who conceded his musical talents are limited, at best. His voice was quiet, and at times he seemed melancholy as he spoke of his father's death and how much he had meant to him.

His father would come home from rehearsals for his "This Is It" concerts happy about the way things were going but stressed that he wanted more time to practice before going on tour, Prince testified.

Michael Jackson would get upset after phone calls with AEG Live Chief Executive Randy Phillips or Tohme Tohme , his sometimes manager. "He would get off the phone, he would cry sometimes," Prince said.

"He would say, 'They're going to kill me, they're going to kill me.' "

Prince described a conversation between Phillips and Murray at the family home in which Phillips aggressively grabbed Murray's elbow. He said that the meeting took place shortly before his father's death and that he did not know what they were talking about.

Jackson died June 25, 2009, of an overdose of the anesthetic propofol that Murray administered.

Prince's testimony also offered a glimpse into his life, which was closely guarded while his father was alive.

He said he lives with his grandmother in Calabasas, just finished his sophomore year at a private school, makes jewelry, enjoys martial arts and is on the school's robotics team. He said he wants to go to USC to study film, business or mechanical engineering.

Although he enjoys music, he said, "I can never play an instrument. And I definitely can't sing."

He also spoke of living in Ireland, Paris, Bahrain, Las Vegas and Aspen, Colo., with his father and siblings. His attorneys showed home movies and photos of Neverland, the Santa Barbara County compound that Prince called "a very homey place,"

The children were allowed to ride the Ferris wheel and go to the compound's zoo — filled with alpacas and giraffes — only on special occasions. "My dad wanted us to remain humble," Prince said.

Spread around Neverland were messages and poems that their father posted, he said. "When children play, tyrants cry, there is nothing to say," said one that was scrawled on a rock.

Prince said that his father made him and his brother and sister wear masks in public "so no one would know what we looked like, so if we went out without him we could have a normal childhood."

Prince said he's now followed all the time. "So I know why he did it."

The one room at the Holmby Hills mansion that was always kept locked was for "meditation and medication," he said.

The Jacksons say in their lawsuit that AEG negligently hired and controlled Murray. AEG says it was the singer who hired the doctor and any money the company was supposed to pay him was part of an advance to Jackson.

The singer's son testified that his father sometimes gave Murray a couple of hundred dollars for food, gas and other essentials because AEG was not paying him.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

West Hollywood celebrates high court's rulings on gay marriage

The crowd gathered early Wednesday at the Abbey, a well-known gay bar in West Hollywood. Couples sipped coffee and watched TV as they awaited word of the Supreme Court's decisions relating to same-sex marriage. There was a wedding cake and champagne under a giant, rainbow-colored flag over the patio.

No one was more apprehensive about what was soon to transpire than Colby Melvin and Brandon Brown. The pair, both models who have been engaged for four months, clutched each other as they watched the screen.

As the court's ruling striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act was announced, the 28-year-old Brown's hand trembled around Melvin's waist. Melvin, 25, held him in a long hug. When the high court next left standing a ruling overturning California's Proposition 8 — clearing the way for same-sex marriages to resume in the state — the pair kissed. Then they cheered and cut into the cake, popped open a bottle of champagne, shook it and sprayed it over those nearby.

Now, Melvin and Brown proclaimed, they can start planning their wedding.

The mood Wednesday across West Hollywood was jubilant. And why not? About 40% of the tiny city's population is gay or lesbian, according to city surveys. The symbolic rainbow-colored flag flies outside City Hall, where four of the five council members are gay men.

"Today is not about laws; it's not about marriage," Melvin said. "It's about love. We don't deserve to be treated any less than anyone else."

Many in West Hollywood had been nervous about the same-sex marriage ruling after the high court's decision a day earlier that struck down a key part on the Voting Rights Act.

"So many people have fought for this. The Voting Rights ruling caught me off guard. Today I'm so relieved," said Cory Lee, 23, a model who grew up in Austin, Texas.

