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8516e64fb874e07e8ce3bbdbe8fb88a7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ca-2609-story.html | Rich Returns With New Spin on Old Idea : Radio: Bobby Rich says the new ‘Rich Brothers’ on KRMX will be a contrast to the more risque morning shows in town. | Rich Returns With New Spin on Old Idea : Radio: Bobby Rich says the new ‘Rich Brothers’ on KRMX will be a contrast to the more risque morning shows in town.
Once the king of the San Diego radio heap, Bobby Rich is sitting in a La Jolla restaurant explaining how the resurrected “Rich Brothers” concept will help bring ratings and credibility to the recently revamped KRMX-FM (94.9).
A big man, Rich is sporting his familiar beard, and he’s wearing what can only be described as Bobby-Wear--a light blue shirt, dark blue tie with little Teddy Bears on it, blue jeans and red high-top sneakers with yellow shoelaces. It is the look of a young executive in a state of arrested adolescence--which is how San Diegans have viewed Rich, off and on, for 15 years.
The new Rich Brothers will be only vaguely related to the old Rich Brothers, Rich says, just as the 38-year-old Rich is different than the Bobby Rich who first started programing KFMB-FM (B100) in 1974. Scott Kenyon, hired away from KKOS-FM in Carlsbad, is the only Rich Brother joining Rich at KRMX from the “B-Morning Zoo” lineup on B100, which was the most popular morning show in San Diego in the mid-'80s.
“The new Rich Brothers are definitely calmer, more mature, definitely less silly,” Rich says. “There are no funny noses. We’re even more like normal people.”
The “B-Morning Zoo featuring the Rich Brothers” featured a wacky, hip, scatter-fire approach that struck a chord with B100’s young, upwardly mobile audience. By 1989, though, the audience was diminishing and Rich left to take a job in Seattle.
“We were getting tired,” Rich says of the B-Morning Zoo. “It was ready to be revamped, and I was working on things that would have rejuvenated it” before leaving for Seattle.
Establishing the morning show is only one of the challenges facing Rich, who also serves as the program director for KRMX, which was known as KKYY-FM (Y95) until earlier this month. Faced with consistently mediocre ratings, in mid-January Sandusky Radio began firing almost all of the station’s key employees, including the general manager, program director and morning show.
Rich, who had reached an “amicable” separation from the Seattle station just a few days before the Y95 bloodletting became official, was hired by Sandusky to implement a new musical format, featuring the “the right mix of the ‘70s, ‘80s and today.”
Although that is just so much radio rhetoric to most listeners, Sandusky is attempting to place the station somewhere between the light tunes of KJQY (Sunny 103) and the adult contemporary format of Rich’s old employer, B100. The “new mix” features up-tempo pop standards by artists ranging from the Supremes to Elton John.
Rich is preaching that KRMX will be the home of “good, clean fun,” and that the new “Rich Brothers” will be a contrast to the more risque morning shows in town.
“Our idea of success will be to have a 35-year-old woman driving her 9-year-old and 15-year-old to school and have all of them not only find reasons to be entertained by the station, but also not to be embarrassed,” Rich says.
A veteran of the industry, Rich is accustomed to challenges. In 1973, he left popular KHJ in Los Angeles to become operations manager of KFMB-AM. A year later, general manager Paul Palmer tabbed Rich to convert the FM station from a beautiful music format to an adult contemporary station, B100.
Rich helped put the station on the San Diego radio map, leaving in 1979 to take a program director job in New York City. He bounced back to Los Angeles for stints at KHTZ and KFI before returning to B100 in 1984.
He came back with the idea of doing a multipersonality morning show, four individuals playing off of each other, doing skits and routines. The “B-Morning Zoo” soon became the top-rated morning show in San Diego. The quartet, which included Rich, Kenyon, Frank Anthony and Pat Gaffey, was a familiar sight at community events, San Diego Padres games and anywhere else they could be seen, including local television.
By 1989, though, with increased competition and changing community attitudes, the Zoo’s popularity was clearly waning. Its ratings had fallen into the middle of the pack. John Lynch, head of Noble Broadcasting, which operates XTRA locally, offered Rich the opportunity to be general manager of KMGI in Seattle, near where Rich grew up. Many believed that Lynch, a former KFMB employee, purposely hired Rich to damage his long-time rival, Palmer.
“I’m sure it was a factor,” Rich says of the rivalry, but he believes it was only a small part of the equation. He took the job for the opportunity to be a general manager.
“What brought me there was the opportunity that I didn’t think would ever exist in this town,” Rich says. “Plus, Seattle is a special town for me.”
After Rich left, B100 continued with the B-Morning Zoo for about six months before disbanding it and hiring “Jeff and Jer"--Jeff Elliott and Jerry St. James--from Y95.
“I think the Rich Brothers with four players could have continued,” Palmer says. “But when Bobby left it wasn’t the same.”
In Seattle, things didn’t work out the way Rich planned. As part of the terms of his contract settlement with Noble, Rich can’t discuss any details of his separation from KMGI, but he emphasized that he and Lynch are still on good terms.
“We were both frustrated by the inability to breakthrough the way we expected we could,” Rich says.
At KRMX, Rich is inheriting a station that has had problems breaking through for several years.
“We have never accomplished what we wanted to accomplish in San Diego,” Sandusky Radio president Norman Rau says. “It’s the one market that is really a thorn in my side.”
Industry insiders wonder if Rich and the “right mix” is enough of a niche to support the radio station. The multivoice zoo concept has faded in popularity all around the country.
Rich counters that he has learned some lessons from his recent experiences, and, above all, he knows San Diego.
“After doing something for five years, you learn a lot,” Rich says. “I had an opportunity not only to learn what we were doing right, but what we were doing wrong.”
Upon his return to San Diego, Rich evaluated the local morning shows and came to his own conclusions. There are three areas he believes the Rich Brothers can address to counter the current mishmash of prankster-style morning teams.
“What I’ve identified is that most morning shows talk a lot, so we’ll play a lot of music,” he says. “Many of them also feature off-color or gross content, so we will have good, clean fun.” Extensive traffic reports will be the other area spotlighted by the station.
“Those three things will be the key,” Rich says.
It is more than a little ironic that Rich has returned to do battle with, among others, “Jeff and Jer,” the team that supplanted the Rich Brothers at B100. Rich has nothing but praise for all the morning shows in town, but his competitive streak, his desire to be No. 1, is clearly visible.
“I didn’t come here to build a low-rise office building,” Rich says. “I came here to build a skyscraper.”
Rich also realizes he gave something up when he left San Diego two years ago. He now understands the security of spending time in a city, forming a relationship with an audience and a community.
The concept of “good, clean fun” may not set the world on fire, he acknowledges, but it fits into his long-term goals.
“I don’t want to move again,” he says. “I’d rather come here and be remembered as a nice guy on the radio.
“I don’t care if they say I’m a young Pat Boone. I’ll last.”
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805525428de6ceba1d371b898e2c5daf | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ca-2674-story.html | JAZZ REVIEW : Taylor and Lewis Fascinate | JAZZ REVIEW : Taylor and Lewis Fascinate
The duo-piano format may be one of the most rarely heard jazz instrumentations. It has been especially rewarding this season, therefore, to have had Marcus Roberts and Ellis Marsalis performing together recently in Pasadena and, on Tuesday night, the equally fascinating combination of Ramsey Lewis and Billy Taylor at El Camino College’s Marsee Auditorium.
Lewis and Taylor are not performers whose styles would ordinarily seem compatible for the starkly open, musically demanding format of two improvising pianists. And there were, particularly in the opening “Moten Swing,” moments when Lewis’ middle-of-the-beat accents had difficulty blending with Taylor’s boppish, on-top-of-the-beat style. In addition, both players’ tendency to employ left-hand simulations of walking bass lines as regular accompaniment to the prevailing solo line created a murky predictability to the improvised passages.
Those caveats aside, however, Lewis and Taylor found many ways to create some memorable music. John Lewis’ “Django” received a reading that perfectly perceived its unusual mixture of classical and jazz elements and “Body and Soul” showcased both players’ ability to create lyrical counterlines.
But the high point of the evening was a lengthy collection of Duke Ellington (and Ellington-inspired) pieces in which each pianist had the opportunity to extemporize. The performance provided testimony to the wealth of the Ellington catalogue and to its ability to trigger superb improvisational activity.
Lewis and Taylor’s view of “Mood Indigo"--collectively and individually--was worth the price of admission. The lovely, almost symbiotic interaction between the duo on this Ellington classic more than compensated for the uncertain fits and starts of their collaboration in the early part of the program.
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34b82973e43e2fd2ca6440c11ddba1eb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ca-2684-story.html | STAGE REVIEWS : Time Spoils ‘Everything in the Garden’ | STAGE REVIEWS : Time Spoils ‘Everything in the Garden’
Back in the mid-'60s, when Edward Albee wrote “Everything in the Garden,” things were obviously different. The sexual revolution was just under way, women’s roles had yet to be completely redefined, and the hostile reaction to materialism was at a simmer, threatening to boil over.
Although dismissed by critics when the play hit Broadway in 1967, this black comedy (adapted from an earlier work by Britain’s Giles Cooper) was still resonant of the era. The accepted opinion was that “Everything,” now revived at the Garden Grove Community Theatre, marked the first step in the decline of the major playwright who had written the searing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Nonetheless, it was a work of its time.
But now, it seems distractingly dated. Despite the connection with the conspicuous consumerism of recent years, it fails to generate the dramatic contemporary satire it should. The issues raised--keeping up with the Joneses, greedy opportunism at the expense of morality and conflicted attitudes about monogamy and promiscuity--always have relevance, but they come across here as old hat, almost cliches.
To director Ray Williams’ credit, he does try to give the play a timeless feel. No go-go boots, lava lamps or psychedelia in this production, just the fairly upscale suburban anonymity of Ken King’s comfortably arranged set. Williams also gets his cast to leave any ‘60s mannerisms behind--they, too, are pretty anonymous.
But he can’t shake the themes and aura of “Everything.” Maybe he should have radicalized its content, found some way to attach the play to a distinctly modern milieu. But that doesn’t happen at Garden Grove, and we’re left with a predictable tale about a husband and wife living beyond their means, the drastic step the wife takes when she joins up with a local prostitution ring to make ends meet, and the terrible act that follows.
It would also help if the actors were so expert they could get us to believe in the intimacy of the characters. Although Cleta Cohen and Don Casados are animated as the husband and wife, they don’t provide the subtle nuances common to a longtime couple; even when Cohen and Casados are making you laugh, it’s hard to believe that they’ve been married for several years. That makes bonding with them difficult--if we could, their comic predicament might be more appealing, and the play’s denouement more affecting.
There are a couple of good performances. Nancy Williamson is chillingly pragmatic as Mrs. Toothe, the aging but tough-minded dame who runs the bordello. And Keith McCarthy is starchily glib as Jack, the couple’s boozy next-door neighbor and the play’s narrator.
‘EVERYTHING IN THE GARDEN’
A Garden Grove Community Theatre production of Edward Albee’s play. Directed by Ray Williams. With Cleta Cohen, Don Casados, Howard Johnston, Keith McCarthy, Nancy Williamson, Barry Baxter, Felicity Luxton, Chuck O’Connor, Lorraine Pasqualini, Lynn Armitage and Mark S. Beaver. Set by Ken King. Lighting by Lee Schulman. Plays Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. through March 9 at 12001 St. Mark St., Garden Grove. Tickets: $6 and $8. (714) 897-5122.
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ee5d99f4ffd4f7b667e00dc249acb5f0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ca-2779-story.html | Adieu, ‘Lido’ : After 32 Years and 22,000 Performances, the Curtain Falls on Vegas’ Aging Institution | Adieu, ‘Lido’ : After 32 Years and 22,000 Performances, the Curtain Falls on Vegas’ Aging Institution
Lucky Seven Limousine chauffeur Rena Warden carries a folded photocopy of her “Lido de Paris” showgirl photo to show passengers interested in the good old days along the Strip. Carefully unfolding the tattered sheet of paper, she smooths it out on the cocktail lounge table: It depicts a high-contrast likeness of a much younger Rena, draped in a dated costume of white mink and Persian lamb.
“It was taken in 1970,” Warden said over a glass of white wine that she sipped during the “Lido” farewell party Tuesday night. If the costume still exists at all, it’s more suited to a museum than a high-breasted model like the one Rena once was.
“I’m going to call my memoirs ‘Tits and Feathers,’ ” she continues with a laugh.
For 32 1/2 years, the “Lido” and its troupe of topless showgirls, slick jugglers, animal acts and slapstick comics have done two and sometimes three shows a day, six days a week. But tonight, after 22,000 performances, the heavy velvet curtain comes down on the “Lido” for the final time.
An estimated $5 million to $8 million in sets, props and costumes will go the way of the “Lido de Paris” marquee out in front of the Stardust Hotel--victims of a younger, less flash-and-trash oriented casino marketing strategy.
The longest-running show in Las Vegas history may or may not find a new home along the Strip. Rumors among the cast and crew are that another hotel-casino, perhaps Caesars Palace, just down the Strip from the Stardust, may be interested.
In the meantime, the Las Vegas “Lido” is history.
And what a history: Three decades on the Strip that have seen Vegas itself transformed from a sleazy, Mob-corrupted playground for the few high rollers into a corporate-run Disneyland of bourgeois naughtiness for millions of visitors each year. When the “Lido” opened, it elevated the trashy strip shows to new heights of gaudy, but essentially middle-class, respectability.
The breasts were just as bare, of course, but the “Lido” was the Las Vegas Strip, and, inside the Stardust, it was Paris .
Those who want to watch precisely one hour and 37 minutes of French fluff, flounce and flutter will have to go to the original (and considerably less spectacular) show in Paris.
“The show never started or ended any more than 30 seconds late,” recalled Walter White, a 20-year veteran of the “Lido” stage crew. “You could call your wife and tell her exactly when you’d be home for dinner.”
For the most part, the men and women of the “Lido” were, and are, working-class family people who happen to dance, aim spotlights, sew costumes or bare bosoms for a living. There is even a grandmother at work among the girls in the current chorus line. Despite the lurid lure of tall, leggy women whose mammary glands hang out for public view twice each night, the original French revue has never catered to anything but the most conservative values offstage, according to former cast members.
Tracey Heberling, another showgirl from the “Lido’s” heyday, now runs a child care center, but she remembers having to grin, keep in step and dance around horse or dove dung often left behind by a previous act.
“There’s this idea of what a showgirl is, but the truth is we’re really very normal, you know,” Heberling says.
She has two grown sons and goes to college at UNLV in her spare time. Other “Lido” alumna run dance schools, cocktail lounges, cleaning services, convalescent homes . . . and all are saddened to see the Parisian show where they danced, sang and performed in the vaudeville tradition fade away.
Far from learning sin and vice on the “Lido” runway, the showgirls learned self-discipline, Heberling said. When she was in labor with her second son, she insisted upon applying her makeup on the way to the hospital so that she would look her best in public.
“Everyone has kept nice,” she says, glancing around at a crowd of perhaps 100 former dancers and stage crew members at the farewell party Tuesday night. Donn Arden, the Fred Astaire contemporary who choreographed the first “Lido” and has gone on to stage several other Strip extravaganzas, showed up. So did some of the original chorus line members. Muscle tone and makeup have kept many of the showgirls, some now in their 60s, looking a decade or two younger.
Heberling first danced in the show in 1960, two years after it opened. For 15 years, she did the twice-nightly routine and remembers Oscar-nominated actress Valerie Perrine, perhaps the best-known “Lido” alumna, when she did her showgirl turn in 1969. One of the partygoers displays an 8-by-10 of a pre-motion picture Perrine in heavy mascara with her hands cupped over--though hardly disguising--her naked breasts.
