The Los Angeles Times du lieu suivant : Los Angeles, California • Page 24

B4 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2000 LOS ANGELES TIMES oun CALIFORNIA A news summary -jr The Local Review DEVELOPMENTS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY The Regional Review Treasure Hunt mi i.iiiii inn 1J.U.....IIH i i.i ii ii i. i in u.i iiiiwB jiii.imin.li i. .1 hi linn. BOB CAHEY Los Angeles Times filled parking lot around the Santa Lorayne Christiansen, on vacation from Apache Junction, conducts a soggy treasure hunt with a metal detec DEVELOPMENTS IN ORANGE, RIVERSIDE, SAN BERNARDINO AND VENTURA COUNTIES Spending Plan for luuavvu ivivjucj vyppvovv ORANGE COUNTY Local groups plan to forge ahead with efforts to place a county initiative on the November ballot requiring that tobacco settlement money be spent on health care, state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) said Monday.

"We will be putting it together very quickly and getting it on the ballot as quickly as possible," he said. The announcement from Dunn, who has been the key figure in negotiations between the county and health care advocates over how to spend the tobacco cash, signals a willingness on the part of the medical community to take on the supervisors. The Orange County Medical Assn. is lobbying other health care advocates to join the effort, which must get started soon if it is to meet electoral deadlines for gathering signatures. However, Dr.

Brennan Cassidy, president of the Orange County Medical said his group does not want to stand alone in a campaign that could cost at 1 least $250,000. "We can't sav it is a eo until we know lira no Eiinnnn no ein it win a ti i UTi. take a week or two to assess the situation." Health care advocates and physicians oppose supervisors' plans to spend the vast majority of Orange County's $900-million share on jails and debt retirement. "The principle involved here is very important," said Sam Roth, spokesman for the local medical association. Supervisors could not be reached for comment.

Backers said it could cost about $150,000 to get the measure on the November ballot. They said they would have to hire a consulting firm to gather 71,206 valid signatures by May. Judge Denies Favoritism Toward Friend's Clients SANTA ANA Addressing allegations of" judicial misconduct for the first time, a retired Orange County judge on Monday i admitted acting inappropriately at times, but denied giving favorable treatment to, defendants represented by a longtime, friend. i The defense by Judge Luis A. Carde-1 nas came at the beginning of a hearing by the state Commission on Judicial Performance, which accused the 56-year-old: jurist of releasing 23 suspects over three' years at the request of defense attorney' Leonard Basinger or his daughter, who is also an attorney.

The hearing shed new light on what is considered one of the most serious court, misconduct cases in recent years. Orange1 County's former presiding judge, Theo-1 dore Millard, said that in the wake of the Cardenas allegations the court quietly1 investigated the actions of retired judges who sit on the bench and found no evidence of wrongdoing. The court has also tightened policies that officials said would make it difficult for retired judges to hand down questionable sentences. Cardenas strongly denied doing anything seriously wrong. "I treated Basinger like everybody else, no better, no worse," said who is defending himself at the hearing.

If found guilty of the charges, Carde-. nas could be publicly censured and barred from sitting on assignment in Superior Court. TO Judge Voids City Ban on Topless Bar TARZANA A Superior Court judge has overturned the recent Los Angeles City Council decision prohibiting a Tarzana bikini bar from going topless, but city officials said Monday they still hope to block the change. Judge Dzintra Janavs ordered the City Council to set aside its Dec. 15 action denying permission for Dino's Show Bar on Oxnard Street to convert to topless dancing.

She ruled that the city failed to show that there are other locations in Los Angeles where such a constitutionally protected business could operate legally. "Although reasonable people may question the wisdom of placing the burden on the city to find and identify specific available business locations for adult businesses, precedent, which this court must follow, so holds," Janavs said in the ruling dated Jan. 28 and received by attorneys over the weekend. Roger Diamond, an attorney for the Oxnard Street bar, said he believes the ruling requires the council to grant permission for topless dancing. But Deputy City Atty.

John Cotti said the judge remanded the issue to the council, which could revisit the application and provide the proper evidence to ban topless dancing in conformance with the judge's order. The council denied a request by the bar for an exception to operate an adult business within 500 feet of homes, saying there are plenty of other locations where the business could operate. But Diamond argued that because topless entertainment is constitutionally protected free speech, the city had an obligation to identify the locations. "The burden was on the city to demonstrate where there are places for us," Diamond said. "In my opinion, the judge's order gives us the exception." The judge gave Diamond until Feb.