A few steps away, Kate Sutherland, 27, and her girlfriend, India Allen, 27, stood with their arms around each other. They were visibly relieved by the Proposition 8 ruling. "Wow," Allen whispered. "I didn't think this would happen."

The couple — Sutherland is a West Hollywood resident and Allen is visiting from London — met at the Abbey. On Wednesday, they took a sip of the champagne, nibbled on a tiny bit of the wedding cake and ordered breakfast. Then they snapped souvenir photos with their cellphones so they would have keepsakes from the big day.

The Abbey opened early so people could gather to learn of the rulings live. Todd Barnes, its general manager, is a 49-year-old gay man who was married to a woman for six years and came out at 35. He said coming out to his wife was one of the most difficult things he's ever done.

"To know that as a gay man I can get married again — I'm happy," Barnes said. "When I find that person, maybe this time it will stick. It's about love now and nothing else."

A short distance away at City Hall, the air was also festive.

"We won on a technicality," Councilman John Duran acknowledged. "We'll take it. We'll have couples marrying again. We can get back in the business of marriage."

West Hollywood Mayor Abbe Land, who is straight, called the day "a wonderful day of true celebration." She said that in the summer of 2008, when hundreds of lesbian and gay couples married in West Hollywood, it was "one of our most joyous times as elected officials."

West Hollywood Mayor Pro-Tem John D'Amico, who married his husband, Keith Rand, on Aug. 1, 2008, was emotional, speaking slowly to the assembled crowd.

"Keith and I met 21 years ago and were married five years ago,'" he said. "Three hours ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that we belong in America like everyone else."

Heidi Shink, a member of the West Hollywood Human Services Commission, also married in the summer of 2008. She and her wife have been together for 18 years, she said.

Lisa Belsanti, a senior management analyst for the city, said she and Rebecca Belsanti were legally married on June 17, 2008, but celebrate their "illegal wedding" in 2000, shortly after the passage of the state's Proposition 22, which restricted marriage to between a man and a woman. That statute was struck down in May 2008, setting the stage for Proposition 8.

Lisa Belsanti said she woke the pair's 3-year-old daughter, Norah, by telling her that it was a great day.

"She thinks it's a great day because she's going to the museum. By the time she's of age to understand, this isn't even going to be part of her awareness," Belsanti said.

At a rally Wednesday night near two rainbow-colored crosswalks, hundreds gathered to celebrate.

Kacee Wheeler, 23, drove from Pico Rivera with her two best friends, Luis Escamilla, 23, and Ashley Kobe Gomez, 23, to attend. All three are gay or lesbian.

"We'll be out all night celebrating," Wheeler predicted with a grin.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Times staff writers Kate Mather, Emily Foxhall, Anh Do, Mike Anton, Maria LaGanga, Angel Jennings, Abby Sewell, Ron Lin, Jean Merl and Bob Pool contributed to this report.

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Man sentenced to death in Long Beach woman's 1998 slaying

She was a mother of three, going to the market to pick up food for a neighbor. They were "stupid drunk," a witness would later tell police: loud, rowdy and obnoxious.

And when they met by chance late at night on Dec. 29, 1998, the first words they uttered seemed to fit the season.

"Merry Christmas and Happy New Year," the three men shouted from across the road.

"Yeah, Merry Christmas. Happy New Year," she yelled back.

The men's boisterous greeting, prosecutors say, was followed up with a grisly murder in which 43-year-old Penny Keprta of Long Beach was sexually assaulted, tortured and beaten to death. Her body was dumped on an embankment along the 405 Freeway, near the attack. The killers made off with $6 in food stamps.

On Wednesday, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge sentenced Kevin Darnell Pearson, 36, to death. He will join the other two assailants, who are also awaiting their executions.

"Your death will be quick and painless, unlike what you did to my mother," said Teddy Keprta, who was 14 years old at the time of his mom's slaying.

Teddy Keprta told Pearson that his mother's death caused irreversible damage to his family.

"I can't wait to have the satisfaction of sitting there and watching you die," he said, his voice quivering.