Despite the suggestive nature of such poses, “Lido” nudes were, and are, downright strait-laced. Between shows, many go home to cook for families and help kids with homework.
Heberling recalls that stage managers once required dancers to attend church services. On Saturdays, the “Lido” carried a third show at 2 a.m. for late arrivers who had flown in for the weekend from the East Coast, she said. For Catholics like Heberling, Stardust entertainment director Tommy McDonald called in a priest at the close of the show to celebrate Sunday sunrise Mass in the Stardust showroom.
But Las Vegas remains Las Vegas, even at the “Lido.” After several years of post-"Lido” Eucharists, Heberling recalled, the casino bought the priest a green Mercedes to show its appreciation and the church transferred him and his new car to less gaudy--and potentially corruptible--digs a short time later.
There’s a droop to the pink-spangled C-cup brassieres hanging next to the faded purple ostrich plumes up in the second-floor dressing rooms of the “Lido de Paris” showroom.
Dust on the cracked plastic leaves of the phony ficus plants used during the Forbidden Love Dance is so thick that it rolls into greasy balls between the thumb and forefingers. And the two silvery satellite props backstage at the Stardust Hotel which are used in yet another of “Lido de Paris’ ” nine acts, look as though they belong in the Smithsonian, not in a Vegas Strip showroom.
Next month, a female impersonation floor show called “Boy-Lesque” that just finished a run at the Sahara moves into another showroom in the Stardust Hotel, while the frayed red carpeting of the “Lido” showroom and the ice rink, swimming pool, waterfall and other “Lido” accouterments of the showroom stage get a complete overhaul.
In mid-July, a new and more ‘90s kind of revue will open in the refurbished showroom: “Into the Night,” with hip-hop dancing and a “Sting” rock crooner as part of the program. Auditions for the new show have been conducted in both Las Vegas and Los Angeles this week, with further auditions scheduled for New York early next month. “Lido” headliner Bobby Berosini and his trained orangutans will probably remain in the new show, but most of the fantasy production numbers won’t.
“Multi-sensory . . . high-tech . . . intense” are the descriptive sound bites that “Lido” director of publicity Kathy Espin uses to describe the new show.
Bare breasts will be part of the new show, of course. Entertainment of the world’s most jaded audiences--the shell-game shocked conventioneers and weekend gamblers who leave billions of dollars behind in the desert before heading home to Middle America--demands several sets of mammary glands on stage each night.
Some things never change, muses Espin.
But the feathered boas, rhinestones and mink that have graced the stage of the Stardust’s Cafe Continental for more than 32 years are headed for the warehouse or worse. The “Lido’s” Gallic-flavored burlesque packed an estimated 19 million into the northeast corner of the hotel’s casino since the show first opened on July 2, 1958. Bob Hope and the McGuire Sisters were in that first audience.
As of Tuesday, the biggest name to RSVP for the last show was LaToya Jackson, “and she’ll show up for a garage sale, I’m told,” said Espin.
Such is the faded glory of the “Lido de Paris.”
Though the official reason given for the shutdown of the show is that the Stardust wants to modernize under its newest owners, the Boyd Group, the real reason is the enormous expense of producing the show, according to several sources.
Under its agreement with the owners of the “Lido” name, the show must be produced in Paris and then exported to Las Vegas--a proposition that runs about $3 million in addition to another $3 million or more a year for payroll, licensing rights and other expenses. All artistic changes must get pre-approval from Paris.
The only other French show on the strip, the Tropicana’s “Folies Bergere,” is licensed from the Parisian original but wholly produced in Las Vegas.
Still, the biggest shortcoming of the current edition of the “Lido de Paris” show, titled “Allez Lido!,” is that it is old.
In the past, the productions changed every 2 1/2 years, with new costumes, skits, props and music incorporated into the new productions in order to bring variety to an old production. But production costs and tariffs on many of the expensive costumes imported for the shows made the 2 1/2-year rule economically prohibitive, according to wardrobe supervisor Annie Plummer. Rather than pay the heavy U.S. duty to ship sets and costumes back to Paris, they were often simply destroyed, she said.
Because of the escalating costs, “Allez Lido!” became the longest-running edition of the show. For over 13 years, the same basic scenes, songs and costumes have been used.
“They still wear bell bottoms on stage, for God’s sakes,” said Espin.
Once, when Siegfried and Roy were still in the show back in the early ‘70s, stage crewman Terry Mann remembers a 250-pound tiger that the two animal trainers had tethered to a pillar on stage. The animal chewed through the rope and, while no one was looking, leaped up into the rafters above the stage. The show went on. The trainers got the tiger out of the attic between shows, before it could fall through the ceiling and land on a dinner table.
Singers sang “Chanson D’Amour” while sliding around in slick dove offal and dancers kept on showing their teeth despite close brushes with disaster. One woman hobbled off stage with a smile on her face after having her instep crushed by an elephant’s hoof.
And Walter White remembers the time that a horse spooked on stage and ran through the audience, stepping on a pregnant woman before it was brought to bay.
“The kid was probably born with a horseshoe birthmark on his forehead,” he says with a laugh.
Rena Warden remembers her own minor animal problems, the night she had to dance around camels in an oasis fantasy while the animals spit gobs of sputum at her.
But the show always went on.
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eb950f08963e73dd84ace7c3f18e71dd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ca-2781-story.html | Academy to Keep Chinese Film in Oscar Competition | Academy to Keep Chinese Film in Oscar Competition
Despite attempts by the Chinese government to withdraw its entry “Ju Dou” as a nominee for best foreign-language film Oscar, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said this week that the movie will remain in competition.
The request by the China Film Bureau to withdraw “Ju Dou” was an about-face that most observers were at a loss to explain. Some attributed the move to confusion that remains in the China arts community following a wave of government repression that began with the Tian An Men Square confrontation in 1989.
Given the subject matter--a story of adultery and revenge involving a pair of rebellious lovers in a 1920s dye factory in northern China--some believe the Chinese government did not want the film honored with an Oscar.
Jun Tang, the manager of China Film Import & Export Los Angeles Inc., a subsidiary of Chinese government-run China Film Import & Export Beijing, said he has been waiting to get an explanation for two weeks. “I was very pleased that it had been nominated,” he said. But when he heard of the withdrawal, “The first I thought is (that) it wasn’t a very bright idea.”
Tang said the official reason for the withdrawal is that the film had not played commercially within China. Academy rules stipulate that a film must have played a commercial run in the country of its origin.
But Tang said he could not confirm whether the film had played in China.
There was similar confusion at the film academy, according to Fay Kanin, who chairs the foreign-language film committee.
“We have stood by our nomination because the picture was submitted as eligible to us by the Chinese,” Kanin said. “It was only after we had already viewed the film, (that) they came back to us and said it was ineligible.” She said and the academy could find no evidence one way or the other to support the Chinese claim.
Kanin, as well as those involved with U.S. distributor Miramax Films, declined to speculate on why the Chinese government had a change of heart.
But a Chinese film specialist and researcher at the Honolulu-based East-West Center Institute of Culture and Communications, suggested, the “real reason is simply that the Chinese government didn’t like ‘Ju Dou’ ”
In an interview with The Times, Paul Clark said, “The film’s tone is very somber. They wanted something more upbeat and they objected to the eroticism.” Ever since the cultural crackdown, Clark said, there has been a division of opinion, “and this is a reflection of that.”
Clark, who has met “Ju Dou” director Zhang Yimou (“Red Sorghum,” “Yellow Earth”), called the Chinese government’s position “a love-hate relationship,” based on his understanding of the situation from Yimou. “Only last year the government sponsored it in competition at the Cannes Film Festival,” he said.
“Ju Dou” is a co-production of the Chinese and the Tokyo-based Tokuma Group, which put up financing for the $2-million feature.
The film is scheduled to open Wednesday in Los Angeles at the Goldwyn Pavilion Theatres in the Westside Pavilion.
“Ju Dou” is in Oscar competition with “Cyrano de Bergerac” (France), “Journey of Hope” (Switzerland), “The Nasty Girl” (Germany) and “Open Doors” (Italy).
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485b5fa5108bb87678b792f1166fed47 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2656-story.html | Fleetwood Enterprises Inc.: The manufacturer of motor... | Fleetwood Enterprises Inc.: The manufacturer of motor...
Fleetwood Enterprises Inc.: The manufacturer of motor homes, travel trailers, folding trailers and manufactured housing reported net income of $1.9 million for the third fiscal quarter ended Jan. 27, down 79% from the year-ago period. The Riverside-based firm had revenue of $279.1 million, down 20%. The declines were attributed to a steep drop in sales of recreational vehicles, which offset increased sales of manufactured housing.
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b472d340a69192bdf304f05f5e7ada32 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2657-story.html | Woolworth Corp.: The New York-based retail chain’s... | Woolworth Corp.: The New York-based retail chain’s...
Woolworth Corp.: The New York-based retail chain’s fourth-quarter profit fell 15% to $149 million as revenue rose 10% to $3.1 billion. For the year, net income fell 4% to $317 million as revenue rose 11% to $9.8 billion. The company noted that its 90% increase in operating profit in Germany was offset by the impact of the recession in the United States, Canada and Australia, and the war in the Persian Gulf, adding that it also took higher markdowns to liquidate inventories.
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5abaebf2fbc412354b9c7b8ce5e1adbe | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2658-story.html | Neiman Marcus Group Inc.: The specialty retailer... | Neiman Marcus Group Inc.: The specialty retailer...
Neiman Marcus Group Inc.: The specialty retailer reported earnings of $14.4 million for the second quarter ended Feb. 2, down 22% from the year-ago period. The Chestnut Hill, Mass.-based company had revenue of $539.4 million, off less than 1%. The declines were attributed to sluggish retail sales and recessionary conditions. The group’s three divisions are Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Contempo Casuals.
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ecea8b22917f93338f3d4379bcccab53 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2659-story.html | Wyle Laboratories: The El Segundo-based computer and... | Wyle Laboratories: The El Segundo-based computer and...
Wyle Laboratories: The El Segundo-based computer and electronics company posted net income of $3.2 million for the fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, an increase of 19% from 1990, on revenue of $113.5 million, up 7%. Annual earnings soared 69% to $12.7 million, while revenue rose 8% to $449.5 million. The company credited a strong performance in its Electronics Marketing Group for the record profit levels.
Tables, D13
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78cff6199a799fad3d433be8a9a30edc | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2677-story.html | STOCKS : Gulf Calm Lifts Asian Stocks; Dow Up 24.51 | STOCKS : Gulf Calm Lifts Asian Stocks; Dow Up 24.51
Asian stocks posted strong gains in midday trading today after President Bush announced a halt in fighting in the Persian Gulf.
On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Nikkei index was up 468.83 points, or 1.8%, to 26,563.08 in afternoon trading. The index had lost 188.71 points on Wednesday.
Among other Asian markets, news of Bush’s evening address to the nation helped send stocks in Taiwan up 3.4%, as the weighted-index jumped 163.55 points to 5,033.37 in midday trading. In Singapore, the Straits Times index gained 17.99 points, or 1.3%, to 1,461.34 by midday.
In U.S. trading Wednesday, blue chip stocks snapped a six-day losing streak as investors took advantage of the market’s recent weakness to fatten their portfolios.
The Dow Jones industrial average, down 69.65 points over the past six trading days, rose 24.51 points or 0.9% to 2,889.11. Advancing issues outnumbered declines by more than 2 to 1 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks, with 1,063 up, 503 down and 457 unchanged.
Big Board volume soared to 211.41 million shares, up from 164.17 million Tuesday.
“Periods of consolidation are opportunities to accumulate stocks,” said Allen Sinai, chief economist at Boston Co. “I think the basic thrust of stocks is still up.”
Peter Davies, a vice president at Nomura Securities, said institutional investors seeking to add to their portfolios were using the market’s recent weakness as a buying opportunity.
As the Persian Gulf War ends, the market’s attention has veered to other matters, including the economy and corporate earnings. Stocks were helped by new signs that the recession’s severity may have been overestimated, as the government said fourth-quarter gross national product fell by slightly less than estimated.
Even so, buyers on Wednesday took a cautious attitude toward the market, favoring mostly bigger, safer stocks rather than the small stocks that have recently led the Persian Gulf War rally. The New York Stock Exchange composite index advanced 1.3%, while the NASDAQ index of smaller stocks gained just 0.7%.
Among the market highlights:
* Companies that may benefit from contracts to rebuild Kuwait continued to soar. Among construction and engineering firms, Caterpillar jumped 3 1/4 to 53 1/2, Ingersoll-Rand was up 3 7/8 to 51 3/4, Fluor soared 4 5/8 to 52 5/8 and Jacobs Engineering rocketed 4 to 39 3/8.
Rail giant CSX jumped 2 5/8 to 38 after its Sea-Land logistics unit received a Kuwaiti contract.
GM rose 1 7/8 to 37 7/8 on expectations of higher car sales to Kuwait.
* Oil and oil-services stocks also advanced. An analyst at C. J. Lawrence reaffirmed buy recommendations on nine oil firms, citing an expected 14% average advance in 1991 earnings for the group. The stocks are undervalued, the analyst said. Arco rose 4 3/8 to 131 7/8, Chevron gained 2 1/4 to 74 1/2, Exxon added 2 to 55 3/4 and Unocal rose 1 1/2 to 27 1/2.
Among oil-services firms, Halliburton jumped 2 7/8 to 54 1/8, Baker Hughes gained 1 1/4 to 29 7/8 and Oceaneering rose 1 1/4 to 13 1/4. Those companies are expected to benefit from the rebuilding of Kuwait’s oil fields.
* Three stocks in the Dow average were hit hard. Westinghouse fell 1 7/8 to 27 1/4 after taking a $975-million charge and restating fourth-quarter results. Woolworth lost 1 1/4 to 33 1/4 after it reported disappointing fourth-quarter profits. And Procter & Gamble gave up 2 1/8 to 81 5/8 on a report that it is cutting costs to deal with the recession.
* Insurer USF&G; fell 1 3/4 to 8 3/4. It posted a huge fourth-quarter loss and slashed its dividend.
* Among Southland stocks, biotech firm Amgen sank 4 1/4 to 93 1/4 as several analysts voiced concern about the stock’s recent sharp run-up. Recreational-vehicle maker Fleetwood Enterprises added 3/8 to 25 despite reporting quarterly earnings of 9 cents a share, down from 40 cents a year earlier. The report was expected. Sports-product company Anthony Industries jumped 1 5/8 to 8 7/8 on a bullish report by brokerage A.G. Edwards.
Also, Great Western Financial gained 1 to 16 3/4 after its chief executive said the S&L;'s earnings should be stronger this year than last, and that loan-loss reserves should be lower.
In overseas trading, London’s stocks were buoyed by the rally on Wall Street as the allies freed Kuwait. The Financial Times Exchange 100-stock average soared 25.8 points, or 1.2%, to 2,348.0.
Scattered gains helped the German market recover from early lows and end 0.5% higher. The 30-share DAX index finished 7.28 points higher at 1,565.52. Meanwhile, in Paris, the CAC 40 index gained 18.71 points, or 1.1%, to 1,731.02.
Credit
Government bond prices closed unchanged to slightly lower but were boosted from their opening lows by an economic report that investors interpreted as favorable.
The Treasury’s bellwether 30-year bond slipped 3/32 point, or 94 cents per $1,000 face amount. Its yield rose to 8.14% from 8.13% late Tuesday.
Bond prices fell at the start of trading but then recovered after the Commerce Department reported that the gross national product declined at an annual rate of 2% from October through December.
Though less of a drop than originally estimated, bond investors still saw the report as an indication that interest rates may have further to fall because of economic weakness, traders said.
The federal funds rate, the interest on overnight loans between banks, was quoted at 6.25%, up from 4.5% Tuesday. Traders said Tuesday’s figure appeared to be caused by a technical correction rather than a change in Fed policy.
