Wednesday, 5.17.06

The news for Ron Howard and the Da Vinci clan isn't good, higher trash fees slam through the City Council, and the Coliseum remake isn't far behind. Those items and a bunch more—including Battlin' Janice Hahn, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in a refund frame of mind and those L.A. Clippers—when you click on the Buzz to turn the page.

♦ Front pages and news links

♦ Holy moly: Defamer takes a first cut at rounding up the disappointment trickling in about The Da Vinci Code. This dispatch from Cannes on FilmStew has to hurt:

"The feeling moved quickly from one of great anticipation to one of, shockingly, great boredom...instead of the film building to a white knuckle conclusion, it was the audience fidgeting as Da Vinci passed the two-hour mark and unveiled the first of its half-dozen endings...by the time the big climactic moment of the film finally arrived, the audience burst out laughing, as if this were yet another classic bit of Tom Hanks comedy. As the credits rolled, not a single bit of applause was heard."

♦ Antonio rules: The City Council didn't pretend to debate the mayor's trash fee hike before passing it on Tuesday, along with the rest of the city budget. Times, Daily News:

The vote means that the trash bills of most L.A. residents will more than double in the next four years...With the council's approval of the fee hike, Villaraigosa has achieved what his predecessor, James K. Hahn, had long promised but could not deliver: a significant budget increase for the LAPD to hire more officers. The hike, and the police buildup it is intended to support, were the centerpieces of Villaraigosa's $6.7-billion budget, the first he has submitted since being elected mayor last year.

♦ Janice?: A security guard at the LAX Hilton says he was injured Friday when struck by Councilwoman Janice Hahn during a demonstration at the hotel where a labor dispute rages on. Amilcar Sanchez filed a battery complaint with the LAPD.

Sanchez alleged in an interview that Hahn struck him with a fist and elbowed him hard as she and the crowd pushed past him...A viewing of the tape shows a woman who appears to be Hahn leading the workers as they walk up to and through a line of security officers. On the tape, her right arm is visible moving toward Sanchez's chest, but he turns and blocks the view, so the alleged punch to the chest is not visible. She is next seen raising her right arm as the crowd pushes from behind, and her elbow swings so that its point makes contact with Sanchez's upper arm. When asked if it appears Hahn assaulted Sanchez, Coonley, the hotel general manager, said: "To me it looks that way."

Hahn, who has denied Sanchez's allegations, said any contact occurred as she was trying to maintain her balance while the crowd pushed from behind. "I remember it differently. I remember them pushing me," Hahn said. "If in any way I hurt them, I certainly didn't intend to."

♦ No brainer: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher now says he will return the $23,000 he received for a screenplay option from Joseph Medawar, the Hollywood producer who pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding dozens of investors in a bogus TV series about the Department of Homeland Security.

♦ Rushing for a touchdown: Plans to reinvent the Coliseum to please the NFL sailed through the city Planning Commission Tuesday and could come to a vote in the City Council on Friday, the Daily News says. Linda Dishman of the Los Angeles Conservancy says the work envisioned could cost the Coliseum its status as a national landmark.

"You've got a mentality of people who want to get it done at any cost," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who also is a member of the Coliseum Commission. "I caution everybody: It's not football über alles."

♦ Playoffs fever: The Clippers lost in double OT, 125-118, and now face elimination. The Suns lead the series 3-2. I saw a shrine of newspaper sports pages devoted to the Clippers on the wall of the Santa Monica DMV office yesterday.

♦ It's one filter: The Times' opinion staff put a researcher on finding out how many of the LABJ's 50 wealthiest Angelenos were born outside the U.S. They came up with ten and remark on the Borderline blog, "Questions of whether they arrived legally or illegally were difficult to ascertain."

♦ Immigration arrests: Eight employees of the Department of Water and Power were arrested for working in the U.S. on expired visas or having convictions that made them ineligible for green cards. It's part of a Homeland Security crackdown on workers at sensitive facilities, and since the DWP operates the L.A. water octopus....

♦ Read it and weep: Matt Gross's Frugal Traveler assignment from the New York Times for the next 90 days is to travel around the world on the cheap and write about it once a week. Today Portugal, next week Galicia. Ingrate.

♦ Pretty good lede: "It was exactly 40 years ago today that I, a WASPy, Southern-bred Newsweek reporter in a Brooks Brothers suit and a crew cut, was attacked and almost beaten to death by angry blacks in a melee on a smoggy street in South-Central Los Angeles," Karl Fleming writes on the LAT op-ed page.

♦ Power of six: The cities of South Gate, Bell, Huntington Park, Cudahy, Maywood and Vernon are considering a joint powers authority to take more control of the L.A. Unified School District before Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gets hold of it.

♦ Correction o' the day: Would it be mischievous to wonder how many Times subscribers are left in Agua Dulce after this? From today's For the Record file:

Agua Dulce Airpark: An article in the May 5 California section about how the town of Agua Dulce is divided over plans to expand the local airpark identified the Agua Dulce Civic Assn. as an anti-airport group. The association opposes the airport's expansion but is not anti-airport. The article also incorrectly stated that the airfield has 10 hangars; it has 37. Also, the article was incorrect in stating that airpark owner Wayne Spears keeps his private helicopter at his mountaintop estate in Agua Dulce. He keeps the helicopter at the airpark.

♦ Author author: Gabe Rotter has sold Simon & Schuster a debut novel Duck, Duck Wally, following a struggling L.A.-based writer who takes an undercover side gig writing lyrics for the biggest gangster rapper in the music business.

♦ This day in 1974: Six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army died in a house fire in South Los Angeles after a shootout with police. At the time, kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst was traveling with the SLA, whose leader Donald DeFreeze died in the fire.