LAX ghost town a home to memories and rare butterflies

The remains of what was once one of Los Angeles' most coveted neighborhoods can be seen behind a fence topped with barbed wire.

Weeds sprout through cracks along streets lined with majestic palms. Retaining walls and foundations of custom homes peek through the brush. Rusty utility lines that have wiggled their way above ground bake in the sun like scattered bones.

Two throttled-up passenger jets simultaneously take off from LAX and soar overhead, the thundering cacophony a reminder of why the community of Surfridge was forced to disappear.

Developed in the 1920s and 1930s, Surfridge was an isolated playground of the wealthy, among the last communities built on miles of sand dunes that once dominated the coast. Hollywood elites built homes here that commanded views from Palos Verdes to Malibu.

The small airfield to the east that opened in 1928 was a good place to see an air show. It would take nearly two decades for it to become the city's primary airport.

Today, Surfridge is a Los Angeles curiosity — a modern ghost town inhabited by a rare butterfly.

The El Segundo blue butterfly was near extinction when the last of Surfridge's 800 homes were removed in the early 1970s, the victim of an expanding Los Angeles International Airport.

In the decades since, the federally protected endangered species has made a comeback due to the establishment of a 200-acre butterfly preserve managed by the city. Nonnative plants were removed and native buckwheat — where the butterflies feed and lay their eggs — was reintroduced.

Now, more than 125,000 butterflies take flight each summer, unfazed by the constant thunder of jets overhead.

LAX may have wiped Surfridge off the map, but the airport has turned out to be a perfect neighbor for a growing community of butterflies.

"It's a remarkable recovery," said Richard Arnold, an entomologist who has worked as a consultant at the preserve. "But you've got to realize that insects have a remarkable reproductive capacity if their natural food source is there."

Soon there will be more. The California Coastal Commission recently approved a $3-million plan to restore portions of 48 acres at the northern end of the old subdivision. The project is part of a settlement of a lawsuit between LAX and surrounding cities over the airport's expansion plans.

Some streets, curbs, sidewalks, home foundations and utilities visible to neighboring homeowners will be removed. Six acres will be reseeded with native plants — sagebrush and goldenbush, primrose, poppies and salt grass among them — that will return this sliver of dunes back to where it was a century ago.

"They wanted us to fix what they consider to be an eyesore," airport spokeswoman Nancy Suey Castles said.

The story of Surfridge is a parable for a century's worth of urban growth destruction.

"It was paradise when I was a kid," said Duke Dukesherer, a business executive and amateur historian who has written about the area. "Everybody who sees it now asks the same question: What the hell happened here?"

A development company held a contest in 1925 to name its newest neighborhood, awarding $1,000 to a Los Angeles man who submitted "Surfridge."

"The outstanding name was (chosen) due to its brevity, euphony, ease of pronunciation…" The Times reported. "But above all because it most satisfactorily tells the story of this new wonder city."

Prospective buyers picked up brochures in downtown Los Angeles and drove to the coast, where salesmen worked out of tents. Lots went for $50 down and $20 a month for three years.

Home exteriors were required to be brick, stone or stucco — no frame structures allowed. And no one "not entirely that of the Caucasian race," according to the development's deed restrictions "except such as are in the employ of the resident owners."

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Population growth is threat to other species, poll respondents say

Nearly two-thirds of American voters believe that human population growth is driving other animal species to extinction and that if the situation gets worse, society has a "moral responsibility to address the problem," according to new national public opinion poll.

A slightly lower percentage of those polled — 59% — believes that population growth is an important environmental issue and 54% believe that stabilizing the population will help protect the environment.

The survey was conducted on behalf of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, which unlike other environmental groups has targeted population growth as part of its campaign to save wildlife species from extinction.

The center has handed out more than half a million condoms at music concerts, farmers markets, churches and college campuses with labels featuring drawings of endangered species and playful, even humorous, messages such as, "Wrap with care, save the polar bear."

The organization hired a polling firm to show other environmental groups that their fears about alienating the public by bringing up population matters are overblown, said Kieran Suckling, the center's executive director. When the center broke the near-silence on population growth with its condom campaign, other environmental leaders "reacted with a mix of worry and horror that we were going to experience a huge backlash and drag them into it," he said.

Instead, Suckling said the campaign has swelled its membership — now about 500,000 — and donations and energized 5,000 volunteers who pass out prophylactics. He said a common response is, "Thank God, someone is talking about this critical issue."

The poll results, he said, show such views are mainstream.

In the survey, the pollsters explained that the world population hit 7 billion last year and is projected to reach 10 billion by the end of the century. Given those facts, 50% of people reached by telephone said they think the world population is growing too fast, while 38% said population growth was on the right pace and 4% thought it was growing too slowly. About 8% were not sure.

Sixty-one percent of respondents expressed concerned about disappearing wildlife. Depending how the question was phrased, 57% to 64% of respondents said population growth was having an adverse effect. If widespread wildlife extinctions were unavoidable without slowing human population growth, 60% agreed that society has a moral responsibility to address the problem.

Respondents didn't make as clear a connection between population and climate change, reflecting the decades-old debate over population growth versus consumption. Although 57% of respondents agreed that population growth is making climate change worse, only 46% said they think having more people will make it harder to solve, and 34% said the number of people will make no difference.

Asked about natural resources, 48% said they think the average American consumes too much. The view split sharply along party lines, with 62% of Democrats saying the average American consumes too much, compared with 29% of Republicans. Independents fell in the middle at 49%.

The survey of 657 registered voters was conducted Feb. 22-24 by Public Policy Polling, a Raleigh, N.C., firm that takes the pulse of voters for Democratic candidates and Democratic-leaning clients. It has a margin of error of 3.9%.

ken.weiss@latimes.com

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Repelled by the worst in the Church, yet held by the best

The first time I visited the downtown Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, I found myself in a side chapel that Cardinal Roger Mahony had dedicated to "healing" the victims of clergy sexual abuse. I was shocked to see dozens of school photos left behind by victims or their families that looked just like my brother: the same shy smile, the shock of hacked-off hair.

We had grown up Irish Catholic in the San Fernando Valley in the 1960s and '70s, when the abuse was rampant. But I'd never discussed the scandal with my brother. So I called him, and he told me this story: During a trip to Tijuana to build houses for the poor, the teacher, a member of a religious order, tried to climb into his friend's sleeping bag. The friend kicked him out. Another boy probably didn't.

Chilled by this near-brush with abuse in my own family, I avoided the cathedral for months. But eventually I returned. With the latest round of revelations about Mahony working to shield molester priests from criminal investigation, friends once again are asking why? Why do I call myself Catholic?

Like most Catholics, I reject a good deal of the dogma. The ban on women in the priesthood and views on gays that drove many of my friends and family members out of the church are just as offensive to me.

But over the years I have practiced the religion on and off, on my own terms. And I still see myself as one of the faithful. Or perhaps the loyal opposition is the right term.

It's partly tradition. I grew up in a surprisingly insular Catholic world, given that the San Fernando Valley had no "Catholic" neighborhoods. In my mind, the Valley was made up of parishes — St. Mel's, St. Cyril's — not neighborhoods, each with its own character.

Families came with giant broods of nine, 10, even 13 kids. I was envious. They were so boisterous and jolly. With only four children, our family seemed meager by comparison.

I value my Catholic education. I did 12 years of Catholic school, barely. Because of my poor behavior, some years I would not be invited back and my mother would have to beg the principal to readmit me.

When I got to college, I found to my surprise that I had been fairly well educated, with the glaring exception of history class, where we spent an inordinate amount of time on the Counter-Reformation.

Like many Catholics, I love the pageantry of the church rites. The gilded censer of incense at Benediction. The altars to Mary we built in shoe boxes, lined with blue velvet.

My father grew up with Bishop Buddy of San Diego. When he came to visit our family in full medieval regalia, we were told to genuflect and kiss his ring. Then the bishop put on swim trunks and dove into our neighbor's pool. The about-face was delirious.

We were taught moral values that have faded from modern life, but have a place today, like purity and penitence. Life was full of miracles, from the lame at Lourdes throwing away their crutches to the crown of thorns plant in our backyard. My father told me the shrub always bloomed in blood-red bursts right at Easter.