Currency
The dollar posted another uneven performance in a session dominated by technical factors and fears that a Persian Gulf victory may not lift the United States out of its economic slump.
The winding down of the Persian Gulf War was leading to a flurry of selling in a number of currencies by traders trying to unload speculative positions they took before the ground fighting began.
Traders said the U.S. currency was buoyed initially against the British pound after the Bank of England signaled the lowering of a key interest rate to 13% from 13.5%. It was that central bank’s second easing in two weeks.
In New York, the U.S. currency ended at 1.522 German marks, down from 1.523 Tuesday. The dollar also fell to 132.25 Japanese yen, down from 132.94.
Commodities
Platinum futures surged strongly for the second consecutive day, reflecting the belief that the recession will be short-lived.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, platinum settled $10.90 to $11.50 higher with the April contract at $395.90 an ounce. The metal is widely used in industry and thus should benefit from renewed growth.
At the Commodity Exchange in New York, gold futures settled $2.70 to $3.10 higher, with March at $361.70 an ounce. Silver was 0.5 cent to 0.7 cent higher, with March at $3.57 an ounce.
Market Roundup, D6
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e1f7a9772d06e21e2f038eefb466ec7f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2678-story.html | Gordon Gould and Julie Herz have been... | Gordon Gould and Julie Herz have been...
Gordon Gould and Julie Herz have been elected principals of TPF&C;, Los Angeles, a Towers Perrin company. Gould is an actuary in TPF&C;'s retirement practice, and Herz is a member of TPF&C;'s health and welfare practice.
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faa71e79a8fa75a8a596ff51af45c6c5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2679-story.html | Hearst Entertainment Productions, Los Angeles, has named... | Hearst Entertainment Productions, Los Angeles, has named...
Hearst Entertainment Productions, Los Angeles, has named Glenda Grant, previously senior vice president for television, to the newly created position of its movie and miniseries division.
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64d96956305a0a5b28a818a30b2fcf8a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2680-story.html | American Express Bank Ltd., New York, has... | American Express Bank Ltd., New York, has...
American Express Bank Ltd., New York, has elected Steven D. Goldstein president and chief executive, succeeding Robert A. Savage, who will become chairman, effective March 1. Goldstein will continue as head of American Express International’s Consumer Financial Services Group.
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a20e442e573600ce6119c659357875e7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2974-story.html | State’s Home Resales, U.S. GNP Decline | State’s Home Resales, U.S. GNP Decline
Tight credit and consumer worries over the Gulf War more than offset lower mortgage rates in January, triggering a 4.3% decline in home resales in California last month and 7% nationwide, two real estate trade groups reported Wednesday.
The decline means that the sales rate in California is 31.1% slower than it was a year ago when the state’s slowdown was already under way.
Meanwhile, in a separate report, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the economy contracted at a 2.0% rate in the final quarter of 1990, slightly less than the previously estimated 2.1%.
The main reason for the revision was that imports fell more sharply than originally estimated as the economy weakened. But exports were relatively strong, so the national trade performance was better than reported a month ago.
Consumer spending fell only 2.9% from the third-quarter levels, the Commerce Department said, compared to earlier estimates of 3.1%.
The home sales report from the California Assn. of Realtors showed steep month-to-month declines in most areas of the state, with the expensive Ventura County region north of Los Angeles plunging 32.9% for the biggest drop.
Sales in the Northern California wine country were off a whopping 62.6% on a year-to-year basis.
The National Assn. of Realtors, in its monthly report, said January’s sales of existing single-family homes were 2.91 million units on an annual basis, down from 3.13 million units in December.
The January rate was down 16.1% from a year ago, when sales were 3.47 million units.
January’s median price of an existing, single-family California home was $192,690, down 0.1% from December and 1.2% below the year-ago median price of $194,950.
The median represents the level at which half the homes sold are more expensive and half are less expensive.
The national median price for single-family homes in January was $94,200, up $2,500 from December, but down $1,000 from January, 1990.
Sales declines were slight in Orange County, 4.6%, and the San Francisco Bay Area, 2.7%. But hefty declines came in several other areas: Riverside/San Bernardino, 13.5%; the Central Valley, 15.4%, and Los Angeles, 16.1%.
Los Angeles sales were also off a steep 41.1% from January, 1990.
Although the revision from the previous estimate was small, economists said they were encouraged by new data in the report.
“There is a significant shift in the mix,” said Stephen Roach, economist at Morgan Stanley. “It sows the seeds for a revival.”
O.C. PRICES RISE
Sales of single-family homes continued to slump last month, but the median price rose 3.3% from December, 1990. D6
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a2b9b7c6518ead23ac86b9b5d5bdaad8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2975-story.html | Newport Executive, Former Columbia VP Indicted : S&L; fraud: Charges are handed down on the same day that thrift regulators act to force the two and another former Parker North American officer to pay $25 million in restitution. | Newport Executive, Former Columbia VP Indicted : S&L; fraud: Charges are handed down on the same day that thrift regulators act to force the two and another former Parker North American officer to pay $25 million in restitution.
A Newport Beach executive and a former Columbia Savings & Loan vice president were indicted Wednesday on charges of bilking more than $11 million from the now insolvent thrift in what prosecutors said is one of the largest S&L; fraud cases in Southern California.
A federal grand jury here indicted Michael E. Parker, founder of Parker North American Corp. of Costa Mesa, and Jeffrey S. Worthy, Columbia’s former director of financial planning, on charges of racketeering, money laundering, paying and receiving kickbacks, and bank and tax fraud. Parker was also charged with tax evasion. The two engineered the alleged fraud through the sales of so-called leveraged leasing packages to Columbia, the indictment charges.
In a separate action, the federal Office of Thrift Supervision said Wednesday that it will seek $25 million in restitution on behalf of Columbia from Parker, Worthy and Brian W. Fink, former vice president of PNA. The agency also is seeking to ban the three from the thrift business. The restitution sought by the OTS is the third-highest such sum ever sought by the agency, exceeded only by actions against former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. and former CenTrust chairman David Paul.
The indictment includes 46 counts against Parker and 43 against Worthy. Federal authorities also filed two charges against Fink: conspiracy and tax evasion. The conspiracy charge stems from the preparation of phony lease documents submitted to Columbia.
In yet another related indictment, the grand jury charged Gilbert Fuentes, former chief financial officer of Columbia, with one count of tax evasion. Prosecutors allege that Fuentes failed to report a $200,000 check from Parker as income in 1986.
Prosecutors said the joint investigation by the FBI and Internal Revenue Service is continuing.
The indictment alleges that Parker, 43, paid more than $1.5 million in kickbacks to Worthy, 33, of Downey, from April, 1985 to November, 1987. Prosecutors said that in exchange Worthy recommended approval of the $166 million in lease deals to Columbia, even though the leases were often bogus. Columbia ultimately forwarded $31 million in cash to PNA.
“During the operation of the enterprise . . . Parker allegedly diverted over $11 million of this money to himself, Worthy, Fink, Fuentes and others,” said a statement issued by the office of Lourdes G. Baird, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California.
Parker has adamantly denied the charges in the past, as has Worthy. On Wednesday, Worthy declined comment through his attorney, and Fink and Fuentes could not be reached.
FBI and IRS agents arrested Parker at 6 a.m. Wednesday at his $1.4-million home in the posh Big Canyon neighborhood of Newport Beach and took Worthy, 33, into custody in Downey at about the same time. Fink, 42, waived indictment and was not arrested, possibly indicating that he is cooperating with prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the case is among the largest incidents of fraud against an S&L; in Southern California. And in what the U.S. attorney’s office said was one of first efforts of its kind in an S&L; fraud case, prosecutors will ask the courts to confiscate about $2 million in assets they claim were bought with proceeds from the alleged fraud.
Those assets include Parker’s Newport Beach house, Worthy’s home in Downey and a condominium he bought in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. The Internal Revenue Service has already seized the three homes.
The indictment and the seizures of property “enable us to prosecute corrupt financial services executives,” said U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, in announcing the actions in Washington, “and, at the same time, lessen the financial burden to the American taxpayer.”
At a bail hearing in federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors asked U.S. Magistrate John R. Kronenberg to keep Parker in jail without bail until his trial. Parker, they said, was likely to flee the country and pose an “economic danger to the community.”
Kronenberg denied Parker bail until Monday, when his lawyers will argue in another hearing that Parker should be released. Parker was led in handcuffs back to jail from the courtroom complaining bitterly about the bail.
“This is ridiculous,” he said outside the courtroom. “ ‘No bond’ is ridiculous. I’ve been in and out of the country 10 times this year. The idea I’m a flight risk is absurd.”
Parker appeared in court wearing blue jeans, Nike shoes and a green jacket embossed with an emblem from the Great Western Hugh O’Brian Youth Foundation Invitational. Worthy wore blue jeans and a blue rain slicker that said: “Worthy Construction Company--Simply Better Building.” During the hearing, Parker and Worthy did not speak to one another.
Worthy was released on a $200,000 bond secured by his father’s home. Fuentes, a former Irvine resident who now lives in San Diego, was unable to secure a $25,000 bond and remains in custody in San Diego County.
The indictments cap a nearly yearlong federal investigation that was touched off by tips from Columbia and employees at PNA, said Assistant U.S. Atty. James R. Asperger. The probe surfaced publicly after Columbia filed a civil suit against Parker in August alleging that he had fraudulently diverted more than $13.5 million in thrift funds for his personal use.
At one point last year, according to the indictment, Parker offered a lawyer for Columbia $5 million in cash and $5 million worth of stock in Parker Automotive Corp.--another firm he founded--to settle their differences and to prevent Columbia from “revealing alleged kickbacks received by Columbia corporate officers” from PNA.
The indictment says Parker--with help from Fink and other employees and associates of PNA--sold nonexistent tax shelters to Columbia and manufactured “bogus paperwork” to cover up the fraud between 1983 and 1987.
PNA, which is now in bankruptcy proceedings, leased equipment such as automated teller machines to banks and thrifts, borrowing most of the money to buy the equipment. PNA then sold each lease to investors like Columbia, who were seeking to shelter income from taxes. When the lease expired, the equipment belonged to the investor, who could then sell it. The practice is called leveraged leasing.
Parker allegedly began paying Worthy kickbacks in 1985, according to the indictment, while Worthy was in charge of Columbia investments. The thrift was thriving then, but has since been seized by federal regulators, largely because of risky investments.
Some of the leases Columbia was sold did not exist, according to the indictment, and others were inflated beyond their real value. Parker and the others, according to the indictment, faked signatures on these leases from other, valid leases.
Since some of the leases are nonexistent and others inflated, Columbia also unwittingly took phony tax breaks on them. Federal regulators estimated Wednesday that with penalties those unpaid taxes amount to $13 million. With the money the agency alleges that Parker and his associates stole from Columbia, the agency is asking the courts to order the three to pay a total of $25 million in restitution.
Worthy left Columbia in 1987. In an earlier interview, he denied that he accepted kickbacks and said that he is the scapegoat for Columbia’s own mismanagement.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars of the more than $11 million in Columbia money that Parker diverted ended up in Lake Tahoe, including a $100,000 cashier’s check made out directly to Harrah’s casino in 1986, according to a bankruptcy examiner’s report and the indictment.
Indeed, Parker lived a lavish lifestyle that included expensive cars, fancy dinners at posh restaurants, a handsome house and generous donations to the Republican Party before everything started to unravel in March, 1989, when Parker resigned from PNA one day before it filed for bankruptcy.
Substantial amounts of his generous income, prosecutors now allege, were never declared to the IRS.
Parker has denied the allegations in the Columbia suit--many of them repeated in the criminal indictment--and has said he is a victim of the mismanagement at Columbia.
Meanwhile, PNA creditors claim that at least $3.5 million from PNA was funneled to Parker Automotive Corp., a Costa Mesa-based maker of engine-cleaning supplies that he founded in 1987.
Those creditors of PNA say they’re owed about $40 million, but say the company’s operations are likely to yield only about $10 million. They too have moved to seize many of Michael Parker’s assets, including thousands of dollars worth of art and jewelry.
Parker denies the charges made by PNA creditors and has resisted their efforts to claim his assets or those of Parker Automotive.
Publicly held Parker Automotive began to falter last year and earlier this month obtained a substantial cash infusion from Connie Charles Armstrong Jr., a Texas investor who immediately changed the company’s name to Carbon Clean International. Parker was forced to resign from the company’s board as part of the deal.
Armstrong said FBI agents visited Carbon Clean Wednesday morning to question employees about Michael Parker. “They are not after the company or any of its assets,” Armstrong said. “They just want to talk to people who worked with Parker to see what they know. They are looking for information for the bail hearing.” Parker is still the largest shareholder in Parker Automotive, owning nearly 3 million shares. But he has signed control of that stock over to Armstrong as part of the acquisition deal. Armstrong has an option to buy the stock later.
Meanwhile federal prosecutors won’t say whether they’ll go after more of Parker’s assets, including perhaps his stock in Parker Automotive. They also declined to say whether they had traced any of Columbia’s money into Parker Automotive.
“That’s something we can’t comment on,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, an assistant U.S. attorney.
Times staff writers Gregory Crouch and John O’Dell contributed to this story.
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213d5e8b09fbc048fd01eca8c9d284e0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2976-story.html | Lincoln S&L; Bondholders Urge Cranston’s Ouster : Thrifts: The Senate Ethics Committee should not stop at a slap on the wrist, they say, now that the panel has found him culpable in the Irvine-based institution’s collapse. | Lincoln S&L; Bondholders Urge Cranston’s Ouster : Thrifts: The Senate Ethics Committee should not stop at a slap on the wrist, they say, now that the panel has found him culpable in the Irvine-based institution’s collapse.
Some of the bondholders who lost more than $200 million in the collapse of Lincoln Savings & Loan want the Senate Ethics Committee to recommend the ouster of Sen. Alan Cranston for his role in the Lincoln scandal.
Some also reacted angrily to the committee’s decision Wednesday to close the case against the other four of the so-called Keating Five and let them off with what the bondholders called a slap on the wrist.
Even onetime admirers of the California Democrat said Cranston’s support for former Lincoln owner Charles H. Keating Jr. was bought with more than $900,000 that the senator received in Keating-affiliated contributions for his campaigns and political causes.
“On an emotional and personal level, I don’t think anything short of severe civil and possible criminal charges should be leveled against them,” said Donald Mikami, a Fountain Valley dentist and bondholder.
The reaction came after the Ethics Committee ended its 17-month investigation Wednesday. It found that Cranston was the most culpable of the senators who came to Keating’s aid.
“There is credible evidence that provides substantial cause for the committee to conclude . . . that Sen. Cranston engaged in an impermissible pattern of conduct, in which fund raising and official activities were substantially linked,” the committee said.
The panel gave him a chance to respond before making a recommendation to the full Senate about any institutional action.
The committee found that Sens. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) and Donald Riegle (D-Mich.) showed “insensitivity and poor judgment” and that Sens. John Glenn (D-Ohio) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) showed “poor judgment” in their relationship with Keating. But the panel did not recommend additional action against those senators.
Most bondholders are retired investors such as Leah Kane of Laguna Hills, and many lost their life savings.
“They must be made to resign and to pay back some of this money out of their own pockets, or at least their pensions should be taken away,” Kane said. “Something should be taken away from them, just as it was taken away from us.”
In April, 1987, at Keating’s request, the five senators had intervened in a yearlong dispute between Keating and federal thrift regulators over the federal audit of Irvine-based Lincoln.
Meanwhile, Lincoln’s parent firm, American Continental Corp. in Phoenix, had recently begun issuing bonds through Lincoln’s 29 Southern California branches. The securities, which even Keating later acknowledged were junk bonds, were sold mainly to elderly depositors. Many of them thought the bonds were insured or as safe as their deposits. But the bonds were not.
