Morning Buzz: Wednesday 3.7.12

A 16-year-old student at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks won't be charged after police received a tip that he planned to bring a gun to school and kill a teacher and two students. LAT, DN

California would have to allot $700 million a year just to repay borrowed money for the first phase of high-speed rail construction. LAT

Fiscal conservatives seeking a constitutional cap on state spending suggested Tuesday they likely will wait until the 2014 ballot. Bee

Steve Lopez writes that L.A.'s Best, the after-school program, could really use the $100,000 that Carmen Trutanich pledged to donate if he ran for another office during his first term (which he's now doing, in violation of the pledge.) "It turns out Trutanich's check has not yet arrived." LAT

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana warned Tuesday that the city can no longer afford to pay raises that are due to roughly 20,000 of its workers July 1, and that dire consequences will result. LAT

While in Washington again today, Mayor Villaraigosa will appear on a political roundtable for Politico and be interviewed live on MSNBC by Andrea Mitchell. He'll also call for action on a transportation bill with Sen. Barbara Boxer and meet with Rep. Henry Waxman, according to the mayor's public schedule.

The embattled Coliseum Commission has taken to doing almost all its business behind closed doors, says the LA Times.

The Times argues in an editorial that the City Council should be at least double the size it now, with the members paid about half as much as they are now. LAT editorial

Papermag declares Eric Garcetti "the most viable mayoral candidate" and "the people's poltician," all because he, you know, lives in Silver Lake and tweets and says stuff like "My wife and I grow almost all of our own food...Chickens are in our near future." Papermag

Dennis Romero opines on Garcetti's claim to be a Chicano. LA Weekly

James Q. Wilson and Andrew Breitbart — "an elegant inquisitor and a nasty pugilist" — "represented two distinct veins of our national discourse, and of the tensions within modern conservatism," writes Jim Newton. LAT op-ed

Former lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamante has decided not to run for governor. Fresno Bee

Emmis Communications Corp., the parent of Los Angeles magazine, is fighting to keep its stock listed on the Nasdaq exchange after the price fell below $1. Indianapolis Star
Plus: Michael J. Petruncola was named associate publisher of Los Angeles. Via release

A teacher at Telfair Elementary in Pacoima charged with sexually abusing four children in had been prosecuted 15 years earlier for molesting a young neighbor, but he was allowed to return to the classroom after the trial ended in a hung jury. DN, LAT

Twin sisters Patricia and Joan Miller, 73, who appeared on television in the 1950s, were found dead in their South Lake Tahoe home. Police there are seeking help locating any family members. LAT

A Bobby Darin fan writes to say the claims about "Mack the Knife" being recorded at Radio Recorders in Hollywood are wrong, like the Beatles claim. "Bobby Darin recorded 'Mack the Knife' at the Atlantic Records studios in New York City in December 1958," says Laura Rice.

The entry deadline is March 15 for the legal fiction contest of the Journal of Legal Education and Southwestern Law School. Original short works of fiction related to law school or the practice of law will be judged by Michael Connelly, Denise Hamilton, Charles Rosenberg and Marshall Goldberg. Info

The Museum of the San Fernando Valley has gotten a temporary home in a vacant storefront at the Westfield Fashion Square mall in Sherman Oaks. DN

The Pioneer Cemetery in Sylmar is looking for "volunteer expert researchers who are very knowledgeable about genealogy" to help identify some of the remains in unmarked graves in the cemetery that was used between about 1889 and 1939. DN