9 to file a new proposed judgment. The court decision frustrated city officials and residents who had fought the bar. "I'm disgusted," said Helen Itria Norman, president of the Tarzana Property Owners Assn. "It's of great concern to the homeowners because it's an inappropriate location for that kind of business." Councilwoman Laura Chick of Tarzana said she has asked the city attorney to do whatever is necessary to make sure the council action is upheld. Janavs said the courts have spoken clearly on the issue of adult entertainment.

"Adult entertainment, including an entertainer's right to bare breasts, is constitutionally protected, although the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court observed that 'few of us would march our sons and our daughters off to war to preserve the citizen's right to see 'specified sexual activities' exhibited in the theaters of our Janavs wrote. Ex-Deputy Pleads Guilty in Internet Sex Case LOS ANGELES A former sheriffs deputy pleaded guilty Monday to using the Internet to solicit sex with an undercover FBI agent masquerading as a 13-year-old girl. Steven Eugene Brown, 41, who worked out of the sheriff's Lancaster station, is likely to receive an 18-month sentence under terms of a plea agreement. Brown has been in custody since Oct.

8, when he showed up at the Westside Pavilion shopping mall for a meeting with the girl. Prosecutors said Brown initiated sexually explicit conversations with the undercover agent in an Internet chat room for about a month before the meeting. He encouraged her to skip school that day so they could go to a motel to have sex, the government alleged. In exchange for his guilty plea, the prosecution agreed to drop a second charge of possessing child pornography. Brown will be sentenced April 24 by U.S.

Dist. Judge Margaret Morrow. A Sheriffs Department spokesman said Brown resigned after his arrest. As a convicted felon, he can no longer work in law enforcement. Mexico Drug Cartel Figure Pleads Guilty LOS ANGELES A man accused of running Los Angeles operations for Mexico's notorious Arellano-Felix drug cartel pleaded guilty Monday to federal narcotics drug and money laundering charges.

Jorge Castro Gastelum, 34, faces nearly 17 years in prison under a plea agreement negotiated with prosecutors. He did not agree to cooperate with authorities in his plea agreement, however. Castro was arrested in 1998 after a yearlong wiretap investigation that tracked him giving instructions for the delivery of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and the dispatch of drug proceeds back across the border. Eight suspected subordinates were arrested and all but one have pleaded guilty. Based in Tijuana, the Arellano-Felix organization is regarded as the most violent of the Mexican rings that dominate after the rain ended Monday morning.

the efficiency of the department has been reduced." A city spokesman could not be reached for comment. The results of the "no confidence" vote, taken at a Saturday association membership meeting, will be presented tonight to the Compton City Council, Aguirre said. In August, Compton city officials abruptly placed Police Chief Hourie Taylor and Capt. Percy Perrodin, the department's second in command, on administrative leave. At the time, city officials would not comment on the action.

The city still has not issued a public statement explaining why Taylor and Perrodin were placed on leave. "Our association has pledged to support Chief Taylor and Capt. Perrodin, who were removed from their positions without any cause," Aguirre said. "Police officers are tired of being embarrassed by the mayor." Mayor Omar Bradley is the target of a recall petition prompted by city staff problems, including the controversy over the removals. The petition has raised other questions about Bradley, including his vote to give $50,000 to a Meals on Wheels program run by his aunt, who is on the council.

It also challenged recent council votes to increase car allowances and provide credit cards to council members. County Seeking 1,250 Bilingual Poll Workers NORWALK Los Angeles County needs 1,250 poll workers with bilingual ability in various second languages for the March 7 election, Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said Monday. The "critical need" is for people who can speak English along with either Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese, she said. They are needed to help voters whose main language is not English. The poll workers will receive $55 for their service on election day (from approximately 6 a.m.

until 9 p.m.), and will have the opportunity to earn an additional $25 if they attend a training class. For information, call the registrar-recorder's polls section at (562) 466-1373. ySX I i 'x Pi tor in the puddle Monica Pier shortly donline.com). The lawsuit seeks an injunction shutting down the LAPD Web site and ordering Sheriff Lee Baca to purge the automated warrants system of outdated and erroneous information. As of late Monday, Gonzales' photo was still on the LAPD Web site.

The accompanying text indicated he was in custody. The police and sheriffs departments declined comment on the lawsuit, saying they do not discuss pending suits. School Bus Hits Curb; 4 Taken to Hospital ENCINO Students on a bus leaving Lanai Road Elementary School received minor injuries Monday afternoon when the vehicle abruptly hit a curb. Four children were taken to hospitals, reporting head or back pain. "We think the injuries are all minor," said Capt.