Bondholders allege that the senators played a major role in allowing the bond sales to continue by delaying action against Lincoln--even though regulators said they were not intimidated by the meetings.
“I was a supporter of Cranston’s,” said Shirley Lampel, a Tustin bondholder. “Now, there’s no question in my mind that he has no right to continue as a senator. The job he was doing has nothing to do with his real job of representing the people of California.”
Jack C. Lower of San Jacinto in Riverside County described himself as a former admirer of Cranston who found it difficult to believe at first that the senator was involved in the Lincoln scandal. Now he wants Cranston thrown out of the Senate but said the “guiltiest” people in the scandal are the state and federal regulators who allowed the bond sales.
Oceanside retiree Charles Sullivan Sr., 78, said he believes that Cranston “disgraces the Senate” but will leave with a hefty pension intact. That would leave the senator much better off than Sullivan and his wife.
“We’ve lost our life savings due to him,” he said.
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1976b0baa6823b312e968f09f93a0890 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2977-story.html | RETAIL / TOURISM | RETAIL / TOURISM
Cost Cutting: While they wait for the industry to bounce back, many Orange County travel agencies have learned to scrimp.
Travel agents should develop “preferred suppliers,” airlines and tour companies that have proven track records and provide the better profit margins, said George Delanoy, owner Brea Travel in Brea and Jane Henderson Travel in Orange.
Agents need to cut costs wherever they can, said Donna Krueger, owner of Back Bay Travel in Costa Mesa. She said she has reviewed magazine subscriptions to weed out publications that are going unread and has started using cheaper envelopes for her mailings.
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a06c285e869e7b80ade5e9b91731de18 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2978-story.html | RETAIL / TOURISM : War’s End Expected to Unleash Army of Domestic Vacationers | RETAIL / TOURISM : War’s End Expected to Unleash Army of Domestic Vacationers
Orange County travel agents have been badly in need of a little good news.
Eternally optimistic, the travel agents are predicting that the end of the Persian Gulf War will trigger a pent-up demand among tourists who have been delaying their vacations for fear of terrorism.
At a meeting this week of the Orange County chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents, about 200 agents heard speakers say that vacationers--caught up in the patriotic fervor that has swept the country during the war--may be looking close to home this year. Among the U.S. destinations expected to be popular are Hawaii and Alaska.
Much to the dismay of the beleaguered airline industry, family vacations by car are expected to be popular in the spring-summer vacation season. Agents said that some cruise lines are repositioning their ships to sail from American ports.
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1de76da31cb392949d508d8e988a7e9c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2979-story.html | OTS Widens Its Net in S&L; Recovery Suits | OTS Widens Its Net in S&L; Recovery Suits
The decision of the Office of Thrift Supervision to seek restitution from Michael E. Parker and two others for allegedly defrauding Columbia Savings & Loan indicates the agency is looking beyond the owners and chief operators of failed S&Ls; to recover losses.
OTS Director Timothy Ryan said Wednesday that the agency, which regulates the nation’s struggling thrift industry, will seek to recover $25 million in restitution from Parker, the founder of Parker North American Corp., Brian W. Fink, a former PNA vice president, and Jeffrey S. Worthy, a former director of financial planning at Columbia.
The administrative action is the third largest filed by the OTS since it began moving last year to recover funds from individuals accused of defrauding thrifts. The amount sought from Parker exceeds even the $21.3 million that the OTS wants from Columbia’s former chief executive, Thomas Spiegel.
U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said the federal cases were developed as the result of an extensive investigation. And the combined civil and criminal efforts were designed to ease the taxpayer cost of the nationwide thrift debacle.
“The combined efforts of the federal authorities will deliver a solid one-two punch that enables us to prosecute corrupt financial services executives and at the same time, lessen the financial burden to the American taxpayer,” he said.
In the criminal case, Parker and Worthy are charged with racketeering, money laundering, paying and receiving kickbacks, and bank and tax fraud. Parker also was charged with tax evasion. In a related case, Fink is charged with conspiracy and tax evasion. The activities alleged reportedly resulted in the loss of more than $11 million to Columbia.
Parker’s dealings, however, are not believed to be directly related to those of Spiegel, whose risky investments and lavish spending contributed to the failure of the Beverly Hills institution on Jan. 25. The thrift suffered massive losses on its junk bonds investments.
In its administrative action against Spiegel, the OTS accuses him of squandering the thrift’s funds on such expenditures as personal travel, vacations and a collection of guns. The agency also accuses him of causing the thrift to lose $29.2 million by building a lavish headquarters that the thrift never occupied. Spiegel has strongly disputed the allegations.
In addition, regulators have sought criminal charges against Spiegel for removing an estimated $170,000 worth of office furnishings belonging to the S&L.;
With $6.6 billion in assets, the S&L; is the 16th largest thrift in the industry. It is expected to cost taxpayers $1.5 billion to clean up.
Parker is accused of defrauding Columbia by creating and selling about 101 bogus lease transactions involving equipment--typically automated teller machines. The agency said some of the equipment and leases did not exist or were vastly overvalued.
The leases were designed as tax shelters. But since many did not exist, Columbia is now liable for up to $13 million in additional taxes and penalties.
The $25 million in restitution is a combination of the money lost by the alleged fraud and the tax liability, officials said.
The OTS claim is exceeded only by the $41 million the agency is seeking from former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. and the $30 million it wants from the former operators of CenTrust Savings Bank in Miami.
The agency also wants to bar Parker, Worthy and Fink from the financial industry. The agency also filed a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles to freeze their assets while the administrative action is pending.
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38ba24330e06084653967a8898e2b919 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2980-story.html | Frontier Bank Names New Chief Executive | Frontier Bank Names New Chief Executive
--Frontier Bank said Wednesday that it has hired Richard C. Helstrom, former president of El Camino Bank in Anaheim, as its president and chief executive.
Helstrom replaces Charles Matter, the bank’s president since it opened eight years ago. Matter resigned “to pursue his own interests,” said William E. McAleer, the bank’s chairman.
Neither Matter nor Helstrom, who started this week but was out sick Wednesday, could be reached.
Helstrom had been president at El Camino for barely a year when it was sold to Wells Fargo Bank in a deal that included its sister bank, Citizens Bank of Costa Mesa.
A 30-year veteran of the banking industry, Helstrom was executive vice president of Community Bank, a mid-size regional bank based in Huntington Park, before he joined El Camino in the fall of 1989.
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0bf5c235b4f5ecca294f329f23cbc035 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2981-story.html | Home Resales Still Down but Median Price Climbs | Home Resales Still Down but Median Price Climbs
Single-family home resales in Orange County continued an 18-month slump in January, but the median price of those homes rebounded to the highest level since May, the state realtors association reported Wednesday.
The median price of $236,730 was down 1.6% from $240,624 in January, 1990, but was up 3.3% from December’s $229,120, according to statistics complied by the California Assn. of Realtors.
January’s sales pace, based on escrows that closed during the month, was down 26.5% from a year earlier but was off only 4.6% from December. The January figures represent sales agreements originally made in November and December, so the decline reflected the consumer uncertainty that followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August and the beginning of the recession.
Realtors and real estate industry analysts say that sales began picking up in January and that the upswing should begin to show up in sales reports next month.
January was the fifth consecutive month in which home sales figures have declined from the previous month. However, the January decline was the smallest month-to-month drop during the period, the report shows.
The realtors association numbers are based on reports from seven of the 11 boards of realtors in Orange County and include only single-family detached homes. The association does not report the actual number of transactions for individual counties.
In a similar report issued last week, TRW Real Estate Information Services said that a total of 2,418 resale homes closed escrow in the county in January, the lowest tally in 37 months. The TRW figures, which include attached homes and condominiums, showed January’s resale closings to be down 16.9% from 2,876 closings in January, 1990.
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57c1b29e7df710f9b7c3d772e53444cd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2982-story.html | Cytocare Loss Rises to $5.1 Million in ’90 | Cytocare Loss Rises to $5.1 Million in ’90
Reflecting a severe drop in sales, Cytocare Inc. said Wednesday that it lost $5.1 million last year, more than double its 1989 loss of $2.1 million.
The company primarily tied the loss to its Medstone International subsidiary’s November decision to suspend efforts to obtain federal approval to market lithotripter machines for treating gallstones with shock waves.
The company continues to market the device as a non-surgical alternative to removing kidney stones.
Cytocare’s revenue declined to $11.7 million in 1990, from $14.5 million the previous year. In the last three months of 1990, the company lost $1.4 million on revenue of $3 million. It had a loss of $633,000 on revenue of $4.7 million for the corresponding period in 1989.
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f64d414fad1123bf56c9b28ce751700e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2983-story.html | Pet Insurance Firm Takes Too Long to Pay, State Says | Pet Insurance Firm Takes Too Long to Pay, State Says
A Santa Ana company that sells health insurance for dogs and cats was accused by the state insurance commissioner’s office Wednesday of taking too long to pay claims and of misleading advertising.
Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said a random survey of 256 claims made to Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. showed that only five claims were paid within 30 days, the insurance industry standard. The remaining claims took 90 days or more to process.
A commission spokesman said one pet owner bought a policy from the Santa Ana firm expecting it would cover 80% of veterinary bills. After filing a claim, the policy holder was told that only 80% of the first $180 was covered.
The two alleged violations of the state Unfair Claims Practices Act carry potential fines of $10,000 each.
Jack Stephens, president of Veterinary Pet Insurance and a former veterinarian, said the charges “came totally out of the blue. I think we have a logical answer to these charges.”
Stephens said insurance inspectors visited his company in May in response to customer complaints about slow claim settlements. He said his company worked out a plan with the state to speed up the claims process, including installation of a computer system to handle the 50,000 policies it has sold in California.
Believed to be the only company of its kind in California, Veterinary Pet Insurance has been selling policies for $40 to $100 a year per pet since 1982, Stephens said. It is owned by a group of 750 veterinarians, he said.
“I can’t account for his (Stephens’) surprise,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for the state insurance commissioner. “Our people thought they were quite clear. We feel perfectly justified in this action.”
Garamendi’s office also cited insurers headquartered in California and Tennessee. It cited the California State Automobile Assn. Inter-Insurance Bureau, one of the biggest auto insurers in Northern California, for “unreasonable” delays of up to eight months in paying 18 claims. Provident Life & Accident Insurance Co. of Chattanooga, Tenn., is accused of failing to pay interest on a number of California death claims.
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120503a0317ce4b7372fb115ba11d206 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-2984-story.html | Of the 102 largest publicly traded companies... | Of the 102 largest publicly traded companies...
Of the 102 largest publicly traded companies in Orange County, 31 gained value Wednesday, 27 lost and 44 remained unchanged for the day. The following chart shows the five biggest percentage winners and losers among county companies’ stocks.
GAINERS
Wed. Percent Company Price Change Wet Seal $13.50 +12.5 Fluor Corp. 52.63 +9.7 Laser Precision 7.63 +9.0 US Facilities 4.88 +8.4 Varco International 11.75 +8.0
LOSERS
Wed. Percent Company Price Change Quiksilver Inc. 11.25 -8.2 AST Research Inc. 25.63 -5.9 Parker Automotive 4.25 -5.6 Viratek Inc. 5.25 -4.6 DVI Financial 12.38 -3.9
Source: Newport Securities
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83c07129883245d9bb828579c04a37a7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3014-story.html | Framework of Exxon Valdez Settlement OKd : Litigation: U.S. and Alaskan officials said the accord could involve some $1.2 billion in civil damages. An April 10 criminal trial against the oil firm is still scheduled. | Framework of Exxon Valdez Settlement OKd : Litigation: U.S. and Alaskan officials said the accord could involve some $1.2 billion in civil damages. An April 10 criminal trial against the oil firm is still scheduled.
Federal officials and representatives of the State of Alaska have agreed on the basic elements of a settlement with the Exxon Corp., involving civil damages of some $1.2 billion for the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Alaska Atty. Gen. Charles Cole said Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters in Juneau after returning from meetings with federal officials in Washington, Cole said negotiations on outstanding elements of an agreement will resume next week. He is hopeful that a final settlement can be worked out within the next month, he said.
“A broad framework for the settlement of the state and federal natural resource damage claim has been reached,” he said, adding that lawyers will now turn their efforts to getting specifics in writing.
Justice Department officials refused to comment on Cole’s remarks but federal officials said they are prepared to proceed as scheduled with the April 10 criminal trial against Exxon for one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.
Nearly 11 million gallons of oil were spilled into the waters of Prince William Sound when the supertanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef on March 24, 1989. The damage is expected to be felt for generations despite an unprecedented cleanup effort.
A spokesman for Alaska Gov. Walter Hickel said the governor had pushed to bring the lingering issue of civil damages to a head while he was in Washington last week for President Bush’s unveiling of the Administration’s national energy strategy.
Before returning to Alaska, Hickel, who was sworn in last December, met with Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr., Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner and other federal trustees involved in the negotiations with the oil company.
Hickel’s spokesman said Wednesday that “a lot of work remains to be done” before a firm settlement is concluded but that--for now anyway--Alaska’s attorney general sees no “deal breaker” to threaten the framework accord.
Cole refused to go into details or to provide specific figures for the agreement. When he was asked about the $1.2-billion figure, which has been the subject of speculation in recent weeks, he said that it is “in the ballpark.”
Any payments agreed to would be made over a period of years. A spokesman for Hickel said the understanding also includes a provision that Exxon would make additional payments if new information is developed showing that the figure is inadequate.
The company has already paid damages to more than 13,000 fishermen, hunters, and other Alaska claimants, and has spent more than $2 billion on cleanup operations. But environmentalists insist that more needs to be done.
With rumors of a settlement circulating last week, Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), the acting chairman of the House Interior Committee, cautioned U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh to proceed with caution and consult with Congress before agreeing to any settlement.
If convicted on the pending criminal charges, Exxon could be fined $640 million.
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aecbac746c98696c11bdbc2c4a417510 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3015-story.html | Rebound in Travel, Shipping Seen, but Going May Be Slow | Rebound in Travel, Shipping Seen, but Going May Be Slow
With an end to the Gulf War imminent, international commerce--notably air travel and shipping--is beginning to show signs of life, though the recession and concerns about terrorism are expected to stifle a full-fledged recovery.
Executives at airlines, hotels and travel agencies say that bookings are up slightly, largely because of hefty air fare discounts. One hotel chain said reservations surged 25% earlier this month after America West Airlines offered half-price tickets in a three-day sale.
British Airways, meanwhile, said that it was reviving transatlantic Concorde flights. And insurance premiums for shipping cargo continued to tumble as rate-setters in London concluded that the threat to commercial shipping was subsiding.
“Travel is starting to pick up again,” said Jill Collins, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Commerce. “When the war started, people were frozen in place. Now, people are saying life goes on and it is time to get going again.”
A Commerce Department survey this week of tour operators abroad shows a growing optimism about travel, she said. Of tour operators surveyed, 61% thought the United States was safer than other destinations. Two weeks ago, only 28% thought so.
The department also asked if tour operators expected travel to increase. More than 40% said yes, compared to only 4% two weeks earlier.
“We are seeing the tip of the iceberg,” said Michael A. Ribero, senior vice president of marketing at Hilton Hotels, whose bookings jumped during the America West sale. “People are more comfortable with the fact that the war will be over in a short time.”
Nonetheless, few travel industry executives expect a quick rebound in travel, despite the new optimism. Fears about such terrorist acts as the recent bombing of London’s Victoria Station by the Irish Republican Army aren’t likely to immediately end with the war.
Moreover, a continued economic recession is expected to put a crimp in travel even after fighting in the Gulf stops.