Investigators said Pearson and his two friends removed Keprta's clothes, stomped on her and threw her over a fence onto the freeway embankment near Wardlow Road and Long Beach Boulevard in Long Beach.

The freeway's traffic noise drowned out her cries for help, authorities said. Caltrans workers discovered her body a couple of days later, partially covered in mulch. The victim's face was "totally unrecognizable," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Corene Locke-Noble, who successfully prosecuted all three men.

The medical examiner found 114 distinct injuries to Keprta's body, according to court documents, including bite marks and the partial removal of her right ear. Authorities found evidence that she had been raped and sexually assaulted with a wooden stake.

The day after the attack, Pearson allegedly told a neighbor, "We killed a white woman," according to court documents. Investigators found Keprta's blood on Pearson's pants and steel-toe boots.

Initially, Pearson admitted his involvement in the killing to police. And, in a letter to a family friend after his arrest, Pearson wrote that he heard Keprta's bones breaking while she was beaten.

Pearson later tried to minimize his role in the attack, testifying during his 2003 trial that he told the other two killers to leave Keprta alone. He testified that he had lied about his involvement in the crime because he was scared and thought that he would earn an early release by telling police what they wanted to hear.

A jury found Pearson guilty in 2003 on eight counts, including first-degree murder and torture. He was sentenced to death. Last year, the California Supreme Court overturned that sentence, finding that a prospective juror was improperly removed from the panel for having ambivalent views about capital punishment.

The death sentence imposed by Judge Tomson T. Ong on Wednesday followed a retrial of the penalty phase this year in a Long Beach courtroom.

"Forty-eight people heard this case," Locke-Noble said, referring to the other defendants' trials and Pearson's retrial. "Each one indicated death."

She added that Keprta's slaying was the "worst case" she's prosecuted in her 29-year career.

matthew.hamilton@latimes.com

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

South Bay leaders decry Metro plan to close project funding gap

As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority prepares to take up a long agenda Thursday that could determine how billions of dollars are spent on projects countywide, city leaders in the South Bay are focused on a proposal they say could divert nearly $100 million from their own highway and roads projects.

The plan aims to close a $160-million funding gap on Metro's Crenshaw-LAX light-rail line. But South Bay officials say it comes at the expense of millions promised to South Bay voters in 2008, when Los Angeles County voters passed Measure R, the county's half-cent sales tax.

"This is not keeping the faith of the voters," said Jacki Bacharach, executive director of the South Bay Cities Council of Governments.

Measure R outlined billions of dollars on transit spending in other parts of the county, but the South Bay lacked any big-ticket rail projects. Instead, Bacharach said, the region was promised $906 million over 30 years to pay for more basic road and highway projects.

In a report released two weeks ago, Metro staff justified siphoning some of those funds by citing a policy that says cost overruns should be shouldered by the geographic regions that stand to benefit most from a particular project.

That's when leaders discovered that Metro had shifted the traditional boundaries of the South Bay by lumping in Los Angeles International Airport, Bacharach said. The change, which she said was made "quietly and without input" in 2009, put about 59% of the Crenshaw project in the South Bay.

Metro officials declined to comment.

The attempt to divert nearly $95 million of those funds could affect basic road construction in South Bay cities, where planner have begun to budget for improvements, officials say. Hermosa Beach, for instance, is planning traffic improvements along Pacific Coast Highway to make it safer for pedestrians.

"We've been working for years to address safety issues there," City Manager Tom Bakaly said.

Hermosa Beach joined about a dozen South Bay cities Tuesday in passing a resolution opposing the Metro staff recommendation.

Sensing the building outrage, several Metro board members plan to put forth a separate proposal that would fund the Crenshaw line's shortfall through funds or bonds from Proposition C, another half-cent sales tax passed by county voters in 1990, leaving Measure R projects intact.

"We must consider all alternatives to keep projects whole as envisioned under Measure R and as approved by the voters," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, a Metro board member, whose district includes the South Bay. "Maintaining a level playing field is only fair to the South Bay and to all areas of the county."