As Catholics, we were also taught to help the sick and poor by performing good works. I volunteered as a candy-striper at the hospital. We wrote the boys in Vietnam and knitted them bandages. I doubt my bandages, with gaping holes where I had dropped stitches and wildly vacillating widths, were of much use. But I loved making them.

Those hand-knit bandages also went to the leper colony on Molokai. This was but one of the gothic horrors we Catholics were wont to dwell on. St. Agatha, whose breasts were torn from her chest as part of her martyrdom. St. Sebastian, who was pierced by arrows. It didn't occur to me until years later that outsiders would find the iconography distasteful; I found the stories thrilling.

My best friend and I were faithful correspondents, and when our soldier pen pals returned, they offered to take us to Disneyland. I was bitterly disappointed when the nuns forbade it.

Although they wouldn't say why, it was pretty clear what the nuns feared. We were only in middle school, but the race was on to protect our virginity.

Keeping us virgins through high school was the primary goal of the nuns and many of our parents. We girls wanted to play along, really we did, at least in the beginning. But no surprise, the boys had other ideas. They too were supposed to be saving sex for marriage. But you would never have guessed it by their behavior.

I never figured out how the girls got one message and the boys got another. In the end, we picked the boys over the nuns.

During this period, the church began to lose many of the people I grew up with. Girls were getting pregnant and trying to hide it from school and family, with disastrous consequences. The nuns suspended at least one girl who reported that her friend was in trouble, in callous disregard for both students' welfare.

The clergy were held to a different standard, as I saw for myself one Saturday. I was sent out to walk my brother home from a sleepover at a household headed by a single mother, a rarity in our world. Sprawled unshaven at the breakfast table, in an undershirt and boxers, was the assistant pastor. He appeared utterly unconcerned that I had seen him in a compromising position.

And really, his secret, if he even bothered keeping it secret, was safe with me. I never mentioned it to teachers or my parents. It wasn't clear they would have cared. Priests had absolute dominion over us. Parents were happy for any help keeping us in line, with the back of the hand if necessary. Who would have believed me?

So although I had no idea priests were molesting children, I was well aware of sexual hypocrisy in the church. Thoroughly disgusted, I picked a college as far away from my upbringing as I could. UC Berkeley had 35,000 students, 100 times the enrollment at my all-girls school, and was the opposite of insular.

On campus, I rarely mentioned my Catholic background. I thought it made me seem even more hayseedy than I already felt in a new world of prep school students and sophisticates.

But around the edges, I never renounced Catholicism completely. A friend from high school and I sneaked off to the Newman Center, the Catholic campus ministry, for Sunday Mass.

I met Catholics and ex-Catholics, including former nuns and priests, who were carving out spiritual lives and fighting for social justice. When I got involved in journalism, I stuck to my roots, working for an anti-war publication for soldiers overseas.

With the revelations of the rape and abuse of children who reminded me of my brother, I saw an even scarier side to the monolithic authority the clergy wielded than I had imagined. But many of the victims and advocates who fought to rip the secrets from church files and place them before the public were Catholics. Catholics fighting to make the church and the world a better place. Just as I was raised to do.

So I'm a Catholic because I still hope to fulfill the ideals of my youth and do some good. And I'm not going to let anyone — not Mahony or anyone else in the clergy — define what that is for me. It's between me and my conscience, just as I learned in Catholic school.

gale.holland@latimes.com

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Two L.A. mayoral candidates unlikely backers of business tax cut

In the debate over who should be the next mayor of Los Angeles, who would you suppose argues for elimination of a business tax to kick-start economic growth?

Not the one-time investment banker who dropped out of the race early and says killing the business tax would leave a huge hole in the city treasury. Not the lone Republican in the field, who wants more modest business tax reform. Not a City Council fiscal hawk, also a candidate for mayor, who says cutting the tax could leave the city with a $400-million shortfall.

Instead it's two liberal Democrats — City Controller Wendy Greuel and Councilman Eric Garcetti — pushing what sounds a lot like Ronald Reagan- or Mitt Romney-style "supply side" fiscal dogma. Cut taxes for business, Garcetti and Greuel contend, and the overall economic pie will grow, with benefits trickling down in the form of more jobs for Angelenos and more money in the city's general fund.

The duo's insistence on ending the tax on businesses' gross receipts puts them at odds with not only Democratic Party orthodoxy nationally but also with several figures viewed as leading watchdogs on municipal finance — former deputy mayor and investment banker Austin Beutner, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Miguel Santana, the city's top budget official.

"It's an interesting strategy, but there is no proposal of what we would do to backfill the loss of that revenue," says Councilwoman Jan Perry, a mayoral candidate and among the more conservative city lawmakers on financial matters. "Who makes up the difference?"

Political observers believe that Garcetti and Greuel, both of whom have been identified as allies of organized labor, offer the elimination of the tax, at least in part, as a signal to the business community that they have more than one dimension.

"Mayoral candidates have to court business," said Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. "There is a widespread perception that L.A. is not business friendly and anyone who aspires to be mayor has to fight that perception."

But will lost revenue from killing the tax be made up from other sources?

"It's rare that a tax cut actually pays for itself," Pitney said. "The best kind of tax cut is the kind that raises revenue and that actually has happened from time to time. It's not impossible. But the more reasonable prediction is it might end up losing less revenue than one would think otherwise."

Greuel and Garcetti reject what they say is conventional thinking. Both say they have seen the benefits of previous business tax cuts, with employers coming to the city after they were granted relief from the levy, currently the highest of its kind in Los Angeles County. They also say they would phase out the tax incrementally and only as it proved to help the city's bottom line.

It's another irony of the tax debate that Garcetti and Greuel — sharp rivals and perceived front-runners in the race to replace Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — have worked closely on previous reforms of the business levy and agree on the need for its elimination.

Greuel calls herself the "architect" of business tax reform, pointing to a 2006 council vote she led that cut the rate 15% over several years and reduced the number of tax categories from 42 to fewer than 10. The controller said the 2006 rate reduction not only brought in more businesses but that the city government also "saw more revenue as it related to those businesses coming into Los Angeles."

City budget officials say, however, that the previous tax changes came during a time of economic growth and they can't tease out how much of those increases accumulated because of the natural business cycle versus the city's tax cut.

Critics say that the incremental rate reductions of the past offer no proof that the revenue lost from wholesale elimination of the tax could be replaced. The debate has been complicated by the conflicting analysis of experts hired by the city.

In 2011, USC accounting professor Charles Swenson issued a report that found the death of the business tax would provoke such strong growth that the city would more than recoup the $400 million in lost revenue with the expansion of other taxes.

Last year, the city hired a consulting firm that picked apart Swenson's analysis, concluding that business would expand but that little of the tax revenue would be recouped from other sources. That is the prevailing view of Santana, the city's administrative officer, and outsiders like Beutner, the businessman who worked for a year and a half as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's "jobs czar."

Beutner said that in his time working at City Hall businesses most commonly complained about regulatory delays and the uncertainty of doing business in Los Angeles.

"They talked about how hard it was to get a permit, how anti-business the city is in its attitude," Beutner said. "Waving a magic wand and reducing a tax rate doesn't address those other issues."

Los Angeles only receives a fraction of property and sales taxes and other levies, but it receives 100% of every dollar brought in by its gross receipts tax, which charges businesses roughly one-tenth of a cent to half a penny per dollar of revenue.

Those tiny incremental payments add up, Beutner said. "So if you take a whole dollar in those taxes away, please show me how I get that dollar back with pennies from these other taxes," said Beutner. "It's not enough to just say, 'The whole pie grows.' Here you have a couple of progressives … espousing trickle-down. And this is the most indirect form of trickle-down one can imagine."

Garcetti agreed that many factors influence where companies make their homes, but he said "not a week goes by" that he doesn't have executives complain about L.A.'s gross receipts tax. Online retailer Shopzilla and ratings company Nielsen decided they could stay in Los Angeles, but only after getting a break on the tax, the councilman said. Online law document service Legal Zoom, in contrast, fled for Glendale and its lower rents and business levy. The company bolstered its bottom line by a few million dollars because of Glendale's lower tax, Garcetti said.

Greuel and Garcetti said they would phase out the tax over 15 years, only proceeding with incremental cuts each year if other tax revenues increased enough to make up for the money lost from the business levy. "Its not a Republican or Democratic issue," Greuel said. "It's about being responsible and being business-friendly."