Industry executives believe they will have to dangle incentives in front of consumers to get them traveling again. Hilton already plans a special discount for frequent customers timed to the war’s end. And a coalition of airlines, hotels and travel agencies agreed Monday to kick in $8 million for an advertising campaign to promote travel.
Despite such efforts, Jeffrey Kreindler, vice president at Pan American World Airways, predicted the industry will recover from the war slowly.
“At a turtle’s pace,” he said.
A prolonged dip in travel leaves the survival of some airlines in doubt. Two airlines--Pan Am and Continental--are in bankruptcy proceedings, and several others face cash flow problems. Trans World Airlines, for example, has suspended interest payments to its bondholders.
“Collectively, the industry is going to lose money in the first quarter, and the second quarter is not looking that good,” said John Hotard, spokesman for American Airlines, one of the nation’s healthiest.
Tsuneo Fujiwara, general manager for All Nippon Airways in the western United States, said the industry was nervous that the recession and terrorist-related fears would extend the travel slump into the important summer travel season. “That is what has us worried,” he said.
Worries about terrorism also are lingering among insurance carriers.
Peter Hubert, chairman of the Lloyd’s of London Aviation Underwriters Assn., said “airlines are prime targets.” Airlines from countries in the coalition forces are expected to pay higher than normal premiums for some time “unless it becomes clear that there isn’t going to be a backlash . . .
“For the immediate future--and I mean weeks and months, not years--I see those rates continuing.”
Hubert said he personally believes the level of terrorist threat hinges on whether supporters of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein view the Iraqi defeat as honorable or as a humiliation.
Experts on terrorism agreed that a humiliation of Hussein might trigger terrorist acts.
“I don’t think the threat is past,” said Bruce Hoffman, terrorism expert at Rand Corp. in Santa Monica.
“That is not to say it is unsafe to travel,” added Hoffman, interviewed by telephone from the airport in Norfolk, Va. “Thousands travel each day and nothing happens.”
Frank Maguire, editor of Security Intelligence Report, a Washington-based newsletter, said stepped up airport security ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration to stop terrorists actually may have scared some travelers.
Intensified precautions--including bigger security forces, more hand searches of baggage and parking restrictions--may have reassured some fliers. But Maguire says such measures also “conveyed to the public that something terrible was about to happen,” he said.
An FAA spokesman said the heightened security measures won’t necessarily end when the war is over. “We will make a judgment on whether the increased terrorist threat is still there at the time,” said spokesman Fred Farrar.
One nagging problem for the travel industry is the recession. The hotel business had said before the war that bookings were flat from a year earlier. The airline industry says that more than half of the 5%-to-8% decline in domestic travel in February was caused by the recession.
Travel executives say they are counting on optimism about the war’s end to lift the nation’s economic mood. “One of the factors behind the recession was uncertainty about the war,” said Hilton’s Ribero.
Meanwhile, the situation in the cargo industry eased Wednesday as war-risk insurance premiums for vessels operating in the Persian Gulf extended their slide.
Some premiums touched levels not seen since before the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait, as the rout of Iraq’s military gathered momentum and the threat to commercial shipping continued to subside.
“The market is breathing a big sigh of relief,” said Stephen Merrett, chairman of the Merrett Syndicate at Lloyd’s.
Cargo insurance rates are regularly set by the War Risks Rating Committee, a joint body of Lloyd’s and the Institute of London Underwriters. After shooting as high as 2% of the value of a ship’s cargo near the Jan. 15 deadline for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait, premiums have fallen back to 0.0275%, Merrett said. With the end of hostilities apparently close at hand, charter rates for crude oil-carrying supertankers were also in retreat. Supertankers--those capable of storing or hauling approximately 2 million barrels of oil--could be chartered for $30,000 a day on Wednesday, down from $36,000 as recently as Monday.
“The thinking is that Iran and Saudi Arabia will begin to empty the 30 to 50 vessels they had chartered for floating storage,” said an official of a big U.S. tanker operator. That would return a large number of ships to the market.
Staff writer Victor Zonana in New York and correspondent Jeff Kaye in London contributed to this report.
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3da0d5de8a645bce23173f25f7685667 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3016-story.html | PacBell Ruined Firm, Marin Man’s Suit Says | PacBell Ruined Firm, Marin Man’s Suit Says
It was 1986, and the Federal Communications Commission, pursuing telephone deregulation as almost a holy war, threw open the doors of competition to the potentially lucrative business of repairing and installing telephone wires inside a customer’s premises.
It was just the opening Dennis Love, a young Marin County entrepreneur hellbent on competing with Pacific Bell, had been waiting for. Spurred by the promise of riches and corporate success, Love opened The Extension Connection to provide telephone installation and wire repair services in the San Francisco Bay Area. Soon the firm was publicly traded and Love hoped to franchise it nationally.
But three years later, after, Love alleges, Pacific Bell twice botched his ads in its Yellow Pages and repeatedly undercut his prices, Love’s company was dead. And Love, now 36 and working as a part-time computer consultant, filed for bankruptcy.
“Pacific Bell destroyed me, just destroyed me,” Love said Wednesday after filing a $140-million antitrust suit against the company in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. “They destroyed my business and left my personal life a mess.”
Love may have a good case, or he may simply be an inexperienced entrepreneur unable to successfully take on a huge corporate giant. A Pacific Bell spokesman said because the company had not received a copy of the suit, it couldn’t comment on its allegations. General Telephone of California, named as a co-defendant and asked to pay penalties of $15 million, also had no comment.
But regardless of the merits of Love’s suit, the issues it raises illustrate one of the major problems bedeviling telecommunications executives, regulators and consumers since 1984, when the nation’s telephone system was freed from many of its regulatory shackles. The problem: how to keep track of the non-regulated businesses such as inside wire repair offered by the newly freed “Baby Bell” regional phone firms.
Throughout the country, consumer activists repeatedly complain, the Baby Bells’ newly competitive businesses are abusing their freedoms with unfair pricing strategies and aggressive marketing tactics that prey on consumers’ confusion over deregulation and the myriad of new services and companies it spawned.
Already there have been several complaints and settlements. Earlier this month, the Justice Department fined US West a record $10 million for antitrust violations. In addition, Southern Bell, Wisconsin Bell, Pacific Bell, Bell of Pennsylvania and Nynex have all been slapped with a variety of antitrust or improper business practices charges.
“The relationship between regulated and unregulated businesses in the same corporate entity is absolutely uncharted territory; we shouldn’t be surprised at all (about) the problems we’re having trying to get it to work,” said Doug Conn, a researcher with the Center for Telecommunications and Information Studies at Columbia University.
The crux of the issue in Love’s suit is whether Pacific Bell charges its customers what it actually costs the company to provide inside wire repair and installation services.
Love alleges it doesn’t. Instead, he claims, Pacific Bell subsidizes that business with fees generated from its ongoing monopoly telephone service, an illegal practice known as “cross subsidization” that allows it to undercut competitors’ prices.
In his suit, Love charges that both Pacific Bell and GTE locked up huge portions of the inside wire maintenance market in California by offering below-market rates for their annual insurance policies. He said Pacific Bell’s $6-per-year rate and GTE’s $12-per-year rate were far below what outside competitors could offer.
Further, he charged, because the phone companies administer the “611" repair hot lines, competitors are effectively frozen out of any repair business referrals.
At the same time, Love said he was particularly singled out for anti-competitive abuse when Pacific Bell twice ruined his Yellow Pages ad. The first time, in 1987, the phone book contained a wrong number for Love’s business. In 1989, the entire ad was omitted, an action Pacific Bell called “just one of those ironics” and attributed to human error.
Although Pacific Bell has not been disciplined by either federal or state regulators for inside wire charges, authorities have found evidence that the company has artificially set some of its prices for the service.
According to a report from the California Public Utilities Commission issued in December, Pacific Bell’s $6-per-year residential insurance charge, which has attracted no competition, is too high. Furthermore, the report said, its charges to business for the insurance and maintenance services--where Pacific Bell does have competition--are too low.
“They are subsidizing the rates where they do have competition with money raised from the areas where they have no competition,” said Chris Blunt of the commission’s compliance division. “They want market share.” Blunt said the PUC continues to monitor the phone company’s activities in that business.
In a separate matter, the Federal Communications Commission has twice told Pacific Bell that it cannot pass off charges from its unregulated business operations to its captive ratepayers to maximize its profits. In 1989 and 1990, the FCC canceled a total of $51 million in inside wire business costs that Pacific Bell had claimed were rightfully part of its ongoing telephone business costs that should be covered by phone rates.
DEREGULATED PHONE PROFITS The most popular deregulated businesses among telephone holding companies.
Cellular phone service
Paging
Yellow Pages
International ventures, including cellular, cable television, credit checking
Customer equipment maintenance
Sources: Federal Communications
Commission; Probe Research
NONREGULATED PHONE BUSINESSES
Total revenue of nonregulated businesses at the Baby Bells and GTE for the first nine months of 1990.
Non- Total regulated revenue revenue Company (millions) (millions) Ameritech 7,144 141 Bell Atlantic 7,997 841 BellSouth 9,180 334 Nynex 8,316 138 Pacific Telesis 5,870 57 Southwestern Bell 5,658 98 US West 6,100 116 GTE 7,182 360
Source: Federal Communications Commission
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b6a99d014b3d63658efc72443f2078af | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3017-story.html | No Shortage of Applicants for Jobs in the Persian Gulf | No Shortage of Applicants for Jobs in the Persian Gulf
Torn apart by the Gulf War and divided by deep political and religious rivalries, the Middle East may not appear to be the ideal place to go job-hunting.
But American job seekers have swamped the switchboards at the Houston offices of Saudi Arabian Oil Co. after the oil giant placed want ads in U.S. newspapers Sunday announcing 1,000 engineering and other positions in the Saudi kingdom. The hiring is part of a long-term, multibillion-dollar project to expand the capacity of Saudi oil production facilities.
“Our experience has surprised everyone,” said Saudi Aramco spokesman Bill Tracy. “Our switchboard was so flooded that AT&T; called and asked to see if our phones were broken.” To better handle the volume, Aramco’s next series of classified ads will refer job seekers to employment agencies, Tracy said.
The Saudi expansion program, coupled with the massive effort to rebuild war-shattered Kuwait--a project one Kuwaiti official estimated this week would cost $500 billion--will create thousands of jobs for American engineers in the Mideast and the United States.
The boom comes none too soon. The 1980s saw thousands of engineers lose their jobs as major Mideast construction projects dried up. More recently, the U.S. construc tion industry has fallen into a slump. And the new jobs also may appeal to some of the thousands of aerospace engineers and managers who have been laid off in recent years.
“They naturally want to look at allied markets to turn their talents to,” said Ralph Cooper, associate dean for research and development at the Cal State Long Beach School of Engineering.
The construction work won’t create many jobs for the electrical engineers who make up much of the aerospace work force, though. “It would be tough to take somebody who was programming microprocessors and start them building bridges,” said Sandy Lechtick, president of Los Angeles-based National Recruiters.
Such U.S. engineering firms as Bechtel in San Francisco, Parsons in Pasadena and Fluor in Irvine are expected to win major contracts in Kuwait. Already, Parsons is hiring about 1,000 engineers for oil facility projects on the Alaskan North Slope and in Saudi Arabia for Saudi Aramco.
The work will radically change the job picture in the engineering community. “Engineers . . . are going to be in hot demand,” said Robert Rollo, managing director in the Los Angeles office of Korn Ferry International, an executive recruitment firm.
Despite the dangers underscored by the Gulf War, engineering and petroleum industry officials expect no major problems attracting U.S. workers to the Mideast.
Saudi Aramco--criticized after its employees were told they might be fired if they left Saudi Arabia during the war--said that only about a dozen of its 2,700 Americans and Canadian workers have quit since Iraq invaded Kuwait in August.
In fact, up to 40 North American job candidates a week have been flying to Saudi Arabia to interview with company officials, Tracy said. Candidates are lured with salaries that average 30% higher than for comparable positions in the Unoited States, free flights home and low-cost rental housing. For example, a company-owned, three-bedroom home often rents for less than $400 a month.
Besides financial rewards, an overseas assignment in the Middle East--or anywhere else in the world--often helps workers climb the corporate ladder at multinational engineering and construction firms.
“The top executives at most major design and construction firms have done a stint abroad,” said Phyllis Dembowski, executive director of the real estate practice at Russell Reynolds Associates, a Los Angeles recruitment firm. And with so much attention focused on the region, an engineering assignment in the Middle East is “very visible, unlike maybe a development (project) in Jakarta,” she said.
The lucrative salaries and the appeal of working in exotic and even dangerous locales have always been a way of life for engineers involved with petroleum projects.
“Petroleum engineers are accustomed to working in difficult environments, whether it be in Alaska or the North Sea or Indonesia,” said John Chamberlin, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Egon Zehnder International, an executive recruiting firm. “Nobody drills for oil in Switzerland.”
RECONSTRUCTION STOCKS How shares in companies that have signed contracts to assist in the rebuilding of war-torn Kuwait--or which are expected to take part--have moved over the last week.
Stock Feb.19 Wed. Change Jacobs Engineering $31 5/8 $39 3/8 +24.5% Dresser Industries 22 3/4 27 5/8 +21.4% Baker Hughes 26 29 7/8 +15.0% Halliburton 47 3/8 54 1/8 +14.2% Fluor 46 1/8 52 5/8 +14.1% Foster Wheeler 29 1/2 32 5/8 +10.6% Morrison Knudsen 52 7/8 56 1/2 +6.9% Caterpillar 51 3/4 53 1/2 +3.4% CSX 37 38 +2.7%
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0625fe72e9fa3469faae36dd61a2422b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3018-story.html | Will Baghdad Be the Tokyo of the Mideast? | Will Baghdad Be the Tokyo of the Mideast?
Jammed with automobiles and ambition, the streets here radiate a parvenu affluence. Even the cries of the muezzin from their graphite composite minarets sound prosperous.
The Arabs call it mu’jizat al-Iqtisad al-Islami --the miracle of Islamic economics. Westerners call it an economic miracle that rivals postwar Germany’s Wirtschaftwunder and Japan’s rise to industrial superstardom.
An overstatement? Perhaps. But there’s no question that the astonishing growth of the Islamic Economic Alliance--which now stretches from Turkey through Oman--now eclipses the wealthy dragons of the Pacific Rim. Certainly, none of the “experts” predicted how quickly the once-fragmented Arab nations would coalesce into a regional economic cooperative in the turbulent aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.
“Throughout history, people have been surprised by which nations went ahead and which ones were left behind,” economist Mancur Olson noted 15 years ago. His “The Rise and Decline of Nations” is still regarded as an economic development classic. “Voltaire once said: ‘The Germans will always be poor.’ Ultimately, it’s the institutions that countries have that determine how well they do. There does appear to be some social learning between nations. Stable and efficient institutions are key. People do learn from examples--including bad examples.”
The Arabs have obviously learned. The gradual transformation of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia into constitutional monarchies was critical. The U.S.-inspired plan for the Arabian Bank for Reconstruction and Development to reinvest petrodollars within the region proved crucial to infrastructure investment. To this day, the Saudis and the Kuwaitis privately joke about the “Ministry of Bechtel.”
But, beyond doubt, the turning point in the region’s economic destiny occurred with the 1993 signing with Japan of the Abbasid Agreements. Named for the ancient caliphate that represented the flowering of Islamic culture--particularly in science and technology--a millennium ago, the agreement marked the first comprehensive effort to create a regional climate for growth. While craving Western technology, the Islamic societies still distrusted Western cultural influences. Japan--then as now, Saudi Arabia’s largest customer--opportunistically exploited the opening.
In exchange for a stable supply of cheap petroleum, Japan agreed not only to transfer technology to the Arab states but also to invest in manufacturing facilities in the poorer Arab nations. The Japanese reportedly clinched the deal when minister-without-portfolio Shintaro Ishihara told an assembly of sheiks and mullahs: “Look at what we now own in America; the best way to conquer Israel is to surround it with wealth and buy it. Patience plus profits equal power.”