Crenshaw Line

The Crenshaw Line project falls partially within a small part of Metro's definition of the South Bay sub-region:

Source: Metro

Los Angeles Times

Even if Knabe's alternative addresses the immediate funding question, South Bay officials said they could still lose out on additional funds as other Metro strategies are put in place. For example, they complain that Metro's attempt to fast-track funding for projects countywide could hurt small cities that lack the staff to complete projects right away.

"It's like sitting someone down at a buffet and telling them to eat enough for the next three weeks," Redondo Beach Councilman Pat Aust said.

Local officials are also wary that the boundary changes could leave them on the hook for all cost overruns on the airport's Metro connector.

Many are concerned that efforts to deal with additional costs on the massive Crenshaw-LAX project could set a precedent for raiding other projects in the future.

"Nobody wants to delay that project," said Stephen Lantz, a transportation consultant to the South Bay Cities Council of Governments. "But when the problem is being solved on the backs of other existing projects, it's not right."

christine.maiduc@latimes.com

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

L.A., Owens Valley settle dispute over dust control

By Louis Sahagun

June 26, 2013, 10:17 p.m.

Los Angeles and the Owens Valley have reached a settlement in their dispute over new measures to control dust storms that have blown across the eastern Sierra Nevada since L.A. opened an aqueduct a century ago that drained Owens Lake.

Under terms of the agreement, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will fast-track mitigation measures that do not use water, and the utility will be allowed to lay down a thinner layer of gravel to suppress dust. The recently discovered location of a Native American massacre at Owens Lake will be excluded from mitigation efforts because they would disturb the 328-acre site.

The utility has already spent $1.2 billion on dust mitigation measures that began 16 years ago on orders from the Owens Valley air pollution agency, the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District. In 2011, Great Basin ordered the DWP to do even more by taking steps to control dust on an additional 2.9 square miles of lake bed, including the area later found to include the massacre site.

The agreement pledges the DWP to provide Great Basin with a one-time contribution of $10 million to cover the costs of controlling dust at nearby Keeler Dunes, which lie just east of the dry lake.

Also, the utility will have the right to audit Great Basin's books on an annual basis to verify that the funds were used to quench dust rising off the dunes, according to the 14-page settlement that is subject to the approval of the DWP Board of Commissioners.

The settlement comes after three months of intense negotiations between the two agencies — as well as state air pollution regulators and L.A. water officials. The agreement was hastened by the discovery of the spot where 35 Paiute Indians were shot to death by U.S. cavalry soldiers and local ranchers in 1863. Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation tribal leaders want the site left undisturbed.

DWP and Great Basin officials declined to comment, pending a mutual announcement expected to come Thursday.

The dispute underscored acrimony that has simmered between the DWP and Owens Valley residents since the early 1900s, when city agents posed as farmers and ranchers to buy up land and water rights for the aqueduct needed to slake the thirst of the growing metropolis to the south. The city's 233-mile-long aqueduct reduced the lake to a dry expanse that is the largest single source of particulate matter air pollution in the country.

A federal court judge in May dismissed a lawsuit filed by the DWP that alleged that Great Basin was forcing the city to waste billions of gallons of High Sierra water on dust control measures.

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Family of girl sexually abused by teacher awarded $5.6 million

The family of a teenage girl sexually abused by a Chino Hills High School science teacher even after officials learned of inappropriate emails between them has been awarded $5.6 million by a jury.

The Chino Valley Unified School District was ordered to pay 60% of the verdict handed down Tuesday by a Rancho Cucamonga jury, and the former teacher, John Hirsch, who is now a convicted sex offender, must pay the remainder.

"The jury was outraged at the school district's conduct. This could have been easily prevented if the school had chosen to protect the student, instead of protecting the teacher," said attorney David Ring, who represented the girl's family. "The community should be incensed; school officials should lose their jobs for how they handled this matter."

School district officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.