Garcetti said he is a bit surprised at how his position on the tax has evolved.

"I started someplace else ideologically until I saw the impact this tax had," he said. Before, "I would have absolutely been a skeptic of things like this" tax cut, he added. "I realize [now] there are smart taxes and there are dumb taxes. This is a dumb tax."

james.rainey@latimes.com

Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.

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For Cardinal Roger Mahony, social media is a powerful pulpit

As archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony responded to criticism of his handling of sexual abuse cases with a high-priced crisis management firm, full-page ads in Spanish and English newspapers, and a report naming accused priests.

In retirement, Mahony's public relations operation consists mainly of his thoughts and a computer keyboard. Since last month, when outrage flared anew over files showing he shielded abusers, the cardinal has thrown himself into social media to give the public his side of the story.

It was on his blog that Mahony defended himself against a public rebuke by his successor, and it was on Twitter that he confirmed, to the dismay of many critics, that he would attend the conclave to elect a new pope.

"Am planning to be in Rome and vote for the next Pope," he wrote hours after Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation. He added, "Will be twee[t]ing daily."

It was an extraordinary pledge from a man who had tweeted just five times before and only sporadically updated his blog. But as Catholic groups, members of the public and even some Vatican officials continued to question Mahony's integrity, he became ever more prolific online.

From the Vatican on Monday, he posted his harshest assessment yet of those who have attacked him.

"I can't recall a time such as now when people tend to be so judgmental and even self-righteous, so quick to accuse, judge and condemn," he wrote. "And often with scant real facts and information."

Since the release of 12,000 pages of confidential church records, Mahony has been lambasted by church critics, victims' advocates and others. The criticism skyrocketed with Benedict's resignation and Mahony's insistence that he would cast his vote for the next pope despite having been removed by Archbishop Jose Gomez from all public duties.

Last week, three former top Vatican officials publicly discussed the propriety of Mahony attending the conclave, and a liberal Catholic group gathered 10,000 signatures online urging the cardinal to give up his vote.

The debate over his presence only grew when a British cardinal, Keith O'Brien, decided to stay home following allegations that he had engaged in "inappropriate acts" with priests decades earlier.

"I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me — but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor," O'Brien said in a statement.

By contrast, Mahony has been reveling in his participation in the papal election, counting down the days and hours to his departure on his Twitter feed, slapping a Vatican City dateline on his first blog post after landing in Italy, and describing the "anticipation and expectation" on the streets there.

Mahony used Benedict's announcement as an opportunity to talk to the public about something other than the sex abuse scandal and to assert his relevance to the church two years after his retirement. As a cardinal, Mahony gets to cast a vote; Gomez, the man who rebuked him, does not.

When news of the pope's departure broke, Mahony quickly posted a personal tribute to Benedict on his blog and said he was looking forward to voting in the conclave. It would be six hours before the archdiocese press office put out an official statement from Gomez.

The post marked the start of a new level of social media engagement by Mahony. Since then, he has posted nearly daily on his blog and Twitter account.

"He obviously feels a need to be heard and understood," said Diane Winston, a professor of media and religion at USC.

Mahony launched his blog in 2009 after attending a Vatican conference on social media and was for years an occasional poster. He frequently wrote about his longtime cause, immigration, but sometimes detoured, such as one entry extolling a pizza joint in Rome.

"My favorite is the one with fresh sliced mushrooms as the main topping!" he wrote in 2009.

His recent entries have been personal, spiritual and tinged with aggrievement. In a blog post this month, he wrote that he had a religious epiphany on Ash Wednesday. With "all the storms" of the sex abuse scandal, God was calling him "to be humiliated, disgraced and rebuffed by many."

"In recent days, I have been confronted in various places by very unhappy people. I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage…," he wrote. "Thanks to God's special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them."

Mahony's blog doesn't allow readers to post responses, but Twitter does, and the feedback has often been harsh. When Mahony on Monday said the weather forecast for Rome was pleasant and rain-free, one user replied, "a good day to hide from your guilty past. #pedophile #protector."

To a tweet in which Mahony discussed "loving your enemies," another user wrote "You're a good man. But this online pity party is unseemly. Don't just praise the 'silent Jesus', act like him."

Mahony has yet to respond to any tweets directed at him. Marketing and social media strategist David Meerman Scott said Mahony was practicing "one-way communication" rather than the dialogue that defines a successful online presence.

"He's not engaging with the public, he's talking to the public," Scott said. But he added that if people find the cardinal's posts to be genuine and forthcoming, they might come to see his perspective.

"It takes guts for people to put themselves out there.... It's very easy to be quiet and say nothing," he said.

At least nine other cardinals in the 116-member conclave have Twitter accounts. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York is the most widely followed, with more than 84,000 subscribers. Dolan, however, follows just one account — the pope's. (Benedict, whose handle is @pontifex, counts more than 1.5 million followers.) After about a month of tweeting, Mahony has about 1,500 followers. He doesn't follow the pope or Gomez, but follows the L.A. Times food section and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Mahony's online missives will probably come to a temporary halt when he enters the Sistine Chapel next month to vote for the next pope. Those deliberations are secret, and the Vatican said this week that the penalty for revealing what happens during the conclave is excommunication.

victoria.kim@latimes.com

harriet.ryan@latimes.com

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A cosmic gift to L.A.

One night on Mt. Wilson about 1908, a short, powerfully built man with a handlebar mustache looked through the largest telescope in the world. What he saw transformed him, and would put Los Angeles at the forefront of a movement to make astronomy the people's science.

We may never know whether Col. Griffith J. Griffith saw the rings of Saturn or another celestial object with the then-new 60-inch reflector telescope, but we can be sure that it inspired his vision of a world-class observatory for the people of Los Angeles, allowing the masses a glimpse of the heavens.

"If all mankind could look through that telescope," he said that night, "it would change the world."

PHOTOS: Images of space

Griffith's contribution was not just his namesake observatory, but his rejection of the notion more common in his time that an observatory belonged on a remote mountaintop and should be restricted to scientists.

Griffith sought to make astronomy a public science — a notion embodied by Griffith Observatory, built near what is now the middle of the city, where it is accessible to anyone.

Or, as observatory Director Ed Krupp says: "Location, location, location."

The observatory has embraced this public-spirited view of science in other ways too: From its beginning in the 1930s, it was popularized by Hollywood, becoming a movie icon in its own right.

"Griffith had an inkling of the power of motion pictures and he wanted a motion picture theater of some kind incorporated into this public observatory," Krupp says. "The planetarium hadn't been invented at the time ... and so a movie theater was really the closest thing that he could imagine to an immersive experience in astronomy and in science."

The 1955 film "Rebel Without a Cause" made the observatory an international emblem of the city, but even before the building opened in 1935, it was used to film scenes in Gene Autry's bizarre cowboy-science fiction mash-up "The Phantom Empire," Krupp says. "At the time, the building seemed classic yet futuristic, and that made it a draw for science fiction," Krupp says. "It was, in fact, the palace of Ming the Merciless on the Planet Mongo in the Flash Gordon space opera."

Today, "its stardom attracts a steady stream of visitors from all over the planet," he says.

Griffith and the observatory were a main focus of a program titled "Making Astronomy Public, Los Angeles Style" held during the American Astronomical Society meeting held earlier this year in Long Beach.

Speakers at the meeting sought to expand the conventional view of Griffith, who donated about 3,000 acres for a city park in 1896, shot his wife in the head in 1903 and served two years in prison for assault with a deadly weapon.

He was a despised character in Los Angeles after the shooting, says Anthony Cook, an astronomer at the observatory who spoke at the conference. But although many have questioned whether the observatory was an attempt to buy back the goodwill of the city, Cook says the gift was sincere.

"He came out of San Quentin after two years really a reformed person. He stayed away from alcohol, he actually supported his ex-wife, any philanthropic enterprise that she wanted to do, helped his son maintain caring for her, and also turned his attentions to what he hoped would benefit everybody, which was by developing Griffith Park."

A onetime newspaper reporter who covered mining and became wealthy as an expert on the subject, Griffith remained a popularizer throughout his life. In drafting the observatory's detailed specifications, he had lengthy discussions with George Ellery Hale, who with Andrew Carnegie founded the first astrophysical telescope in Los Angeles, and Walter Adams, who later became director of the Mt. Wilson Observatory.