A conclave of the region’s leading mullahs and Islamic scholars subsequently called for a “renaissance and rebirth of Islam’s historic leadership in divining the ways of Allah to enrich the lives of his followers.” In essence, science and technological development were declared completely compatible with the teachings of Islam. “There was a tremendous willingness to experiment so long as it can be clothed in Islamic garb,” asserted American development economist Timur Kuran, who specializes in Islamic economies.
The groundbreaking for the first Toyota plant here in Iraq occurred three years later as part of this nation’s massive reconstruction. In Yemen today, workers at the new Mitsubishi light truck assembly plant are so excited about its prospects that they don’t start chewing their khat--the Yemeni national narcotic--until after the 5:30 whistle instead of lunchtime. The Europeans and Chinese are now calling for Arab automobile import quotas.
“We have almost come as far as Japan did in almost half the time,” boasts Tarik ibn Mustafa, a Stanford University MBA who is general manager of Sony’s computer memory chip facility in Basra.
Since the Gulf War, the region’s gross national product has nearly quadrupled--a rate that easily exceeds Taiwan’s unprecedented growth during the 1960s. Part of that is because of the careful petroleum pricing policies. The Gulf oil states have now sufficiently diversified into petrochemicals and specialty chemicals--they own significant minority stakes in Germany’s Hoechst, America’s Dow Chemical and Great Britain’s ICI--that they want to smooth any chance of price spikes. What’s more, regional industrialization has drastically reduced the need to redistribute the Gulf oil states’ cash flows.
In fact, the Islamic Economic Alliance has become so integrated into the rest of the world’s economy through trade and equity investment that providing a stable supply of oil at a moderate price has proven the wisest and wealthiest of strategies. Oil hasn’t been described as a “weapon” in more than a decade. Indeed, it is now described as “the great lubricant” that makes the wheels of global commerce turn smoothly.
Make no mistake: The Middle East is still different. Unlike Western and Eastern capitalism, the invisible hand in the market is Allah’s, not Adam Smith’s. The point of the market is not to maximize wealth but to live up to the tenets of the Koran. Where the Koran forbids the charging of interest, Islamic scholars, bankers and entrepreneurs are quite comfortable calling it “profit sharing.” Islamic technologies tend to be more environmentally attuned than some of their Asian and Occidental counterparts. It turns out that, just as the history of the West reveals, theological reinterpretations can inspire new economic opportunities.
There will always be tensions between the fundamentalists and the secularists--but the tensions here seem more bearable with an automobile, a VCR and a desert blooming with produce. The wealthiest sheiks and princes have always enjoyed petrolifestyles to be envied. Today, the middle-class lifestyle in an Egypt or Transjordan surpasses that of their Israeli neighbors. Apparently, living well is the best revenge.
At the turn of the last century, Germans visiting England would write letters despairing about how hard-working the British were compared to the typical Rhinelander. As late as the 1950s, Westerners presumed that the Asian countries would remain hopelessly agrarian.
The lesson is clear: Given the right blend of political freedom, cultural orientation and market-sensitive government institutions, economic growth can accelerate anywhere in the world. The Islamic Economic Alliance was an economic miracle waiting to happen.
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f01e1854cbe214c64b315de88e9f6dde | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3019-story.html | A Little Planning Could Lead to Big Tax Benefits in ’91 | A Little Planning Could Lead to Big Tax Benefits in ’91
Most middle-class American families have missed their chance to reduce their 1990 tax bills. But, if they start soon, they could take a big bite out of their 1991 taxes.
Now more than ever, some simple, common-sense ideas such as paying off credit cards and contributing to tax-favored retirement plans can help consumers save on taxes while improving their long-term financial health.
“The focus has changed,” said Robert Solomon, partner in charge of taxes at the accounting firm Levine, Cooper, Spiegel & Co. in Los Angeles. Today’s tax-favored investment opportunities are a lot more stable, he added. “People tend to look more at the economic soundness of the deal than the tax ramifications.”
To illustrate the point, consider two hypothetical examples. One is a single individual earning $50,000, who, we’ll call Joe Doe. The other is a family of four, the Saunders. They earn $100,000 annually and already have a home.
Doe does not have a mortgage, but he does pay about $1,100 in annual interest on his car loan and his revolving credit card accounts. He has $10,000 in the bank that he’s been saving to buy a house. He earns 8%, or $800 annually, on that nest egg.
In 1990, Doe will not itemize deductions because those interest expenses are only 10% deductible, netting him a deduction of only $110. His only other itemized deduction would be his state taxes, which will probably not be high enough to get him a bigger break than the standard deduction of $3,250 for single taxpayers.
Because he does not contribute to a tax-favored retirement plan, Doe’s adjusted gross income is simply $50,800--his wages plus earned interest. After subtracting the standard deduction and one personal exemption, his taxable income is reduced to $45,500. His tax amounts to $10,219.
If he wants to reduce that bill next year, he has a variety of options.
One is to pay off the credit cards and the car loan with his savings. That eliminates his $800 interest income and thus pares his taxable income to $44,700. Doe’s total tax bill subsequently drops to $9,995, for a $224 savings.
Meanwhile, he is also saving $1,100 in interest payments, which will not be deductible at all in 1991. So in the end he is $524 richer. That’s $1,100 in interest expense minus $800 in interest income ($300), plus the tax savings of $224.
This would also simplify his tax return, because he would be able to fill out the nine-line 1040EZ. He had previously been prohibited from using this form because he had more than $400 in taxable interest income.
Another option: Use the $10,000 in savings to buy a rental property.
Let’s assume he bought a $100,000 condominium with $10,000 down. The seller financed another $10,000 at 10% and he secured bank financing at 9% for the remaining $80,000. His mortgage expenses, homeowner fees, maintenance expenses and property taxes amount to roughly $14,040 annually.
He rents the condo for $750 a month, which gives him $9,000 in rental income. The difference of $5,040 is a deductible loss.
Doe’s taxable income drops to $39,660. His tax (assuming the same 28% rate) falls to $8,581, for a $1,638 savings.
Had Doe bought the home for his personal use, he would lose deductions for depreciation, maintenance expenses and homeowners fees (combined $4,840).
All of his interest expense, estimated here at $9,000 annually, would be deductible. But his cash flow would be reduced because he would lose the rental income.
“You end up with a few thousand (dollars) more in tax deductions than you would have had if you bought the house and lived in it,” said Phil Holthouse, partner at the Los Angeles accounting firm Parks, Palmer, Turner & Yemenidjian.
Doe might also decide to move into the house a few years before he sells it, which would give him the ability to defer any gain on the sale if he rolls over that gain into a more expensive property.
Meanwhile, the tax picture for the Saunders family is substantially different.
The Saunders are already supporting a $250,000 mortgage at 10% interest, which gives them $25,000 in annual mortgage interest deductions. They have $4,000 outstanding on a 13% car loan, which costs them about $520 annually in interest but nets them only a $52 itemized deduction.
After accounting for property taxes, annual registration fees on their cars, state taxes and $2,000 in charitable contributions, they have itemized deductions of $34,000.
They subtract an additional $8,200 for personal exemptions ($2,050 times four), and their taxable income falls to $57,800. Their tax would be $11,966.
What could the Saunders do to reduce the 1991 tax bite?
Because they are itemizing deductions, they should take a long look at medical and business expenses that might be deductible and see if they can “bunch” these costs. They want to push as many of these bills as possible into one year, because these deductions can be used only if they exceed certain “floors"--a percentage of the couple’s annual income.
They should also consider contributing to some tax-favored retirement program. If either spouse’s employer offers a 401k plan, for example, this couple could set aside $8,475 in 1991.
If none of the other particulars of their tax return changed, that would cut their taxable income to $49,325. And their total tax (assuming the same tax rate) would drop to $9,593 for a $2,373 savings. Moreover, the interest they earn in this account is tax-deferred until they begin to withdraw the funds at retirement.
They also might want to consider taking out a home equity loan to pay off their car loans. That would convert about $500 in non-deductible expenses into deductible expenses, and it could improve their cash flow by stretching out the loan repayment over a longer period.
TWO MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILIES John Doe earns $50,000 annually and has $10,000 in the bank earning 8% interest. He owes money on his car and credit cards, which costs him about $1,100 annually in interest expense. But because personal interest expense is only 10% deductible in 1990, he’ll forgo itemized deductions and take the standard deduction of $3,250 instead.
Here’s his picture in 1990 and what it could be if he made the minor change of paying off car and credit card debts with his savings.
1990 Plan for 1991* Earned income: $50,000 $50,000 Interest income: 800 0 Standard deduction: 3,250 3,250 Personal exemption: 2,050 2,050 Taxable income: 45,500 $44,700 Tax: 10,219 9,995
The four-member Saunders family earns $100,000 annually. They pay 10% interest on a $250,000 mortgage. And between charitable contributions, state, personal and property taxes, and mortgage interest expenses, they’ve got $34,000 in itemized deductions.
Here’s their tax picture today and how it would change if they simply decided to contribute to a 401(k) plan in 1991.
1990 Plan for 1991* Earned income: $100,000 $100,000 Personal exemptions: 8,200 8,200 Itemized deductions: 34,000 34,000 401(k) contribution: 0 8,475 Taxable income: 57,800 49,325 Tax: 11,966 9,593
*Assumes that all factors--taxable income, personal exemptions and tax rates--remain unchanged.
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9e186cd0124a2cf04fc92e334d1f42c3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3020-story.html | January Fund Purchases Off: Investors bought a... | January Fund Purchases Off: Investors bought a...
January Fund Purchases Off: Investors bought a net $4.6 billion of stock and bond mutual funds in January, down from $6 billion in December, the Investment Company Institute reported. But February will more than make up for January’s dip, because investors have flocked back to stock funds with the market’s surge, fund companies report. Vanguard Group in Valley Forge, Pa., for example, reports its net cash inflow has totaled $1 billion so far in February, and the flow into stock funds is the highest since May, 1989. For the mutual fund industry as a whole, total assets reached a record $1.13 trillion in January, up from $1.07 trillion in December, as cash surged into money-market funds.
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22e0f59467ba300930489c85ed24d444 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3021-story.html | Nike Inc. Sues L.A. Gear: Beaverton, Ore.-based... | Nike Inc. Sues L.A. Gear: Beaverton, Ore.-based...
Nike Inc. Sues L.A. Gear: Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike said it has filed suit against competitor L.A. Gear Inc. in federal court in Los Angeles, charging the company with patent infringement on a new brand of basketball shoes. The nation’s No. 1 seller of athletic shoes said L.A. Gear committed patent infringement in the sale and distribution of its recently released Catapult shoe, which retails for just under $100. A spokesman for L.A. Gear said the company has not been officially notified of the legal action and would have no comment until it had the opportunity to review the suit.
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430e483b2984b509d2a06c4a4fd5dea1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3022-story.html | IBM Ranked No. 1 in Quality: IBM,... | IBM Ranked No. 1 in Quality: IBM,...
IBM Ranked No. 1 in Quality: IBM, Ford and Motorola have the best reputations for making high-quality U.S. products, according to a survey of top executives. Thirty of 250 executives named IBM when asked to pick one U.S. manufacturer with top quality standards, the study by the accounting firm of Grant Thornton found. Another 27 cited Ford, and 26 picked Motorola. Others in the top 10 were Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, Xerox, GM’s Cadillac division, General Electric, 3M and Apple Computer.
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85ac96e802777fa6c4cc387e9cabe7d3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3023-story.html | Pension Fund Guaranty Corp. Reports Loss: The... | Pension Fund Guaranty Corp. Reports Loss: The...
Pension Fund Guaranty Corp. Reports Loss: The federal agency that protects many corporate pension plans from financial collapse has reported a $780-million loss in its operations last year. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. had enjoyed a profit of $451 million in the prior year ending Sept. 30 but has been hit hard by the collapse of Eastern Air Lines Inc. and some smaller firms. Officials, complaining that too many corporate plans were under-funded, said the Bush Administration plans to back legislation to help tighten up the funding.
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63dd639488138390394fb6c2da167867 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3024-story.html | London Landing Rights Crucial to 2 Airlines:... | London Landing Rights Crucial to 2 Airlines:...
London Landing Rights Crucial to 2 Airlines: British and U.S. aviation officials were to resume discussions today in Washington over landing rights at London’s Heathrow Airport. The discussions will be crucial for the financially battered carriers, Pan American World Airways and Trans World Airlines. Pan Am has agreed to sell prized London routes to United Airlines; TWA has agreed to sell to American Airlines. The British government has so far refused to let the weaker carriers transfer their rights to land at Heathrow. Should the U.S. and British negotiators fail to find a way to transfer the Heathrow rights, both carriers would be in grave jeopardy, analysts said.
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9282816a8b693c1e0b162447c03ccbf0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3025-story.html | Trio Ordered to Pay $22 Million: A... | Trio Ordered to Pay $22 Million: A...
Trio Ordered to Pay $22 Million: A financier and two former associates have been ordered in to pay $22 million for a fraudulent real estate deal that banking regulators said led to the collapse of Salt Lake City-based State Savings Assn. J. William Oldenburg, former owner of the defunct L.A. Express football team, was also ordered to pay $13.7 million lost from loans the defendant arranged for companies he owned soon after acquiring State Savings. Oldenburg and board members Martin Mandel and Charles Burgardt committed fraud in the 1984 purchase of a 363-acre real estate tract in Richmond, Calif., for $26.5 million, when the fair market value of the property was about $4.1 million, U.S. District Judge David K. Winder ruled. They were ordered to pay the $22-million difference.
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9d1fdaefb262a3c8ba2bd8971a89f61c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3026-story.html | Pharmaceutical Firm to Pay Huge Fines: Bolar... | Pharmaceutical Firm to Pay Huge Fines: Bolar...
Pharmaceutical Firm to Pay Huge Fines: Bolar Pharmaceutical Co. agreed to plead guilty to selling adulterated and mislabeled generic medicine and to pay more than $10 million in fines. Bolar of Copiague, N.Y., said it will also admit to obstructing a Food and Drug Administration investigation and lying to investigators. A 20-count criminal information filed in Baltimore federal court charged Bolar with substituting brand-name blood pressure medicine for its own hypertension drug, triamterene-hydrochlorothiazide, during testing.
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50a954c15f634e31b2936bb96378c5bd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3027-story.html | U.S. Opposes Changes in Union Election Rules:... | U.S. Opposes Changes in Union Election Rules:...
U.S. Opposes Changes in Union Election Rules: The federal government has asked a judge to bar any changes in court-ordered election rules for the Teamsters union. Backers of Detroit attorney James P. Hoffa attacked the move as an effort to scuttle his bid for the presidency of the union that his father, the late James R. Hoffa, once headed. Hoffa has paid Teamsters dues for 22 years but hasn’t served a required two years in a traditional Teamsters craft occupation such as truck driving or as a union officer. Backers want that requirement eliminated.
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7fa7937a05ba0e4bd7fdf55d8c00b333 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3028-story.html | Cost of Rebuilding Kuwait Is Put at $500 Billion : Reconstruction: The figure is 10 times higher than previous estimates. The news boosted the stocks of construction firms expected to benefit. | Cost of Rebuilding Kuwait Is Put at $500 Billion : Reconstruction: The figure is 10 times higher than previous estimates. The news boosted the stocks of construction firms expected to benefit.
With damage to private property and infrastructure in Kuwait far worse than first anticipated--the result of Iraq’s “scorched earth” policy--the total cost of rebuilding the war-torn nation could climb to half a trillion dollars, the governor of Kuwait’s central bank said in an interview published Wednesday.