After learning of the inappropriate emails, district officials did too little and even attempted to pass him off to another district with a letter of recommendation, according to the lawsuit.

Ring said the girl's parents reported to the district in October 2009 the inappropriate, romantic emails sent by the teacher to their then-14-year-old daughter.

Then-Principal Carl Hampton promised the parents he would take care of it, and the district ordered Hirsch to stay away from her. The girl also was removed from the teacher's class, according to court records.

But within a few weeks, the girl was back in his classroom for lunch on an almost daily basis, according to court records.

"No school administrator ever checked Hirsch's classroom to ensure he was staying away from the girl," Ring said.

But parents of a different child complained about the teacher talking about sexual conduct to students in his classroom in December 2009.

In February 2010, the district informed Hirsch he would not be rehired for the 2010-11 school year. He was allowed to finish out the school year teaching in the classroom, court records show.

"Within weeks, the evidence at trial showed Hirsch then started having sex with the girl in the classroom and off the school site as well," Ring said.

An assistant principal at the high school wrote Hirsch a letter of recommendation in May 2010 so he could use it to try to get a job at another district, court records show.

A neighbor of the girl's family saw Hirsch using a ladder to try to climb into her bedroom late at night June 4, 2010. He was arrested the next day.

Hirsch was convicted of felony unlawful sex with a minor and lewd and lascivious acts with a minor in April 2011 after he agreed to a plea bargain that dismissed five other felony counts.

He was sentenced to a year in jail and three years' probation and ordered to register as a sex offender and participate in a sex offender treatment program.

richard.winton@latimes.com

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Arnold Schwarzenegger works to reinvent himself

The vibe had to feel familiar to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Crowds flocked to his nationwide tour. A head of state staged a joint photo op, then sat for a little policy chitchat over breakfast. "Buff, bronzed and presidential" one news site declared of California's erstwhile governator, adding that he "has his sights set on the Oval Office."

There's no chance of that right now, owing to the constitutional ban on immigrants becoming president. Still, Schwarzenegger's recent environmental tour reanimated, in a small way, the elation of 2003, when he swept into the governor's office in an unprecedented recall election.

A lot of people back then embraced the idea that a political neophyte and movie action hero could straighten out the "girlie-men" in Sacramento he derided, and maybe, one day, remold the wastrels who labor along the Potomac as well.

But it was telling that, 10 years on, the adulation emanated far from home, during a three-day sojourn to Australia. In California, Schwarzenegger's rehabilitation remains a work in progress, as he faces the legacy of his volatile adventure in Sacramento — which left a mountain of debt — and an outsized personal failure that destroyed his high-profile marriage.

Two years after leaving office, Schwarzenegger is hailed by climate-change activists who praise the groundbreaking work he did to limit California's carbon emissions. Supporters say he set the standard for state and local governments to act when national leaders refuse. A group of U.N. correspondents last year named him "global advocate of the year."

But he is strikingly absent from the political action of his home state — unlike the two previous GOP governors — and is a pariah to his state's Republican Party. A move into academia — via a $20-million pledge that created an institute in his name at USC — has drawn praise but also skepticism and resentment on campus.

His divorce from Maria Shriver is expected to be finalized this summer. His last movie, which opened in January, limped to one of the worst openings ever for a Schwarzenegger vehicle.

At 65, the former governor is seeking to reinvent himself the way he has before, from bodybuilder to actor to governor: in a flurry of movement. He announced recently that he would again play the title role in the fifth "Terminator" movie, a franchise that has brought in more than $1 billion at the box office and, some in Hollywood believe, still packs a wallop.

He was in Brussels on Monday, where the European Union invited him to deliver a global warming speech to 1,500 European mayors. In Algeria on Tuesday, he signed an accord with the government to open an office of his nonprofit R20, which, among other things, hopes to shift the North African nation from trash burning to recycling.

"You look back at his life story, he's someone you can't ever count out," said Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and former White House advisor for President Bill Clinton, who staged the kind of comeback from personal scandal that Schwarzenegger hopes to emulate.