Although an observatory — or at least a tower with a telescope — had been suggested for the highest point in the park as early as 1897, it wasn't until Griffith's epiphany on Mt. Wilson that he broadened his vision into an ambitious plan for a large observatory and hall of science.

"Griffith was very civic-minded," Cook says. "He wanted to do things unifying the huge, diverse population settled in Los Angeles."

Before Griffith died in 1919, he established a generous trust fund to build an observatory in Griffith Park — when the time was right. Perhaps due to his lingering notoriety, nothing was done until the 1930s, when a handful of major U.S. cities began building the newly invented planetariums. But unlike those being constructed elsewhere, Los Angeles' planetarium would be a part of what is primarily an observatory.

A competition was held for the design of the building — Richard Neutra proposed a sleek Art Deco structure that raises tantalizing possibilities of what might have been — and prominent civic architects John C. Austin and Frederick M. Ashley were chosen.

The result was what the Smithsonian Institution's David DeVorkin — a former observatory tour guide — calls "the hood ornament of Los Angeles."

True to its public aspirations, the observatory emphasized showmanship. The facility's Hollywood connections meant it could tap skilled studio artists and technicians for exhibits and planetarium shows.

The philosophy from the beginning was to turn visitors into observers in a building full of scientific instruments, Krupp says. In fact, the $93-million renovation and expansion of the observatory in 2006 was guided by the concept that the entire building is an instrument.

Krupp returned to Griffith's famous quote on Mt. Wilson: "If all mankind could look through that telescope it would change the world."

It reflects Griffith's view that seeing into the cosmos could affect people personally, and perhaps transform society. That's what makes his observatory so special, Krupp says: "He wanted a place that would make the universe intelligible to the public through personal engagement with the sky."

larry.harnisch@latimes.com

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Breathing life into a dying language

The Uchinaaguchi class opened with a "good morning."

"Ukimi soo chii," said the teacher, Chogi Higa.

"Ukimi soo chii," the students repeated.

For student Tokie Koyama, the greeting was a bittersweet echo of her childhood on Okinawa.

"It makes me cry," she told the class. "I miss home."

Famous for its military bases and World War II battlefields, the Japanese island chain of Okinawa is also home to a language as different from Japanese as English is from German. A Japanese speaker in Higa's class would be lost from the get-go — "good morning" in Japanese is "ohayo gozai masu."

These days, the lingua franca of the Okinawan islands is Japanese, not Uchinaaguchi. Higa's students are studying a dying language. But for them, it is a language full of emotional triggers, conjuring up parents who used it so their children wouldn't understand, or grandparents thrilled to hear the younger generation speak a few words in the mother tongue.

The youngest student is in high school; the oldest, an octogenarian. Most are second-, third- or fourth-generation Okinawan Americans, though a few are drawn by an interest in island music and culture. Twice a month, they greet each other with a "Hai sai" and wrestle with such phrases as "Uganjuu-yamiseemi" — "How are you?" — that are tongue twisters for English and Japanese speakers alike. Higa's Gardena classroom is perhaps the only place in the continental United States to learn Uchinaaguchi.

"Being Okinawan is so different from being just pure Japanese, though of course, I'm American first," said Joan Oshiro, 68. Oshiro is fluent in Japanese but heard only snippets of Uchinaaguchi growing up in Hawaii. "Spanish may be more practical, but this is a way to learn a little bit about yourself and pass it on to your children."

Higa remembers wearing a wooden plaque labeled "dialect user" as punishment for speaking Uchinaaguchi at school — a common memory for older Okinawans. In the postwar years, mainstream radio and television programs in Japanese saturated the airwaves. Bombarded by these influences, Okinawans didn't pass their language to the next generation. Japanese became the language of the home, the school and the workplace.

In the islands, elderly Okinawans still shoot the breeze with one another in Uchinaaguchi. The folk music wafting out of open pub doors is still sung in the old tongue. But the language needs help to survive. Revival efforts in recent years have included speech contests and radio programs. Thousands of miles away in Southern California, Higa is doing his part.

For many years, he hosted an Uchinaaguchi program on a Los Angeles Japanese-language radio station. He has been teaching the Uchinaaguchi class, open to members of the Okinawa Assn. of America, for more than a decade. Between the two sessions, he has about 40 students.

"The performing arts are very popular. Young people are taking Okinawan dance, learning folk songs, the sanshin, but they don't know the language of the songs," said Higa, 72. "We're trying to educate those born here, so they can carry on Okinawan culture."

::

Uchinaaguchi is believed to have split from Japanese between the 2nd and 8th centuries. It contains archaic traits, such as the consonant "p," that no longer exist in modern Japanese. The long "o" in Japanese is a long "u" in Uchinaaguchi, and the letter "e" often becomes "i."

Some words are similar. Sensei — teacher in Japanese — is shinshii in Uchinaaguchi.

But arigato — thank you — is nifee-deebiru. The word for "goodbye" in Japanese, sayonara, is guburii-sabira in Okinawan.

There are almost as many variants of the Okinawan language as there are islands in the Okinawan chain. Some are nearly as different from one another as they are from Japanese. UNESCO's list of endangered languages includes five from Japan's southernmost islands — Kunigami, Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni in addition to Uchinaaguchi.

Shoichi Iwasaki, an applied linguistics professor at UCLA, is studying Ikema, spoken on the Miyako islands in southern Okinawa. He and several colleagues are compiling a dictionary, even as they realize that the language is unlikely to survive.

Uchinaaguchi, on the other hand, has a chance. It is the language of the main Okinawan island. If nothing else, it will live on in the lyrics of popular songs, much as Cajun French does through Louisiana-born musicians like Wayne Toups and Michael Doucet.

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Digital billboard company issues $100-million threat against L.A.

An outdoor advertising company fighting to preserve dozens of digital billboards across Los Angeles warned this week that it would seek "substantially" more than $100 million from City Hall if it is ordered to remove any electronic signs targeted in a recent court ruling.

In an 11-page letter sent Friday, Clear Channel Outdoor told Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and Council President Herb Wesson that its digital signs are "valuable assets that the city cannot attempt to take away without paying just compensation."

The letter comes two months after a three-judge panel struck down a 2006 legal settlement approved by the City Council allowing Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor to convert 840 existing billboards to digital formats. The company installed 79 digital signs before the settlement was blocked.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered a lower court to invalidate all digital conversions permitted under the agreement. But Sara Lee Keller, Clear Channel's lawyer, warned that if the council instructs the company to turn off the signs, "it would be exposed to liability to Clear Channel for the fair market value of such signs, which substantially exceeds $100 million."

"While litigating these claims would be costly and time-consuming for all … we believe it is important to be clear about the consequences," wrote Keller, who contends that other factors make all of the company's signs legal.

The letter drew a sharp response from Summit Media, a competing sign company that successfully sued to block the 2006 agreement. Phil Recht, the company's attorney, said Clear Channel has "no regard for the rule of law."

"Clear Channel is trying to bully the city into submission so that they can continue to make hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal profits from these digital billboards two courts ruled to be illegal," he said.

Clear Channel sent its letter one day before neighborhood activists and outdoor-advertising lobbyists — including the company and its representatives — took part in a working group to discuss possible digital sign legislation. One proposal up for discussion would allow new digital billboards to be installed in exchange for removing a greater number of static billboards.

Summit promised to work with neighborhoods on digital sign issues, saying the technology diminishes quality of life. In recent years, it has described the original 2006 agreement as a "sweetheart deal" that gave CBS and Clear Channel hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Since the ruling, Clear Channel has been waging a publicity campaign in favor of digital billboards, putting together an advocacy group to argue on its behalf and touting support for its signs from such groups as AIDS Project Los Angeles, Art Share L.A. and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Those groups, among others, have asked the state Supreme Court to take another look at the ruling that invalidated the 2006 digital sign pact, according to Clear Channel's letter.

Clear Channel and a handful of other billboard companies also have been contributing tens of thousands of dollars in recent weeks to Proposition A, which is on the March 5 ballot and would raise the sales tax rate to 9.5% from 9%. That measure, if passed, is expected to generate more than $200 million annually for the city budget.