The estimate by Sheik Salem Al Sabah in the French newspaper Le Monde, which was 10 to 12 times higher than previous estimates, helped ignite a rally in the stocks of U.S. and European companies expected to benefit from the Kuwaiti reconstruction effort:
* Fluor Corp., the Irvine-based engineering giant whose stock has been strong in recent weeks, tacked on an additional $4.625 to close at $52.625.
* Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest maker of construction and earth moving equipment, added $3.25 to close at $53.50.
* And CSX, which won a contract to coordinate transportation needs for Kuwait’s relief efforts, climbed $2.625 to $38.
“Clearly, the extent of the damage in Kuwait--the mining of the oil fields, the destruction of hotels and other public buildings--wasn’t anticipated,” said David Snow, an analyst with Derby Securities in New York. “This is shaping up as one of the most massive construction projects of all time.”
Japanese engineering and construction companies, normally ferocious competitors for Middle East construction jobs, watched unhappily from the sidelines as the Kuwaitis began to make good on their pledge to award most of the contracts to firms from nation that sent troops to liberate Kuwait.
“If we just go for reconstruction after having not sent soldiers, it will give a bad reputation to our company and Japan,” said a spokesman for Chiyida Corp., a plant engineering firm. “Even if we do, Middle East countries will not take us seriously.”
In the Le Monde interview, Al Sabah said that with about 650 oil wells in Kuwait on fire, he didn’t expect Kuwaiti oil production to resume for nine months.
And with its oil revenues cut off, Kuwait will turn to international credit markets to finance its reconstruction expenditures, the sheik said.
In an effort to calm jittery markets, he and other Kuwaiti officials said the nation would not sell off Kuwait’s extensive stock holdings.
“We will not liquidate any core investments,” Kuwaiti Finance Minister Sheik Ali al Khalifa al Sabah told the British Broadcasting Corp. “We will not throw millions and millions of stocks onto the market. We are responsible investors.”
The Kuwaitis aren’t alone in their newly found status as borrowers. Saudi Arabia, which once paid cash for all its imports, is also seeking credit as a result of expenses associated with the war.
“Kuwait and Saudi Arabia used to be cash payers,” noted A. Drury Davis, vice president for political risks at insurance brokerage Marsh & McLennan Cos. “Now, they are asking their suppliers for 360-day open credits.”
With political instability expected to continue in the region, firms doing business in those countries are seeking insurance to guarantee payments by their host countries. “The premiums are pretty stiff, not so much because of the risk as because of the high level of demand,” Davis said.
To insure payment for a project in Saudi Arabia, a supplier might have to pay premiums of as much as 3% of the amount insured, up from 1.2% before the war.
“There is a lot of jockeying for position,” Davis said. “We are getting inquiries from construction, oil, communications, waste removal, air conditioning, engineering firms--you name it,” he added.
Already, Kuwait has ordered computers from IBM, mobile phones from Motorola Inc. and generators from Caterpillar. American Telephone & Telegraph has also moved a portable satellite earth station to Kuwait to re-establish telephone links to the emirate.
Initial service will come over just 120 lines that will be installed at a site in Kuwait city selected by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Communications.
AT&T; said it is negotiating with Kuwaiti officials for a contract to restore the country’s telecommunications network, which was knocked out during the Iraqi invasion. Other telecommunications companies are also believed to be holding similar negotiations.
However, one of Wednesday’s biggest gainers on the stock market insisted that it has yet to be awarded any contracts by Kuwait.
“We have been in contact with the Kuwaitis for months, (but have won) no contracts,” said Fluor spokesman Rick Maslin.
And there were indications that Wall Street’s enthusiasm may have become overheated. “There is a lot of potential in Kuwait, and we are interested in that potential,” said Caterpillar spokesman Keith Butterfield. “But as of now, it is mostly potential.”
“Even if the Middle East were to result in some increased business, based on what we know now, we just don’t see it offsetting the negative impact from the ongoing recessions in several industrialized countries,” he added.
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801573cf0bca4f59dc95b0e6907668cf | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3029-story.html | Doubts About Postwar Glut Send Oil Prices Up | Doubts About Postwar Glut Send Oil Prices Up
Oil prices rose Wednesday as traders began to doubt whether a widely predicted postwar petroleum glut would develop in the Persian Gulf.
Looking beyond the Persian Gulf War, traders focused on a report showing a drop in U.S. petroleum inventories and indications that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may face pressure to cut back production.
“My perception is that the war situation is playing less of a role right now and that the market instead is focusing on fundamental supply and demand factors,” said Kevin M. Keely, risk manager with Chevron International Co. “There’s also been a lot of discussion about what OPEC will do and whether it will restrict output.”
Contracts promising delivery of light sweet crude oil for April closed at $18.86 per barrel, up 49 cents in trading Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the third straight session that oil prices climbed higher.
The latest increase came hours before President Bush’s announcement of a conditional cease-fire and one day after the American Petroleum Institute surprised traders with a report that U.S. gasoline stocks dropped 2 million barrels last week to 227.2 million barrels, 18.2 million fewer than a year ago.
Since Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, oil prices have been extremely volatile--first skyrocketing to an all-time high in October of more than $41 a barrel, then plunging a record $10 a barrel the day after the allied air war campaign was launched Jan. 16.
The rapid decline had fueled hope among some economists and U.S. officials that cheap oil prices would help pull the U.S. economy out of its recession by driving inflation down.
“An important reason for this (optimistic) assessment is that one of the most negative economic impacts of the Gulf War--the run-up in oil prices--has been reversed,” Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan told a Senate committee last week.
But government figures showed inflation surged in January despite the drop in oil prices. What’s more, there are indications that some OPEC members are growing restless with low oil prices and will seek an agreement at their March 11 meeting to cut production in order to drive prices higher.
As a result, analysts say they are considering such non-war factors as the apparent increased consumer demand for gasoline and heating oil as well as the political uncertainty that surrounds next month’s OPEC meeting.
“The market is returning to a more fundamentally traditional measure of pricing,” said Daniel Uslander, a principle with Hill Trading Co. “The war is almost over.”
Still, some analysts don’t see continuing price increases as a long-term trend.
“There is still quite a glut of crude oil on the market” and all indications are that it will remain that way unless OPEC members decide to drastically cut production, said Dennis Winters, an oil analyst with DRI/McGraw Hill in Lexington, Mass.
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dbe0ef0dd7d801e7378c1a40f99a9885 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3030-story.html | MIDEAST UPDATE | MIDEAST UPDATE
* A default by Iraq on agriculture loans guaranteed by the Agriculture Department has forced the federal government to pay out millions of dollars to banks that loaned the money, an official said. Ten U.S. banks recently lodged claims totaling $599 million with the department’s Commodity Credit Corp., which guaranteed the loans to Iraq, said CCC Treasurer James Little. A total of $148 million had already been paid to claimants as of Feb. 22.
* AT&T; announced that, in cooperation with the Ministry of Communications of Kuwait, it would begin this weekend to link Kuwait with the rest of the world for the first time since Aug. 7, after Iraqi forces invaded.
* Three companies with contracts to snuff out hundreds of oil well fires in postwar Kuwait are being deluged with telephone calls from thousands of job applicants. But the companies say the firefighting teams that eventually will work in Kuwait have been formed for months and that they are not hiring.
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76235127ea1c7f4cbfa5418650d34100 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3032-story.html | Peace Will Give a Boost to America’s Economy, but It’s Not a Cure-All | Peace Will Give a Boost to America’s Economy, but It’s Not a Cure-All
The Persian Gulf war may be thousands of miles away from the Z. Frank Chevrolet dealership on Western Avenue in Chicago, but it has had its effects there nonetheless.
During the first 10 days of the war, when Chicagoans, like other Americans, thought the fighting might be over in a matter of days, they began packing into the downtown showroom.
But as the war stretched into weeks, confidence gave way to uncertainty, and “everything just clammed up again,” the dealership’s vice president, Bob Kerpec, says. Now, Kerpec estimates that showroom traffic is only one-third what the dealership would normally expect at this time of year.
So now, with the announcement of a conditional cease-fire, can businesses and consumers expect to see the end of the recession as well?
No question about it, to listen to President Bush, Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady or Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. All three say the war has been the major reason for the current “temporary interruption” in the nation’s long-term economic growth. Brady even went so far as to predict there would be “business as usual” after the war.
But from his vantage point on Western Avenue, Kerpec is far less sanguine. “We look for optimistic signs wherever we can find them, but we are not yet optimistic enough to be investing our money in radio and television ads,” he says. “That would be like throwing our money away right now. I just have no idea what’s going to happen in the economy.”
Here and abroad, forecasters seem to agree that while peace almost certainly will prove to be a tonic for the U.S. and the world economies, it most likely will not be a cure. “It is quite easy to exaggerate the effect of the war,” says Rupert Thompson, an international economist with the investment bank, UBS Phillips & Drew, in London.
To be sure, the end of the war will bring some economic benefits, notably in lower oil prices, bolstered consumer confidence and a Middle East reconstruction program so huge that it may rival the Marshall Plan effort to rebuild Europe after World War II. But even if the U.S. recession is relatively short and shallow, as some economists are coming to believe, many still caution that Americans should not expect the recovery to be robust or swift.
Analysts say one reason that peace may not spur a bigger rebound is that the war itself inflicted relatively little strain on the world’s major economies.
In the United States, for example, the effort probably consumed well under 1% of the total gross national product, or national output--compared with 45% for World War II at its peak, 14% during the height of the Korean War and about 9% during Vietnam.
Moreover, the weapons that U.S. forces consumed were taken out of the huge stocks that were built up during the Reagan Administration--and so don’t have to be replaced, government and private analysts say.
And since future federal budgets anticipate reducing defense spending in order to cut the deficit, these weapons will be replaced slowly, if at all, experts say.
But perhaps the biggest reason that peace does not necessarily mean prosperity is that many countries will be left with the problems that were dragging down their economies even before the war started.
The recession “is kind of like a layer cake, where one more layer was the war,” Alan Stoga, managing director of Kissinger Associates, a New York consulting firm, says.
In the United States, for example, the banking system may be too fragile to start lending much more, despite the lowering of interest rates aimed at easing what is called a “credit crunch.”
What’s more, Stoga notes, the Federal Reserve may be less willing to nudge interest rates down further once the war has ended. The Fed has deemed this “the Saddam Hussein memorial recession,” he says. “If they actually believe that, you have to wonder if the end of the war is the end of the Fed’s easing.”
Meanwhile, many consumers and companies are so far in debt that they are thinking of retrenching, not spending more. The same can be said for governments--national, government and local--whose spending has often been an engine of economic growth.
Brian V. Mullaney, vice president and senior economist for Morgan Stanley International in London, says sagging consumer confidence in the recessionary countries stems not from tension in the Middle East but from excessive consumption in the 1980s, fueled by either huge government deficits--as in the United States--or loose monetary policy, as in Britain.
U.S. consumers will bounce back, Mullaney says. But he is less sanguine about Britain, where the government has corrected for its loose monetary policy by tightening sharply. The key government-set interest rate rose as high as 15% last year and remains at 13.5% now.
West Germany’s economy remains robust, Mullaney says, although the absorption of East Germany last year has put enormous strains on one of the world’s most resilient economic systems.
But France, Italy and other European countries are suffering from tight monetary policies and currencies so overvalued that their products are overpriced in global competition with American goods. In that equation, Mullaney says, the Gulf war is a negligible factor.
Japan, he says, faces problems of its own, including a slowdown in capital spending and overall economic growth.
The recession “is a vicious cycle,” Stoga says. “I don’t think (peace in the Middle East) breaks it.”
Indeed, business people such as Kerpec, the Chicago car dealership manager, say they are not looking for an economic miracle at the end of this war. “I just hope it will get us going back in the right direction,” he says.
Karen Tumulty reported from Washington; Joel Havemann reported from Brussels. Times staff writer William J. Eaton contributed to this report.
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d75bac3aca895807244043a45000b822 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3033-story.html | Now Your PC Can Fax It for You | Now Your PC Can Fax It for You
The idea of having a computer double as a fax machine is appealing.
Why send a report to your printer and then run the print through a fax machine so that you can transmit it? And why have yet another piece of equipment in your already-crowded office?
Substantial cost savings are possible as well.
A stand-alone fax machine has three components: a scanner that converts printed pages into image data, a fax modem that sends and receives image data over a telephone line and a printer to convert received image data back onto pages.
You need to add only one of those components to your computer--a fax modem--to allow it to send and receive faxes. Software can take the place of the scanner, converting your word processing, spreadsheet, database or graphics files into the image data required for fax transmission. And the printer attached to your computer can print faxes you receive.
If the fax modem you buy can also double as a data modem for communication with other computers, you save the cost of a data modem and the extra expansion slot it would consume in your computer.
I’ve recently tested two fax-data modems.
The Intel SatisFAXtion, $499, is a full-size internal expansion board for IBM XT, AT and compatible computers. It’s manufactured by Intel Corp. in Santa Clara, (800) 538-3373.
The Zoltrix ZoFAX 96/24P pocket fax-modem, $350, is a portable external unit ideal for laptop computers. Measuring a mere 5 inches by 3 inches by 1 inch, and powered with a 9-volt battery, it is available from Zoltrix Inc., Fremont, Calif., (415) 657-1188.
There are other fax-data modems with similar features and similar constraints that I have not tested.
The Intel and Zoltrix products provide standard Group III fax communications at 9600 baud and Hayes-compatible data communications at 2400 baud. The Intel board includes the latest MNP5 error correction protocol with its 2400-baud modem.
Both require a graphics monitor plus substantial hard-disk storage space for software and fax image files. Intel recommends 10 megabytes of free disk storage space, and Zoltrix suggests 5 megabytes.
Both work well, but they are not as easy to use as a fax machine. If you are new to computing, wait until you are comfortable using your machine and its word processing software before you tackle the fax function.
If you use Microsoft Windows, you have added difficulties. The Zoltrix fax software cannot be used from within Windows. Instead, you must save Windows files either as graphics (.TIF) files or as text, whichever is appropriate, and then run the Zoltrix software outside Windows, from the DOS prompt.
Intel’s SatisFAXtion can be used quite nicely from inside Windows but not until you obtain additional software, called FAXit for Windows. It’s free, if you don’t throw away the coupon included in the packaging, but you’ll wait four to six weeks for it. (While you’re at it, there’s another coupon for a free copy of PC Tools utility software.)
What comes in the SatisFAXtion box is Intel’s FAXPOP software for use with non-Windows files. You send faxes the same way you would print a file, using an imaginary printer created by the program. FAXPOP will automatically convert Microsoft Word 5.0, WordPerfect 5.1, Q&A; 3.0, Multimate 4.0, Lotus 1-2-3 and Symphony files into fax format.
The faxes are sent in “background” so that you can continue working on your current program without interruption. Incoming faxes are also received in background, but you can interrupt what you’re doing and view or print them.
The FAXit for Windows software works much the same way within any of your Windows programs and sends fancy typography and graphics images within such files just fine.
The Zoltrix BitFax software that comes with its fax modem also pops up while you are using other programs, if you wish, and it will automatically convert WordPerfect 4.1 and WordStar files. To send a fax, you merely indicate which file you want sent and it will be converted and faxed, also in background. Incoming files, similarly, are received in background.
You can include graphics images in your faxes, such as a company logo, with a special text command placed in the files. The command is read when the fax conversion occurs and causes the graphic file to be merged at the proper place. There is also a text editor in the software, allowing you to write short documents to be faxed without using your word processing program.
The Zoltrix modem comes with an AC power adapter (it runs on a 9-volt battery for three to four hours), short adapter cables to connect to any PC serial port and BitCom communications software, in addition to the BitFax fax software.
Besides the cost and equipment savings realized by using these fax-data modems, the quality of your faxes will be considerably higher.