Rich Cotterall of the Los Angeles Fire Department, who was at the scene. "But any time someone especially kids complains of head or back pain, you have to take it seriously." About 20 other children were treated at the scene, Cotterall said. The bus, with 69 students aboard, was bound for an area just west of downtown Los Angeles. But as it left the Encino campus, it struck the curb, according to Los Angeles Unified School District authorities. "One child hit the seat in front of her," said district spokeswoman Hilda Ramirez.

"She complained of pain and the paramedics were called." Police Vote Criticizes Mayor, City Manager COMPTON The Police Officers Assn. overwhelmingly voted "no confidence" in the mayor and city manager as a result of last summer's removal of the city's police chief and a top captain, officers announced Monday. "The mayor and city manager have allowed the Police Department to become extremely politicized," said Det. Ed Aguirre, president of the association. "Morale within the ranks has deteriorated and Security Guard Slain by 2 Police Officers LONG BEACH A Sheriff's Department security guard was shot to death by police early Monday after he pointed a pistol at two patrol officers who had stopped his car, authorities reported.

Police said Alan T. Howard, 35, of Torrance was shot about 2:20 a.m. near Alamitos Avenue and 1st Street when he failed to obey commands to drop a handgun he had pulled from the interior of his 1998 Jeep Cherokee. Minutes before the shooting, police said they received a 911 call from a 21-year-old woman who had been a passenger in Howard's car and apparently fled in fear from his vehicle at Alamitos and Broadway. "She was frantic and very panicked," said Officer David Marander, a police spokesman.

"She believed her life was in jeopardy and her safety was immediately at risk." According to authorities, the officers who spotted the green Cherokee believed that Howard was searching for the woman because he was driving around Alamitos and Broadway, where she had escaped from his vehicle. Marander said the two officers pulled Howard over and he stepped from the the drug trade. In announcing the indictment of Castro and his alleged cohorts in July 1998, Atty. Nora Manella, now a federal judge, predicted the arrests "will significantly disrupt the domestic operations" of the Arellano-Felix organization. Since then, however, there has been no letup in the flow of narcotics from the Arellano-Felix syndicate into Southern California, according to federal and local drug agents.

In return for Castro's guilty plea to charges of possessing cocaine for sale and money laundering, prosecutors agreed to drop a charge accusing him of operating a continuing criminal enterprise, a crime that carries a life term. His sentencing is scheduled in March. U.S. Honors Caltech Chief, UCLA Professor LOS ANGELES-The president of Caltech and a renowned UCLA physiology professor were among the 17 recipients of the 1999 National Medals of Science and Technology, the White House announced Monday. Caltech President David Baltimore, a biology professor who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in medicine, was honored for "far-reaching, fundamental discoveries" in virology, molecular biology and immunology, the White House said.

The discoveries, a Caltech spokesman added, helped lead to a better understanding of how retroviruses reproduce. That, in turn, has led to a better understanding of cancer and AIDS, which is a retrovirus, the spokesman said. Jared Diamond, of the UCLA School of Medicine, was named for his ability to communicate science to the public and for his application of Darwinian evolutionary approaches to physiology, ecology, conservation biology and human history. Diamond won a 1998 Pulitzer Prize for his book "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies." President Clinton will present the awards, the nation's highest for science and technology, at the White House in March. "We honor these exceptional U.S.

scientists and engineers for their achievements, contributions and innovations that have sustained U.S. leadership across the frontiers of scientific and technological knowledge," Clinton said. The National Medal of Science, established by Congress in 1959, has been awarded to 374 scientists and engineers, including this year's recipients. The National Medal of Technology, created by Congress in 1980 to honor innovation in technology and global competitiveness, has gone to 110 individuals and 11 companies. Man Sues Over Listing on Police Web Site LOS ANGELES A construction worker filed a federal lawsuit against the sheriffs and police departments Monday, contending he was falsely arrested because of misinformation posted on the LAPD's Internet Web site and in the sheriffs automated warrant system.

Mark Gonzales, 35, was arrested and held for 11 hours on Jan. 11 until authorities realized he was not wanted for assault with a deadly weapon, according to his lawyer, Stephen Yagman. Yagman said Gonzales was booked on suspicion of beating up his landlord a year ago but that the case was dismissed when the district attorney's office declined to file charges. Nevertheless, he said, Gonzales continued to be listed as a wanted man in both the sheriffs automated warrant system and on the LAPD's Web site (www.lap- "rV RICK MEYER Los Angeles Times Long Beach officers examine Jeep Cherokee that slain suspect was driving. Cherokee.

As the officers walked up to wounding the security guard, Marander him, Howard reportedly reached back said. inside the vehicle and pulled out a pistol. According to the Sheriff's Department, When he failed to obey orders to drop Howard had worked for two years as a the gun, both officers opened fire, fatally security guard at county courthouses..