When he left office at the start of 2011, Schwarzenegger suffered among the lowest approval ratings ever recorded for a California governor. Confidence in his abilities had tanked as he and the state limped through a series of economic crises, triggered in part by the nationwide recession.

His reputation took a further drubbing after revelations that he had carried on an affair with his housekeeper — which produced a son — while living under the same roof as Shriver and their children. A Field Poll released in June 2011 found that three-quarters of registered voters had an unfavorable view of Schwarzenegger. Just 20% viewed him favorably.

A major component in Schwarzenegger's hoped-for resurgence is the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy. Its namesake pledged to pay or raise the $20 million to fund the think tank. He spoke loftily at its September kickoff about advancing "post-partisanship" and pressing leaders to act courageously.

The institute hosted an April symposium on immigration reform — drawing two U.S. senators and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, among others, to discuss the need to move a bill through Congress. Another conference brought in experts to discuss the implications of climate change.

Schwarzenegger's former senior advisor and secretary of education, Bonnie Reiss, runs the institute day to day. Schwarzenegger has dropped in on a handful of classes. At a recent course on post-partisan problem solving, he showed up when students presented their final projects.

Jack Knott, who oversees the institute as dean of the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, said he has been "pleasantly surprised and pleased" by Schwarzenegger's level of engagement. Others have been less impressed.

"Some colleagues were just plain flummoxed," Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political scientist and longtime USC professor, said of Schwarzenegger's prestigious appointment as the university's Gov. Downey Professor of State and Global Policy. (John Downey, an Irish immigrant, was California's first foreign-born governor.)

"There are people who have been working up to a full professorship for a very long time and have not gotten a named chair," Jeffe said.

Schwarzenegger's standing is also complicated by the fact that his policy achievements are not likely to make the history books, especially measured against the promise of his recall campaign. That has left him largely without a clear identity, save that of celebrity politician.

The exception is climate change, a subject in which his profile is international. He signed the state law that made California the first state in America to fight climate change by slapping caps on carbon dioxide and other emissions. And his R20 organizationis working in many parts of the globe to foster renewable energy.

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

New Los Angeles homeless program shows results

Officials released the results of a pilot program Tuesday described as the Match.com of homeless services, designed to get the sickest, most endangered people off the streets and sidewalks of skid row for good.

The 100-day project brought 20 government and nonprofit agencies together to build a computerized data-gathering and management system to quickly place hard-core sidewalk dwellers in housing with medical, rehab and social services.

Under the new system, case managers seek out long-term homeless people under bridges and down back alleys and score them on their mental and physical disabilities, how often they visit emergency rooms or jails, and their general medical condition. Housing agencies work off a single waiting list, giving priority to those already identified as most in need of help.

In little more than three months, the new system had "leased up" 35 people in as few as nine days, organizers said.

Authorities hope to put the tracking and placement tool in place countywide.

Homeless people historically have had a tough time wending their way through the patchwork of private and government housing aid out there, each with its own qualifications and restrictions. Waiting for an opening can take as long as four years, organizers said.

Most of the people placed by the project had been homeless for years or decades, or were veterans newly home from Iraq or Afghanistan. One had been on the streets for 44 years.

Raymond Fuentes, leasing supervisor for Skid Row Housing Trust, said many of them gave up long ago looking for housing, either because they were too sick or too discouraged by the maze of requirements to push through the bureaucracy. All five waiting lists for his agency's two dozen buildings are closed, with up to 200 people signed up to fill the occasional opening, Fuentes said.

"Some of the younger, healthier people are going to muscle their way in," Fuentes said.

The pilot program builds off recent research showing that putting homeless people in housing and offering them medical and other treatments with no strings attached is more cost-effective than forcing them to get well or kick a drug or alcohol addiction before receiving services.

Los Angeles County's most entrenched street dwellers make up a quarter of its roughly 51,000 homeless people but consume 75% of its homeless financial resources.