Meanwhile, Lamar Advertising, which has proposed its own plan for converting signs to digital formats, has been spending $5,000 per candidate on outdoor advertising promoting the City Council campaigns of Councilman Joe Buscaino and Assemblymen Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills), Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar) and Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) as well as the city controller campaign of Councilman Dennis Zine.

Friday's letter from Clear Channel was accompanied by a legal claim, a document submitted before the filing of a lawsuit. Clear Channel spokesman Jim Cullinan said his company sent it because it must provide 90 days' notice before filing an action in court.

"This letter gives notice, but we hope it doesn't come to litigation," he said.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

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Councilman's preferred successor holds edge in Westside district

When Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl decided in October to retire and focus on battling cancer, he anointed Mike Bonin, his longtime chief of staff, as his preferred successor.

The March 5 primary election now seems Bonin's to lose.

Of four candidates seeking to represent Council District 11 — which includes Brentwood, Mar Vista, Venice and Westchester — Bonin has raised the most money ($380,000, including matching funds, more than four times the amount amassed by his nearest rival). The self-avowed "progressive activist" has also received hundreds of endorsements from politicians, business and labor leaders, environmental groups and residents.

"He's smart, he's a doer, and he's solution-oriented," said Austin Beutner, a conservative businessman and former mayoral hopeful who recently held a meet-and-greet event for Bonin in Pacific Palisades. "He's not an ideologue."

Bonin's three opponents — Frederick Sutton, 28, a part-time bartender and community activist; Tina Hess, 52, a prosecutor with the city attorney's office; and Odysseus Bostick, 36, a Westchester teacher and parent — all acknowledge the financial leader's sizable edge. But they say they're fed up with pothole-riddled streets, homeless encampments and out-of-control municipal expenditures. Bonin, they say, represents a politics-as-usual bureaucracy that has turned the City Council into what Sutton calls "a merry-go-round of lifetime politicians."

Having received $87,000 in donations and matching funds, Sutton sees his immediate goal as keeping Bonin from getting the simple majority of votes needed to seal victory in March. "Once you get into a runoff," Sutton said, "suddenly everything changes."

On the stump, Bonin, who will turn 46 next month, sounds savvy and confident. He has unveiled plans to make Los Angeles more employer-friendly (extend the Internet tax exemption for Silicon Beach companies, support tax credits and reduce red tape for film operations) and to improve residents' access to City Hall through regular community meetings and technology ("Hikes with Mike" and "Mayberry meets the iPhone")

After receiving his bachelor's degree in U.S. history at Harvard University, Bonin worked as a newspaper reporter before entering politics. The Massachusetts native moved to the Los Angeles area in the early 1990s. He lives in Mar Vista with his partner, Sean Arian, a consultant.

A Gold's Gym regular who eats mostly raw foods, Bonin sports five tattoos, including a recycling symbol on his left shoulder that serves partly "as a symbol of getting sober and taking a life that had been trash and making it productive again." After long overdoing it on drugs and alcohol, Bonin said, he has been sober for 18 years.

The diverse Westside sector he seeks to represent is rife with vocal activists and hot-button issues: congestion, transit construction, an imbalance between jobs and housing, transients and the modernization of Los Angeles International Airport. Like Rosendahl, Bonin opposes separating the northern runways but is all for updating the airport.

Bonin said his 17 years in public service have prepared him.

He first worked in city government as legislative deputy, district director and deputy chief of staff for former Councilwoman Ruth Galanter. He then became deputy chief of staff and district director for Rep. Jane Harman, who represented many 11th district neighborhoods before retiring from Congress. He has been Rosendahl's chief deputy since 2005.

Elected in 2005 and 2009, Rosendahl, 67, was favored to win a third and final term before being diagnosed with advanced cancer last summer.

Bonin said he has been inspired by his boss' spirit and resilience after months of grueling cancer treatments. "He's got the level of energy back that most of the staff finds exhausting to be around," Bonin told a group of elderly residents one recent afternoon.

Marcia Hanscom, a wetlands activist, said she endorsed Bonin after hearing his ideas for bringing government closer to the people and promoting nature in the city.

"He's got good values and instincts, and he also knows the inner workings of City Hall and its bureaucracy," she said in an email. "If he does as he says — getting and staying close to the constituents — he will not be so captured by City Hall as some think he is."

martha.groves@latimes.com

Times researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

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Persistent strain of TB claims victims on L.A.'s skid row

Public health officials have launched a new, coordinated attack to contain a persistent outbreak of tuberculosis on downtown Los Angeles' skid row, including a search for more than 4,500 people who may have been exposed to the disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dispatched scientists to Los Angeles to help local health officials determine why the disease is spreading and how to stop it.

Officials say 11 have died since 2007. Sixty of the 78 cases were among homeless people who live on and around skid row.

Scientists have recently linked the outbreak to a tuberculosis strain that is unique to Los Angeles, with a few isolated cases outside the area.

"This is the largest outbreak in a decade," said Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. "We are really putting all of our resources into this."

Health workers have identified about 4,650 people who were probably exposed and are trying to track them down for testing and treatment. Local and federal officials are particularly concerned because the cases are linked to one relatively small geographic area and one vulnerable population. But officials are concerned that the outbreak could spread beyond skid row if action isn't taken.

Homeless people are especially at risk of getting TB and of being undiagnosed because they have poor hygiene and nutrition, limited access to healthcare and ongoing contact with infected people. Transmission of the airborne disease is also common because the homeless live in overcrowded areas and are constantly moving among hospitals, shelters and the streets. Many homeless people also have substance abuse or mental health issues that can impede treatment.

"They go from place to place and the likelihood of passing it along is much greater," said Paul Gregerson, chief medical officer of the JWCH Institute, which runs a homeless healthcare program on skid row. "It makes everybody more susceptible."

Tuberculosis is easily transmitted by inhaling droplets from infected patients when they sneeze, cough or laugh. When left untreated, TB can be deadly. The skid row strain can be treated with all anti-TB medications. Treatment lasts six to nine months.

The public health department issued an alert several weeks ago to doctors at emergency rooms, clinics and urgent care centers informing them about the investigation within the homeless community.

Most of the patients are men and about 20% are also HIV-positive, according to the alert, which was obtained by The Times. Six of the eight patients who also had HIV have died.

The increase of TB among the homeless population is occurring even as the county is seeing a decline in overall cases, officials said. There are probably additional cases among the homeless population that have not yet been confirmed.

The health department also issued new guidelines for shelters earlier this year on how to effectively screen and identify patients at risk of tuberculosis. The guidelines urge shelters to appoint a TB liaison and to create a "cough alert" log for tracking patients with persistent coughs.

The county also recommended that shelters determine if incoming clients have been screened and refer those who haven't been to health providers.

The county suggests that all employees and volunteers also be screened for TB because they are also at risk.

As part of the ongoing investigation, the public health department asked shelters last week for information about everybody who has used their services. In the Feb. 12 letter, Los Angeles County TB Control Program acting Director Peter Kerndt said that the information "is necessary to investigate the increase in TB cases so that appropriate steps can be taken to prevent and control the spread."

Officials at local shelters said they are committed to working with public health officials.

"We're trying to understand the urgency of what the CDC and L.A. County Health is doing," Midnight Mission spokeswoman Mai Lee said.

"It does raise questions and concerns."

At the Union Rescue Mission's health clinic, officials said they are taking a much more proactive approach to TB screening — going to the patients rather than waiting for them to come to the clinic.

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Lack of immigration reform threatens California farmers

SACRAMENTO — Except for illegal immigrants, no group has more at stake in the national fight over immigration reform than California farmers.

"It doesn't pay to plant a product if you can't harvest it," notes Mark Teixeira of Santa Maria, who says he had to let 22 acres of vegetables rot last year because he couldn't find enough field hands to gather the crop. "That hurts."

As security has tightened along the California-Mexican border, the flow of illegal immigrant labor into the nation's most productive agriculture state has slowed significantly, farm interests say.

"It's very difficult to find crews compared to three or four years ago," reports Greg Wegis, a fifth-generation Kern County farmer who grows cherries, almonds, pistachios and tomatoes, among other crops.

Last year, Wegis had to cancel a cherry pick for lack of labor. "It cost me several thousand dollars."

"Migrant workers are moving to other states that are friendlier and where there's less likelihood of getting harassed and deported," he says.

