Jail bars New York Times Pellicano reporter
Allison Hope Weiner reportedly showed her State Bar of California ID to gain access to Anthony Pellicano at the Metropolitan Detention Center. She has worked at a law firm, but has never represented Pellicano or the NYT and has been breaking stories on the case for the paper. Pellicano reported her to jail officials and claims he was "outraged." From the
Los Angeles Times:
Michael Benov, warden of the detention center, issued an order in February saying that, for security reasons, no one could visit Pellicano except his lawyer or immediate family. After learning that Weiner was admitted to a room in the jail where prisoners meet with their lawyers, Benov ordered an investigation.
Guards brought Pellicano from his cell to the meeting room, but he refused to talk to Weiner after learning that she was a reporter.
A spokeswoman for the New York Times confirmed that Weiner had received a letter from Benov permanently barring her from the facility.
The spokeswoman, Diane McNulty, said the newspaper believed that the ban was unjustified and intended to appeal Benov's action to the regional director of the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Another blow for Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro
A state appeals court rules the entertainment law firm can be sued by a legal secretary who contends she was fired for reporting that Robert Shapiro inflated bills to clients, the
Times and L.A. Daily Journal say. Previously, partner Louis R. "Skip" Miller left to start his own firm and managing partner Terry Christensen was indicted in the Pellicano scandal.
Ten arrested at farm
Bulldozers
set to work despite protesters at South Los Angeles community garden. "The plants needed pruning," said owner Ralph Horowitz, rubbing salt in the wound.
Green Line politics
Last week,
LA Observed reported that Los Angeles World Airports chief Lydia Kennard thinks it would be a waste of money to extend the Green Line light rail the last 1.5 miles into LAX. On Wednesday, Councilman Bill Rosendahl sent out a press release calling the extension "about common sense and about bringing us into the 21st Century." Today's
LA Weekly also looks at the situation.
Puzzle in South Los Angeles
Cops don't know what to make of the
execution-style murders of three men — and the wounding of a twelve-year-old boy — last Friday on 49th Street.
CityBeat asks the big question about the future L.A.
If Los Angeles is going to add millions of new residents, won't traffic
just get worse? A lot worse? (Yes, and yes.) You could add: even with a subway, light rail, more buses and every traffic management tool ever invented, will street congestion in Los Angeles ever be lighter than it is today? (I gotta say no.)
Don't bet on Heidi Fleiss
The LA Weekly's Steven Kotler
tries to make sense of the former madam's talk of a stud farm in the Nevada desert. Prediction: It'll never happen. By the way, Fleiss now lives in Pahrump.
Finally decided, maybe
Assemblyman Ronald S. Calderon won by 305 votes in the 30th state Senate District Democratic primary, and Inglewood City Councilman Curren Price won by 113 votes in the 51st Assembly District, according to
county officials. In both districts, however, the apparent losers are still pondering whether to seek recounts.
Gets the OK
The City Council
approved construction of a large home next to the historic Wolford House in Mount Washington.
UTLA spreads the love
Cash donations to community groups that supported the union's school reform position are
questioned.
Talk about clean money
The City Council
moved closer to asking voters to commit $9 million a year to public financing of city political campaigns, and it might require a tax on residents.
'Sixth Supervisor' almost a free man
Los Angeles County CAO David Janssen, soon to leave the job, gets a
nice pre-sendoff from David Zahniser in the LA Weekly.
If you want to understand county politics, a good way to start is by attending a grade-school music recital, preferably one featuring a piano or another instrument that sounds good by itself.
Student solo recitals usually feature at least one child who flails. Maybe the child has trouble with a difficult passage, or is lost or even stops altogether. The audience of moms and dads sympathizes with the struggling would-be musician, and yet you can also find a disapproving look on a few parents’ faces: What’s wrong with this kid? Why isn’t he more prepared? Why is she wasting my time?
Watch the county officials who appear in public before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and the same standards apply: Do they crumble under pressure? Do they walk away from the dais humiliated? Do you feel sorry for them, even as they irritate you for making you feel pity?
Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen, the man who spent the past 10 years reporting to the county supervisors, never failed the piano-recital test. He remained the coolest of customers, a virtuoso who showed intelligence and humor as his bosses sought answers about the most unpleasant problems: hospitals on the brink of closure, inmate deaths, a crowded county morgue overstuffed with corpses.
Defending their guy
The Little Tokyo Community Council wants an investigation into the removal of James Okazaki as deputy general manager of the city Department of Transportation.
Rafu Shimpo reports the group believes that new LADOT chief Gloria Jeff acted in an "undignified…shameful and disrespectful" manner. Jeff refused to discuss it with the paper, calling Okazaki's ouster "a personnel matter and a union matter."
Diverse mysteries
Yesterday's LAT looked at the
set-in-Los Angeles books by mystery authors Paula L. Woods, Walter Mosely and Naomi Hirahara. Writes Anne-Marie O'Connor:
American popular fiction was once densely populated with the social realism of writers like John Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair. Today, these themes of social inequality have migrated to a new popular genre: crime and mystery, written by a new cast of ethnic and female authors who are transforming California's classic noir — and winning readers who are interested in a lot more than crime fiction.
Badge of honor?
Blogger Tabloid Baby was
denounced on the air by KFI's "John and Ken."
Mojave excerpt
Deanne Stillman's forthcoming book
Joshua Tree: Desolation Tango is excerpted in the July/August issue of
Orion magazine.
Desperation?
BBC reporter-turned-Hollywood wannabe
David Willis has turned to acting coach Ivana Chubbuck in hopes of meeting his goal of finding stardom before his six months leave is up.
She is a small woman, almost cadaverous, but there is something about her - a presence - which is impossible to ignore.
"I can tell you have issues," she says in the unwavering tone of one who knows these things. "We need to get in touch with them."
I had come to her because several months into my new career, I was still more of a ham than Miss Piggy.
When I first started acting classes, I had joked that the last time I had an emotion was in 1967.
LAUSD parents unite
Steve Barr of
Green Dot will unveil the Los Angeles Parents Union at 10 a.m downtown. Release says it will push the Small Schools Alliance’s Six Tenets of High-Performing Schools. "Whether it’s the Mayor or the LAUSD school board, we are ready to work with any party that wants to ensure all young Angelenos can attend small, safe public schools."
France vs Italy in the World Cup final
The match is Sunday in Berlin.
Kings Nation
The LAT's
Helene Elliott endorses the Kings' acquisition of aging star Rob Blake and spotty goaltender Dan Cloutier, but the team's
fan boards are up in arms. Especially about Cloutier, whose play for the Vancouver Canucks in recent years spurred derision in Canada and doctored photos of him being scored on by a beach ball.
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The New York Times' Pellicano reporter gets in trouble, politics of the Green Line, Los Angeles' pretty-horrible traffic future and an update on Heidi Fleiss. That and more morning news after the jump...