The approach was pioneered by Project 50, a county experiment to house 50 of the county's most intractable skid row dwellers. A county study found that the program saved $238,700 over two years by reducing the homeless churn through the county's jails, hospitals and shelters.

The project was developed under the auspices of Home for Good, an initiative of United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce with the goal of getting all veterans and chronically homeless people in the county into housing by 2016.

"We are changing the system," said David Hamlin of the Los Angeles Business Leaders Task Force on Homelessness.

gale.holland@latimes.com

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

L.A. taxi operators protest app-summoned 'bandit' drivers

Hundreds of taxicabs inched around Los Angeles City Hall on Tuesday morning, horns blaring in unison, to protest against a trio of so-called high-tech bandit taxi companies that let smartphone users summon a car with the swipe of a finger.

Lyft, Sidecar and Uber provide iPhone and Android apps that connect drivers with people who need a ride, either in a town-car-like vehicle or a private car paid for with a "donation" rather than a fare. Use of the apps, often marketed as a cheaper, more casual alternative to taxis, has rapidly gained popularity in Los Angeles — except with city officials, who say the cars used for rides operate illegally, outside the city's background check, inspection and insurance processes.

The three companies received cease-and-desist letters Monday from the Transportation Department. If drivers are caught working for a commercial transportation service without a license, the letter said, they could be fined, arrested or have their cars impounded.

Lyft, Sidecar and Uber do not plan to leave Los Angeles. They say they facilitate communication between a driver and a passenger, rather than coordinate a taxi service, and operate legally in California under settlement agreements with the state's Public Utilities Commission. All three say they conduct background checks on their drivers and have insurance policies.

The tiff between regulators and innovators is the latest in an ongoing debate over how to classify start-up companies with new ways of providing services that don't fit under existing laws. Other major cities, including New York, Boston and Washington, have taken similar actions against one or all of the companies.

"When technology starts to work its way into city life, these are the sort of growing pains that happen," Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said. Lyft and Uber said they are working with the utilities commission to establish a new designation for commercial ride-sharing vehicles. A proposal is expected in about two weeks.

The apps all work similarly. Users with iPhones or Android devices summon a car using one of the apps, which display a map showing drivers' current locations. After passengers arrive at their destination, they pay with a credit card linked to the app. Lyft and Sidecar suggest a donation that the passenger can modify. Uber's rate is non-negotiable.

Uber says it uses drivers who have been licensed by the state as "charter-party carriers." To operate legally, city officials said, the company would need to file receipts and arrange all trips in advance.

Lyft and Sidecar drivers operate their own cars. The Legislature would have to change California's business, vehicle and public utilities codes for them to be allowed, officials said. Alternatively, all cars would have to be registered and insured as commercial vehicles, drivers would have to be licensed and the City Council would have to approve the start-ups as authorized cab companies. The Council has capped the total number of cabs in the city at 2,300.

The city's taxicab administrator, Thomas Drischler, said to qualify as a ride-share, passengers must be picked up between the driver's home and work and be dropped off somewhere on the way.

"You're not answering 'phone hails' on an app, taking them wherever you want to go and taking money," Drischler said. "And who would believe it's a donation? It's a for-profit company. That's absurd."

William Rouse, president of the Taxi, Limousine and Paratransit Assn., said he didn't have hard numbers for the effect on business since the services began operating during the last year.

Aydin Kavak, a taxi driver and secretary of the Yellow Cab Co-op, said he has been called to pick up a passenger and watched them get into a Lyft car, distinctive for their bright-pink mustaches on the car grills. "I was only the backup," Kavak said. "I drive 30, 45 minutes, and get nothing out of it."

Lyft, Sidecar and Uber have been the targets of undercover stings conducted by the Transportation Department and the Los Angeles Police Department to root out "bandit taxicabs" since the companies launched in L.A., officials said. In the last month, four Uber drivers have been arrested. "If they continue to operate, they're on the radar screen," Drischler said.