"Obviously [the feds] are doing a better job at the border. Which is great. But it definitely is putting the squeeze on our industry."

Any time some demagogic politician bellows about rounding up all the illegal immigrants and shipping them back to their own country, it sends chills up farmers' spines.

Roughly two-thirds of the state's crop workers "are not properly documented," says Rayne Pegg, who heads the federal policy division of the California Farm Bureau.

"I'm not proud to say I hire illegal aliens," says Teixeira, whose family has been farming for five generations. "Everyone has to show 'documentation.' But I don't work for [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Bottom line, if I have to verify everyone, I'm not going to be able to harvest my crop."

One federal program designed to allow temporary entry of foreign agriculture workers — called H-2A — fails in California because "it's fraught with bureaucratic nightmares," Pegg says. "The federal government doesn't act timely enough for picking and harvesting."

At the harvest peak last September, California had 453,000 agriculture workers, according to the state Employment Development Department. They averaged about $13 per hour. Most pay is based on a work crew's production.

Some farmers, like Teixeira, pay by the hour — $9 in his case, $1 over the state minimum wage. "We also provide health insurance and a 401(k)," he says. And unlike San Joaquin Valley farmers, Teixeira offers a great climate along the ocean. But he still can't find enough hands for his 800 acres.

"Not just any bozo off the street can come in and harvest produce," he says, noting there's a special skill to, for example, cutting lettuce just right.

"Americans won't take these jobs," asserts Dave Puglia, senior vice president of the Western Growers Assn. "Not even the farmworkers raise their own children to take these jobs. It's hard work. And it's not unskilled labor."

California growers need a more reliable source of labor — one they believe would come from immigration reform. Workers would be here legally, able to move freely from farm to farm and able to cross back and forth across the border without worrying about being jumped by some federal agent.

There are an estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrants living in California, nearly one-fourth of the nation's 11 million total. They represent roughly 7% of the state's population. The vast majority — about 1.8 million — are employed.

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 72% of likely voters believe that illegal immigrants who have worked in this country for at least two years should be allowed "to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status." Only 25% think "they should be deported back to their native country."

Also, 54% feel that immigrants benefit California "because of their hard work and job skills." Conversely, 39% call them a burden "because they use public services."

Ironically, 60% of Republican voters consider immigrants a burden and only 33% see them as a benefit. That's their long-held view. But many big growers are Republican.

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Appeals court revives women inmates' bid for Wiccan chaplain

At the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, shown, inmates are contending in a lawsuit that California prison policy favors mainstream religions in violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment. (Los Angeles Times)

By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times

February 19, 2013, 3:48 p.m.

A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit Tuesday by female prisoners who contend that the California prison system is violating their rights by refusing to hire a full-time Wiccan chaplain.

A district court rejected the inmates' suit, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the inmates may have a valid claim.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation hires chaplains for five faiths: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Native American. Inmates of other religions are permitted to worship with those chaplains or with volunteer chaplains.

In their lawsuits, inmates at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla contend that the prison policy favors mainstream religions in violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment. The inmates said there were more Wiccans at the women's prison than there were Jewish, Muslim or Catholic prisoners.

Wicca is a pagan religion that involves witchcraft. If the inmates' allegations are true, the appeals court said, "The prison administration has created staff chaplain positions for five conventional faiths, but fails to employ any neutral criteria in evaluating whether a growing membership in minority religions warrants a reallocation of resources."

The court stressed that it was not suggesting the lawsuit should succeed. A lower court must now evaluate the evidence, including a survey of the religious affiliations of inmates at the prison, the panel said.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

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Surfers, Marines in a tussle over Trestles

A disagreement over a well-known slice of the Southern California coast is threatening to drive a wedge between Marines and surfers, groups that had recently set aside differences and become political allies.

At issue is the 2.25-mile stretch of surf and sand known as Trestles, between the San Onofre nuclear plant and the San Diego County-Orange County line. The name comes from two train trestles that parallel the ocean.

To wave riders, Trestles represents seven of the primo surf breaks in the world. To Marines, the middle section of the 2.25 miles is an ideal location to teach grunts how to fight their away from ship to shore and inland.

With the San Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation in the lead, surfers petitioned to have Trestles listed on the National Register of Historic Places, for its role in the rise of "surf culture." Surfers hope the listing will ensure that nothing will disrupt the site's isolation and lack of "commercial growth."

The Marine Corps, which owns the beach and the paths leading to it, opposes having Trestles listed, out of concern that the designation might lead to civilian oversight that crimps training.

The skirmish is not over, but so far the surfers appear to be winning.

Despite opposition from the Marine Corps and the Navy, the State Historical Resources Commission voted unanimously Feb. 8 to forward a recommendation to Washington that Trestles be listed.

The decision now rests with the civilians who run the National Register, which is part of the National Park Service.

The recommendation "does not and will not impose any additional requirements for consultation for military training and operational use," according to documents supporting the Trestles nomination.

"This is a historic designation, it does not change the use of the property," said Amy Crain, a state historian.

But military brass and two state senators aren't buying the assurances that nothing will keep the Marines from using what is called Green Beach for mock assaults, or for other exercises involving heavy vehicles traveling between the beach and the open spaces of Camp Pendleton.

Military officials "believe these assurances to be unenforceable," Brig. Gen. Vincent Coglianese, commanding general of Camp Pendleton, wrote to the state historic preservation officer before the commission vote.

State Sens. Mimi Walters (R-Irvine) and Mark Wyland (R-Escondido), in a joint statement, warned that listing Trestles will "put state bureaucrats and surfers in control of Marine Corps training near Trestles."

From World War II to 1971, the Marine Corps was in control of the entire 2.25 miles. But after prodding from then-President Nixon, a part-time resident of San Clemente, the military leased the property to the state to establish San Onofre State Beach.

Of course, even before the Trestles breaks — Uppers, Lowers, Middles, Church, the Point, Old Man's and Dog Patch — were open to the public, intrepid surfers were attracted by the near-perfect waves.

"For well over 25 years, surfers carried on guerrilla warfare with U.S. Marines," according to a California Department of Parks and Recreation history of the area. "Trespassing surfers were chased, arrested and fined."

One of those who fondly remember those days is Bruce Johnston, later a member of the Beach Boys singing group.

"We even had to outrun 18-year-old Marines from Oklahoma trying to chase us away," Johnston wrote in support of listing Trestles as a historic place. "… It was a great experience!"

In 1963, Trestles was mentioned in "Surfin' USA," the Beach Boys song that became an anthem for a suddenly surf-obsessed generation. Beach Boy Mike Love has joined Johnston in supporting Trestles as a historic site.

Trestles would be the first surf spot to be listed as such, state officials said. Before its vote, the state commission received more than 1,300 letters about Trestles — 1,235 in support, 112 in opposition, a record for any proposed historic designation.

With the opening of San Onofre beach, relations between surfers and Marines have mellowed. Surfers have enjoyed the breaks and, for the most part, have stayed away from Green Beach, which is posted with "keep out" signs.

The two sides had united in opposition to extending the 241 Toll Road south through Camp Pendleton to Interstate 5. The California Coastal Commission has nixed the extension, but the proposal remains alive for possible reconsideration.

Much of the dispute over Trestles involves whether it can be considered Southern California's preeminent surf spot — or whether that distinction belongs to Huntington Beach, Santa Cruz or perhaps Blacks Beach in La Jolla.

Trestles "appears to be just one of hundreds of such relative nondescript good surfing beaches around the U.S." and thus does not qualify for historic status, wrote Donald Schregardus, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy and a federal preservation officer.

The surfers disagree, on grounds that are more aesthetic than legalistic.

"Trestles still rocks in 2013," Johnston wrote.

tony.perry@latimes.com

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Former O.C. attorney suspected of killing ex-wife on cruise

A former Orange County attorney has been arrested on suspicion of killing his ex-wife for financial gain in 2006 by strangling her and throwing her overboard while on a cruise along the Italian coast, authorities said.

Lonnie Kocontes, 55, a former Mission Viejo resident, was arrested Friday at his home in Safety Harbor, Fla., in connection with the death of Micki Kanesaki, 52, of Ladera Ranch, authorities said. He is charged with one felony count of special circumstances for financial gain.

If convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of life in state prison without the possibility of parole and would be eligible for the death penalty, authorities said. Kocontes, who is being held without bail, faces extradition proceedings at a date to be determined.

He is accused of financially benefiting from Kanesaki's death because he was the beneficiary of several of their bank accounts and was receiving the proceeds from the sale of their home, authorities said.

The couple divorced in 2001 and were in the midst of a court battle when they decided to put aside their rancor and take a Mediterranean vacation together.

Kocontes is suspected of killing his wife on the night of May 25, 2006, or the morning of May 26, by strangling her and throwing her body overboard, authorities said.

At the time, Kocontes reported his wife missing. He told authorities that the couple had been in bed when about 1 a.m. Kanesaki stepped out to get a cup of tea to help her relax and never returned.

Her body was found on the morning of May 27 by the Italian coast guard, floating in the sea near Reggio di Calabria.

"I wish I knew what happened," Kocontes was quoted as saying at the time. He told authorities that his former wife had previously talked of suicide.

But an autopsy revealed Kanesaki had been strangled, authorities said.

Kocontes is accused of attempting to transfer $1 million between various banks accounts with his new wife, Katherine, in 2008, authorities said. The FBI began investigating the money transfers for possible illegal activity and the U.S. attorney's office ultimately seized the money from Kocontes' bank account. A civil asset forfeiture case was subsequently filed in U.S. District Court in California.

The Orange County district attorney's office was contacted about the case and subsequently the county Sheriff's Department relaunched its criminal investigation, authorities said.

On Wednesday, the district attorney's office filed its murder case against Kocontes.

The FBI and the Sheriff's Department are continuing the investigation.

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

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Soledad re-brands itself as the 'Gateway to the Pinnacles'

SOLEDAD, Calif. — For decades the slogans have sought to entice motorists who pull off Highway 101 in this Salinas Valley farm town — usually for gas or a cup of coffee — to stay and visit a while.

"It's Happening in Soledad," declares a billboard that looms over the asphalt artery.

"Soledad: Feel the Momentum" urge the stone markers planted at the town's highway exits.

Now city officials think they have seized on an idea to provide the economic boost the community desperately needs: "Gateway to the Pinnacles."

"This is our chance," Mayor Fred Ledesma said recently, "and it's never going to pass this way again."

The Pinnacles' volcanic spires and talus caves are located five miles east of here, in the Gabilan Mountains. A release site for endangered California condors and a haven for rock climbers, the landscape also hosts a stunning wildflower season, 400 species of bees and more than a dozen types of bats.

A national monument since 1908, the area last month was elevated to national park status thanks to lobbying by federal, state, county and local officials throughout the region.

The change likely will benefit many communities, because national parks bring tourism. And tourism brings dollars.

Hollister, for example, sits 30 miles north of the park's eastern entrance — and Pinnacle's only campground.

But Soledad, whose only association for many people is the state prison here, perhaps has the most to gain.

At the urging of Ledesma and Adela Gonzalez, Soledad's city manager, the City Council in December hired a San Jose public relations firm to help re-brand the town. They set aside $150,000 for new river rock monuments touting Soledad's gateway status (it sits outside the park's west entrance). And officials snapped up nine Web domain names, among them: gatewaytopinnacles.com, gatewaytopinnaclesnationalpark.com and so on.

"It's been a month since the bill was signed, and we have not stopped jumping up and down," Gonzalez said. "We've been screaming it off the rooftops."

Incorporated in 1921, the town of 17,000 residents (prisoners not included) is named for the 18th century Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. It served as a backdrop for John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." Ledesma readily recites the opening line: "A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green."

While life here has been driven largely by agriculture — Ledesma and Gonzalez both are children of farmworkers — the economic boom of the late 1990s took the town by storm. Housing development soared; Soledad got its first and only shopping center. By the mid-2000s, this was among the fastest growing California communities of its size.

Then everything came to a halt. "Clearly we need a more thriving sales tax base," Gonzalez said.

The "gateway" designation may help provide it.

For example, a dozen well-regarded Monterey County wineries happen to sit within five miles of Soledad. Ledesma said that Carmel's mayor recently told him that the town would point tourists Soledad's way for winery tours and park visits.

Still, Gonzalez said, Soledad's success will turn on the foresight of its entrepreneurs — who could seize the chance to rent out bikes or rock climbing gear to park-goers, launch van tours, improve lodging opportunities or expand dining options.

It won't be easy.

Andrea Nield, director of Cal State Monterey Bay's small business development center, said the farming community is "used to things being the way they've been forever." The center still serves businesses there, but its small Soledad office recently was shuttered for lack of walk-ins.

Most retailers near downtown, a stretch of Front Street that parallels the highway, cater to farmworkers and their families: There are bakeries, discount stores and small Mexican restaurants that offer authentic seafood dishes as well as caldo de res and costillas. Sunday and Monday store closures, Gonzalez said, will need to be a thing of the past for tourism to thrive.

Some merchants are enthusiastic about the opportunity.

Sergio Gastelum, 44, opened El Camaron Mexican Grill with his brother seven months ago. The Mazatlan native, who has been in Soledad 14 years, recently leased an adjoining banquet room that would be perfect for tour groups. If the park designation "brings new people, new tourists, new customers to Soledad," said Gastelum, "it will benefit everyone."

At the official unveiling of the national park sign, held Monday on the east side, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said Pinnacles was now on par with the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone as being among the "iconic places of the United States of America."

"There will be a whole lot more people coming to this area," he told the crowd gathered in winter afternoon light.

Sitting in his office shortly before the event, Ledesma was philosophical, sharing a John F. Kennedy quote he'd come across that morning.

"There are risks and costs to a program of action," he recounted, "but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."

Then he paused. "That's us right now."

lee.romney@latimes.com

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Action on L.A.'s parking ticket problem is overdue

Parking tickets are a big deal in Los Angeles. For years, the city has been jacking up fines, which slams many low-income renters and young people who live in tightly packed neighborhoods where they have to fight over street parking.

Most politicians don't want to talk about it because parking fines are a big part of the city's revenue. Those tickets bring in $150 million a year. When the city runs into money problems — as it always does — it's the easiest thing in the world to raise fines instead of running afoul of unions, developers and political donors.

For the sixth time in seven years, the City Council voted last year to jack up parking fines by $5. The latest hike boosted the penalty for a street sweeping citation to $73.

That's a heavy price to pay, and it's $30 more than what violators pay for the same offense in neighboring cities, such as Torrance and El Segundo. In neighborhoods like Koreatown and Pico Union, which were built before garages and carports were needed, there is nowhere to park for blocks and blocks when the yellow dirt-sucking trucks lumber by.

In this campaign season, it seemed important to get mayoral candidates on the record about parking tickets, specifically about one issue that is even more irritating than getting a ticket: appealing one.

Out there in the city, there are thousands of people for whom appealing a ticket is akin to trying to get out of Siberia.

Lucky for us, this is something the city can actually do something about. The contract is up for the private company, Xerox State and Local Solutions, now running the Parking Violations Bureau. Department of Transportation staff has recommended a five-year extension for Xerox, which had been operating on five-year contract that cost the city $86 million.

When I asked the mayoral candidates at a forum last week about Xerox's work, their responses were somewhat mushy.

City Councilman Eric Garcetti "will review the DOT contract recommendation when it comes to council," a spokesman said in an email. After which, Garcetti will "clearly take a position by voting yes or no."

City Controller Wendy Greuel, City Councilwoman Jan Perry and Emanuel Pleitez, a former tech exec, took similarly strong positions, saying they will closely review the contract when it comes to them.

Only Kevin James, a former prosecutor, promised to oppose the contract extension, saying, "I would vote against it."

Here's the issue with Xerox in a nutshell: Since Xerox took over, a group of people in the city says the company has been trying to keep more parking revenue by stonewalling attempts to fight tickets.

Jeff Galfer, an actor who lives in Atwater Village, filed a class-action lawsuit in January, claiming Xerox doesn't really consider their cases but just sends form letters stating that their appeals have been rejected. Then, when motorists try to appeal to the Department of Transportation, Xerox slaps them with late payment fees and penalties.

Galfer's case started with a $68 parking ticket in 2011. He paid, but he's mad.

The city's data on tickets seem to back up Galfer's claim that Xerox is rejecting too many appeals. Last year, the city dismissed thousands of tickets after Xerox had rejected the drivers' appeal — vindicating the small percentage of intrepid souls who managed to bring their case to City Hall.

City transportation spokesman Jonathan Hui said the dismissals are evidence that the city gives citizens a fair chance to beat their tickets.

Xerox would not comment on the litigation, but spokesman Chris Gilligan said that the company has been "successfully providing parking services to drivers and communities for 30 years, including our work in L.A."

Galfer, who started an online petition with hundreds of signatures against the parking bureau, finds both the city's and Xerox's statements hilarious. "I haven't talked to one person who got out of a ticket, ever," he said.

City staff has backed renewing Xerox's contract, saying in a report that the company provides "excellent services," although it has had "occasional challenges they had to work through."

The report did not specify what "occasional challenges" it was referring to, but perhaps the staff meant that flap concerning the "Gold Card Desk" a while back. That was the program that let City Hall insiders and their friends get expedited review of their tickets.

James, who shows no campaign contributions from Xerox on the city website, says the gold card matter was reason alone to drop Xerox.

"As far as I'm concerned [their] willingness to let that happen should end their contract," he said.

Greuel has received $4,750 in political donations from Xerox, its employees or its predecessor company since 2002, according to a Times analysis. Perry took in $2,000 since 2003; Garcetti and Pleitez have nothing from Xerox listed on the site.

Greuel said she has been tough on the company. As city controller, she issued three harsh audits that uncovered, among other problems, $440,000 the city paid for processing tickets that were voided. "I was critical" of the company, she said, adding that political contributions don't "have an influence on me."

Her focus was on the company's failure to squeeze money out of scofflaws, not on how hard it is to appeal a ticket.

Later, Greuel called back and said she had directed her staff to start an audit of the bureau's appeal process. Greuel said she was not comfortable going forward with the contract "without looking at all the concerns."

The problems with the process are just part of a bigger picture in which no one in power seems to want to talk about how expensive our tickets have gotten.

Times are tough. But really, enough is enough.

gale.holland@latimes.com

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Aisles of treats from the Emerald Isle

When the luck of the Irish holds, the lovers buy Claddagh rings for their valentines, frat boys gearing up for St. Paddy's Day go for Guinness caps with built-in bottle openers — and come Christmas, there's a run on plum pudding and St. Nicks in Kelly green.

But holidays alone don't explain how a small Irish store survives year after year in a Hollywood mini-mall.

The plain brown shopping complex set back from Vine Street houses the usual suspects: a pawnshop, check cashing, Thai massage, tattoos. You see them without really seeing them — which makes the one surprise easy to miss.

The Irish Import Shop, which opened 50 years ago, is wedged between a dry cleaner and a nail salon. It has a neon shamrock in the window, and the blinds stay partly drawn to save the tapestries and woolens from fading.

Open the door and you might well sniff the scent of an Irish hearth — which, granted, is really a thumbnail tab of peat in a ceramic, cottage-shaped incense burner. Still, there's real Irish music playing (if the stereo's not on the fritz). And the lady behind the counter has a brogue, if slightly faded by years in California.

The phone rings, and Anne Colburn answers with a lilt. And here you discover the shop's secret, even today where on the Internet you can get anything without talking to anyone.

"It certainly is, and I know who this is," Colburn says. "Yeh, now, wait a minute here now — how much tea will you be wanting?"

Longing for home when you're far from it can take many forms.

You might yearn for familiar sounds, the hills and valleys of your people's speech.

You might miss the easy shorthand of shared experience.

You might desperately crave particular tastes, especially the comfort foods of childhood.

Throughout the store are many balms for the far-from-Ireland blues: Celtic crosses, Kerry capes, socks from Connemara, embroidered "ABCs of Ireland" baby books (P as in potatoes), hangings with the Irish blessing that starts, "May the road rise up to meet you…"

In the import shop's northernmost aisle, however, are more international cures.

Here are Irish and British teas shipped straight (and so not modified for American tastes), Cadbury Curly Wurly bars, Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, McVitie's Jaffa Cakes and tall bottles of Ribena, a drink syrup made with black currants. A freezer holds Irish sausage, thick slabs of Irish-style bacon, tubes of black pudding and white pudding. And then there is the stack of canned Heinz baked beans — British style, in tomato sauce.

Into this aisle each day come the Brits and the Australians, people from the Caribbean, Canada, South Africa — many linked by lifelong habits of eating said beans on toast.

When Kessa Taylor, pregnant and homesick, walked in a few months ago, "I stood in the aisle and cried," she said.

"It's stuff that you were raised on. It runs so deep," said the 33-year-old who grew up in Wales and London.

Annie Jones started the shop with her husband, Richard, known as Jonesy, back when the Irish emigrated in large numbers and Jonesy still drove a bus. On Sundays, he had an Irish radio show, and people wanted to buy the music he played.

But it was the shop's food offerings that really took off.

"The English and the Irish," Annie Jones said when she stopped by recently for a visit. "They definitely agree on the tea and the biscuits and the bacon."

And as they stand together in the aisle, admiring the tins of custard and the digestive biscuits and the marmalades and the Marmite, they invariably agree on other things too — not least of which that in this little shop, they find themselves wonderfully at home.

nita.lelyveld@latimes.com

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Report excoriates L.A. County agency in child deaths, torture

A stifling bureaucracy and inept workforce have crippled Los Angeles County's child protective agency, resulting in a system that allowed children to remain in unsafe homes, sometimes to die at the hands of their caretakers, according to a confidential county report.

The investigation, conducted by an independent counsel for the Board of Supervisors, looked at 15 recent child deaths and a torture case. In all but two instances, investigators found that casework errors began with the agency's first contact with the children and contributed to their deaths.

The report is the harshest assessment of the Department of Children and Family Services in recent memory, echoing complaints from child advocates that the county has rejected for years.

Investigators largely blamed the department's problems on its decision to place its least experienced social workers in its most crucial job: assessing dangers to children. Many of those workers — facing a total of 160,000 child abuse hot line calls each year — are "just 'doing their time,'" according to the report.

Supervisors are poorly qualified and often disregard policy, creating a situation akin to "the blind leading the blind," with workers rarely held accountable for "egregious" errors, the report said.

The result has been deaths that might have been prevented had social workers taken basic steps to assess the risks.

Two-year-old Abigail, for example, was returned to her parents after social workers failed to look into their extensive abuse history and question their weekend stays in jail for prior offenses.

A month later, Abigail was found dead, covered in bruises that the parents allegedly attempted to conceal with blue paint.

Viola Vanclief, 2, allegedly was killed by her foster mother, Kiana Barker. Before Viola's death, the county's child abuse hot line received seven complaints about Barker. Each time, the investigating social worker was unaware of the previous calls, according to the report, which was obtained by The Times through a source.

Philip Browning, who became the agency's permanent director two months before the report was completed in April, recently embarked on a reorganization involving new assignments, training and procedures for many of the department's 6,800 employees.

The report's lead author, Amy Shek Naamani, has been hired by Browning and placed in a senior position to help guide the effort.

The four-year blueprint for reform — the first comprehensive effort in a decade — covers many of the recommendations outlined in the report. Browning said his goal was to restore "common sense, accountability and critical thinking" to the county's child welfare network.

"It's important for people to know that this can't happen overnight," he added.

The report found that many of the department's errors were rooted in its guiding strategy to keep children with their families and avoid "detention" — putting them in foster care.

Though that preference is necessary when the child is not at substantial risk, social workers became blind to dangerous family situations, according to the report.

"Individual offices and leadership [within the agency] celebrated as their number of detentions decreased and individual social workers were praised for low detention numbers; all while more children were dying while left in their parent(s) care," the report said.

Investigators focused on weaknesses in the department's emergency response section, which looks into complaints to the child abuse hot line and often is the first posting for rookie social workers.

The report found a "general lack of skill" among those caseworkers. Rules requiring master's degrees in social work have been waived for half of the department's frontline personnel and all of their supervisors.

Once hired, "every warm body" was "passed through" by the department's training academy, spending just four hours learning how to pull information from often reluctant subjects, the report said.

Investigations tend to rely on bureaucratic rules, not common sense and close observation, the report found. The department has issued more than 4,000 pages of policies detailing how social workers should do their jobs.

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