The taxicab drivers circling City Hall on Tuesday got their own taste of regulations: Some were pulled over by the Los Angeles Police Department for excessive honking.

laura.nelson@latimes.com

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

USC deal for Coliseum approved by state board

A state board approved a sharply debated deal Tuesday that grants USC control of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and nearly all of the revenues from the taxpayer-owned stadium for the next century.

The governing board of the California Science Center, the Coliseum's landlord, voted 7 to 0 to adopt the basic terms for the lease agreement that extends to the private university most of the benefits of owning the historic venue without requiring the school to buy it.

The lease will become effective after the state Department of General Services and the California Natural Resources Agency approve a final document and the Science Center board ratifies it. The package could require Sacramento to reimburse two public museums next to the Coliseum for money they might lose to USC because the school will be permitted limited use of their parking lots at a lower price.

Under the lease, USC also has the option to tear down the neighboring Sports Arena and replace it with a soccer stadium or amphitheater. The school has talked with Major League Soccer about building a stadium on the site, possibly for Chivas USA.

Critics have labeled the overall agreement, which grew out of a corruption scandal at the Coliseum Commission, a giveaway to USC that fails to guarantee the public enough money.

Key opposition to the USC deal had come from trustees of the Science Center's fundraising foundation, which is separate from the governing board. They said the museum, home of the space shuttle Endeavour, would be hurt by a provision that allows the school to take over Science Center parking for USC football games and other major events.

Parking receipts help fund free programs at the Science Center, the California African American Museum and the surrounding Exposition Park. A Department of Finance analysis released Tuesday said the lease could cost the museums and park $78,000 to $203,000 a year unless USC-managed events generate enough parking revenue to erase the shortfall.

Before Tuesday's vote, Gov. Jerry Brown's administration sent a letter to the museums promising to restore lost parking funds during the coming two years. Administration officials did not say where it would get that money.

An earlier version of the 98-year lease gave USC the right to claim museum parking for 25 big events annually. That was reduced to nine or possibly 10 after fierce opposition by museum backers and others.

Foundation trustee Marvin Holen, who attacked the previous proposal as a "robbery," said Tuesday's agreement "achieved a reasonable balance" because of the state's vow to cover parking revenue losses and offer other protections for the museums.

"We will be OK," Holen said.

Foundation Chairman Tom Soto said relinquishing any parking and its revenues to USC was "not something we would have wanted and promoted," but the organization decided "it was in our best interest to find common ground" with the school.

USC spokesman Thomas Sayles said the lease is "a win-win.… I think that we went from concern to collaboration to consensus." He said he expected USC to take the helm of the Coliseum and Sports Arena this summer.

Science Center board member Robert Stein, who opposed the lease but was out of the country for Tuesday's vote, said in a telephone interview that the parking arrangement was still lacking because it "is committing taxpayer dollars to make up any shortfall that SC, a private institution, would create."

The lease requires USC to spend at least $70 million on upgrades to the 90-year-old stadium during the first decade.

The school also will pick up the Coliseum Commission's $1 million yearly rent payment to the state, an amount that will increase to $1.3 million in 2016 and be adjusted afterward for inflation. The rent payments go to the Science Center.

USC must pay the state 5% of the proceeds from the sale of naming rights to the Coliseum.

The school will retain all ticket and concession revenues from football games and other Coliseum events — and as much as 95% of the naming rights and other advertising proceeds from the properties, which together could sell for $4 million to $6 million a year, the sports economists say.

After 20 years, the university could cancel the Coliseum lease by giving notice, but the government could end it by proving only that the school violated its terms. Taxpayers would be liable if an earthquake levels the stadium or other catastrophes strike.

In a statement after Tuesday's vote, Natural Resources Secretary John Laird and Anna Caballero, secretary of the California State and Consumer Services Agency that oversees the Science Center board, said the state's existing agreement with the commission "no longer worked."

"We look forward to a seamless transition as the documents are finalized and believe this is a major step towards restoring this state and federal landmark to what it once was," the statement said.

ron.lin@latimes.com

paul.pringle@latimes.com

22.26 | 0 komentar | Read More