The software conversion of outgoing faxes creates much better images than the scanner built into fax machines. And incoming faxes printed on a laser printer attached to your computer also yield much higher quality as well as the cost savings of plain paper versus fax paper.
Computer File welcomes readers’ comments but regrets that the author cannot respond individually to letters. Write to Richard O’Reilly, Computer File, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, Calif. 90053.
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10218aa3274fb545c6c25cecad2bd6f7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3035-story.html | Airline Chairman Quits to Do Charity | Airline Chairman Quits to Do Charity
Bruce R. Kennedy, who guided Alaska Airlines during its growth from a tiny one-state carrier to a major regional airline, said Wednesday that he will resign as chairman of Alaska Air Group to devote his time to Christian charity work.
Raymond J. Vecci, 48, who was elected president and chief executive of the carrier in September, will succeed Kennedy as chairman of the parent company in May, the company said. He was appointed immediately to succeed Kennedy as chairman of Alaska Airlines and as president and chief executive of Alaska Air Group.
Kennedy, 52, said he will chair the board’s executive committee for a short time after his departure from the company on May 21.
“I’m putting this era behind me and looking for a fresh start and challenges,” said Kennedy, a former Alaska real estate entrepreneur who acquired the nearly bankrupt carrier in 1972.
Since then, the Seattle-based airline has expanded service to 35 cities on the West Coast and in June is scheduled to begin service between Anchorage and two cities in the far eastern region of the Soviet Union.
Although faced with higher jet fuel prices and heavy discounting among competitors, Alaska is one of the few profitable U.S. airlines. In 1990, the company posted $17.1 million in profit on revenues of $1 billion.
Kennedy said he decided to leave the company a year ago, although he started feeling “a bit restless” after 10 years with the airline. Last week, Kennedy was elected chairman of the Mission Aviation Fellowship in Redlands, which posts pilots who are also mechanics in remote areas of Africa, Latin America and Indonesia. The pilots ferry church workers and provide medical evacuation services in single-engine aircraft.
Kennedy said he and his wife, Karleen, plan to visit Mission Aviation Fellowship posts and may apply to teach English in China during the summer.
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5e562dacf23f91ed7b151c752e9ff41a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3036-story.html | Home Resales Decline for State, Nation | Home Resales Decline for State, Nation
Tight credit and consumer worries over the Gulf War more than offset lower mortgage rates in January, triggering a 4.3% decline in home resales in California last month and 7% nationwide, two real estate trade groups reported Wednesday.
The decline means that the sales rate in California is 31.1% slower than it was a year ago when the state’s slowdown was already under way.
Meanwhile, in a separate report, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the economy contracted at a 2.0% rate in the final quarter of 1990, slightly less than the previously estimated 2.1%.
The main reason for the revision was that imports fell more sharply than originally estimated as the economy weakened. But exports were relatively strong, so the national trade performance was better than reported a month ago.
Consumer spending fell only 2.9% from the third-quarter levels, the Commerce Department said, compared to earlier estimates of 3.1%.
The home sales report from the California Assn. of Realtors showed steep month-to-month declines in most areas of the state, with the expensive Ventura County region north of Los Angeles plunging 32.9% for the biggest drop.
Sales in the Northern California wine country were off a whopping 62.6% on a year-to-year basis.
The National Assn. of Realtors, in its monthly report, said January’s sales of existing single-family homes were 2.91 million units on an annual basis, down from 3.13 million units in December.
The January rate was down 16.1% from a year ago, when sales were 3.47 million units.
January’s median price of an existing, single-family California home was $192,690, down 0.1% from December and 1.2% below the year-ago median price of $194,950.
The median represents the level at which half the homes sold are more expensive and half are less expensive.
The national median price for single-family homes in January was $94,200, up $2,500 from December, but down $1,000 from January, 1990.
Sales declines were slight in Orange County, 4.6%, and the San Francisco Bay Area, 2.7%. But hefty declines came in several other areas: Riverside/San Bernardino, 13.5%; the Central Valley, 15.4%, and Los Angeles, 16.1%.
Los Angeles sales were also off a steep 41.1% from January, 1990.
Although the revision from the previous estimate was small, economists said they were encouraged by new data in the report.
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8a37bbaa5c191af8e76e9f28462fbe87 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3037-story.html | Parker, Ex-VP of Thrift Indicted in Fraud Case : S&Ls;: Michael Parker and Jeffrey Worthy are accused of using a leveraged leasing scheme to defraud now-insolvent Columbia S&L;. | Parker, Ex-VP of Thrift Indicted in Fraud Case : S&Ls;: Michael Parker and Jeffrey Worthy are accused of using a leveraged leasing scheme to defraud now-insolvent Columbia S&L;.
A Newport Beach executive and a former Columbia Savings & Loan vice president were indicted Wednesday on charges of bilking more than $11 million from the now-insolvent thrift in what is alleged to be among the largest thrift fraud cases in Southern California.
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Michael E. Parker, founder of Parker North American Corp. of Costa Mesa, and Jeffrey S. Worthy, Columbia’s former director of financial planning, on charges of racketeering, money laundering, paying and receiving kickbacks, and bank and tax fraud. Parker was also charged with tax evasion. The two engineered a so-called leveraged leasing scheme to defraud Columbia, the indictment charges.
In a separate action, the federal Office of Thrift Supervision said Wednesday that it will seek $25 million in restitution on behalf of Columbia from Parker, Worthy and Brian W. Fink, former vice president of Parker North America. The agency is also seeking to ban the three from the thrift business.
The restitution sought by the OTS is the third-highest sought by the agency, exceeded only by actions against former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. and former CenTrust Bank Chairman David Paul.
The indictment includes 46 counts against Parker and 43 against Worthy. Federal authorities also filed two charges against Fink for conspiracy and tax evasion. The conspiracy charge stems from the preparation of phony lease documents submitted to Columbia.
In yet another related indictment, the grand jury indicted Gilbert Fuentes, former chief financial officer of Columbia, on one count of tax evasion for allegedly not reporting on tax forms a $200,000 check from Parker in 1986.
Prosecutors said the joint investigation by the FBI and Internal Revenue Service is continuing.
The indictment alleges that Parker, 43, paid more than $1.5 million in kickbacks to Worthy, 33, of Downey, from April, 1985, to November, 1987. Prosecutors said that in exchange, Worthy recommended approval of the $166 million in lease deals to Columbia, even though the leases were often bogus. Columbia ultimately forwarded $31 million in cash to Parker North America.
“During the operation of the enterprise . . . Parker allegedly diverted over $11 million of this money to himself, Worthy, Fink, Fuentes and others,” said the office of Lourdes G. Baird, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, in a statement.
Parker and Worthy have denied the charges in the past. Fink and Fuentes could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Federal authorities arrested Parker at 6 a.m. Wednesday at his $1.4-million home in the posh Big Canyon neighborhood of Newport Beach and took Worthy into custody at about the same time. Fink, 42, waived indictment and was not arrested, possibly indicating that he is cooperating with prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the case is among the largest incidents of fraud against an S&L; in Southern California. And in what the U.S. Attorney’s Office said was one of the first cases of its kind, prosecutors will ask the courts to confiscate about $2 million in assets they claim were bought with proceeds from the fraud scheme.
Those assets include Parker’s Newport Beach house, Worthy’s home in Downey and a condominium he bought in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. The IRS has already seized the three homes.
The indictment and the seizures of property “enable us to prosecute corrupt financial services executives and, at the same time, lessen the financial burden to the American taxpayer,” said U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh in announcing the actions in Washington.
At a bail hearing in federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors asked U.S. Magistrate John Kronenberg to keep Parker in jail without bail until his trial. Parker, they said, was likely to flee the country and pose a “economic danger to the community.”
Worthy was released on a $200,000 bond secured by his father’s home. Fuentes, a former Irvine resident who now lives in San Diego, was unable to secure a $25,000 bond and remains in custody in San Diego County.
The indictments cap a nearly yearlong investigation that was touched off by tips from Columbia and employees at Parker North America, said Assistant U.S. Atty. James R. Asperger. Columbia filed a civil suit against Parker in August alleging that he had fraudulently diverted more than $13.5 million in thrift funds for his personal use.
At one point last year, according to the indictment, Parker offered a lawyer for Columbia $5 million in cash and $5 million worth of Parker Automotive stock to settle their differences and to prevent Columbia from “revealing alleged kickbacks received by Columbia corporate officers” from Parker North America.
Times staff writers Gregory Crouch and John O’Dell contributed to this story.
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3372a70e360e59e6ef236ec83843d8c3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3038-story.html | Bondholders Call for Ouster of Cranston | Bondholders Call for Ouster of Cranston
Some of the bondholders who lost more than $200 million in the collapse of Lincoln Savings & Loan want the Senate Ethics Committee to recommend the ouster of Sen. Alan Cranston for his role in the Lincoln scandal.
Some also reacted angrily to the committee’s decision Wednesday to close the case against the other four of the so-called Keating Five and let them off with what the bondholders called a “slap on the wrist.”
Even onetime admirers of Cranston, a California Democrat, believe his support for former Lincoln owner Charles H. Keating Jr. was bought with the more than $900,000 the senator received in Keating-affiliated contributions for his campaigns and political causes.
“On an emotional and personal level, I don’t think anything short of severe civil and possible criminal charges should be leveled against them,” said Donald Mikami, a Fountain Valley dentist and bondholder.
The reaction came after the ethics committee ended its 17-month-long investigation Wednesday. It found, among other things, that Cranston was the most culpable of the senators who came to Keating’s aid.
“There is credible evidence that provides substantial cause for the committee to conclude . . . that Sen. Cranston engaged in an impermissible pattern of conduct in which fund raising and official activities were substantially linked,” the committee said. It gave him a chance to respond before making a recommendation to the full Senate about any institutional action.
The committee found that Sens. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) and Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.) showed “insensitivity and poor judgment” and that Sens. John Glenn (D-Ohio) and John S. McCain (R-Ariz.) showed “poor judgment” in their relationship with Keating. But the panel did not recommend any additional action against those senators.
Most bondholders were retired investors like Leah Kane of Laguna Hills, and many lost their life savings.
“They must be made to resign and to pay back some of this money out of their own pockets, or at least their pensions should be taken away,” Kane said. “Something should be taken away from them just as it was taken away from us.”
In April, 1987, at Keating’s request, the five senators intervened in a yearlong dispute between Keating and federal thrift regulators over the federal audit of Irvine-based Lincoln. Meanwhile, Lincoln’s parent firm, American Continental Corp. in Phoenix, had shortly before begun issuing bonds through Lincoln’s 29 Southern California branches. The securities, which even Keating later acknowledged were junk bonds, were sold mainly to elderly depositors. Many of them thought the bonds were insured or as safe as their deposits, which they weren’t.
Bondholders claim the senators played a major role in allowing the bond sales to continue by delaying action against Lincoln--even though regulators said they weren’t intimidated by the meetings.
“I was a supporter of Cranston’s,” said Shirley Lampel, a bondholder from Tustin. “Now, there’s no question in my mind that he has no right to continue as a senator. The job he was doing has nothing to do with his real job of representing the people of California.”
Jack C. Lower, of San Jacinto, described himself as a former admirer of Cranston who initially found it difficult to believe that the senator was involved in the Lincoln scandal. Now he wants Cranston thrown out of the Senate but contends the “guiltiest” people in the scandal are the state and federal regulators who allowed the bond sales.
Charles Sullivan Sr., a 78-year-old Oceanside retiree, believes Cranston “disgraces the Senate” but will leave with a hefty pension intact. That would leave the senator much better off than Sullivan and his wife. “We’ve lost our life savings due to him,” he said.
MAIN STORY: A1
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f60b6b73db66a7d6dd99c58c62653a83 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3039-story.html | Decision to Shut N.Y. Daily News Due Monday, Striking Unions Told | Decision to Shut N.Y. Daily News Due Monday, Striking Unions Told
The decision as to whether the New York Daily News will be closed will be made Monday if striking unions do not grant enough concessions by then, the publisher said Wednesday.
Publisher James Hoge set the latest deadline after 13 months of fruitless negotiations, a four-month-long strike and a wave of violence that prompted the News to file multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the nine unions.
While the 71-year-old tabloid has been published daily since the strike began Oct. 25, its circulation has fallen from 1.09 million to what management says is now 600,000.
As readership fell and the unions mounted a boycott, major advertisers deserted the News. The newspaper says it lost $114.5 million in 1990, $69.3 million of that in the last quarter.
Contract negotiations, meanwhile, have gone nowhere. On Jan. 16, Hoge announced a tentative decision to close the newspaper or sell it if profits were not restored. The News sent its employees 60-day notices, required by law, saying the newspaper might be shut down.
Since then there have been urgent attempts to negotiate, including a recent round of talks mediated by William J. Usery Jr., a former U.S. secretary of labor.
Another meeting was scheduled for today.
“We think a sufficient time has passed . . . and sufficient efforts have been made to elicit proposals” from the unions, Hoge said. Until Monday, he said, “we will meet with them to consider anything they have left.”
The publisher said that if he decides to close the newspaper, he will set a date for the shutdown and the parent company, Chicago-based Tribune Co., will rule on the decision.
After that, Hoge said, he would “be prepared to discuss the effects of that with the unions.” That would include the possible sale of the paper.
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a9d010d805f3fa473024b91f970a92cb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3040-story.html | Westinghouse Posts Charge of $975 Million | Westinghouse Posts Charge of $975 Million
Westinghouse Electric Corp. on Wednesday said it was taking a $975-million pretax charge against fourth-quarter 1990 earnings to cover the cost of liquidating sour junk bond and real estate investments at its financial services unit.
The charge led to restatement of fourth-quarter results to a loss of $449 million, contrasting with a profit of $270 million a year earlier.
The vast restructuring of Westinghouse Financial Services Inc. includes a $3-billion reduction in its $8-billion assets over the next two years.
Westinghouse said it is quitting the deeply battered market for high-yield bonds and focusing on lower-risk investments. The unit is also cutting its commercial paper holdings by up to $1.5 billion. Roughly 10% of its 671 employees could also be cut in the move.
The company hopes that the restructuring will improve its cash flow and balance sheet. A turnaround in the finance unit will bring it into line with the company’s healthy operations in broadcasting, electronics and other businesses.
Taking its restructuring a step further, the company said it will sell $600 million in common stock, $500 million through a public offering in the near future.
Westinghouse shares declined on the news, ending down $1.875 at $27.25 on the New York Stock Exchange, where it was the second most active issue.
The charge left full-year 1990 earnings at a profit of $268 million compared to $922 million a year earlier.
Westinghouse Chairman Paul Lego told shareholders in a letter that first-quarter 1991 earnings will drop more than 50% from the 1990 quarter, while second-quarter net will also fall sharply.
Then he sees a pickup. “Earnings in the second half of 1991 are expected to be higher than those of the second half of 1990,” Lego said.
The company decided to take the charge after an evaluation by investment banking firm Lazard Freres, which it retained in September to help with a strategic plan.
“We asked Lazard Freres to help us with the asset-by-asset evaluation that was completed in mid-February,” Lego said.
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0956224eff3a2bce4727fd09590ec13e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fi-3042-story.html | 500,000 GM Cars Recalled for Belt Flaw | 500,000 GM Cars Recalled for Belt Flaw
General Motors Corp. recalled close to half a million mid-size cars Wednesday, citing a design flaw that could cause the front safety belts to break in a crash.
GM spokesman David Sloan said the company first became aware of the potential problem when a belt broke in a September, 1989, crash test sponsored by the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration.
The case was closed when the agency was unable to find the cause of the mishap. But it was reopened in March, 1990, when a belt broke in a real-life crash, causing minor injuries to the driver. Sloan said the company was not aware of any other incidents in which the same problem occurred.
The company said the safety-belt webbing on the front shoulder belts of 1990 model year sedans could gather at one corner of a guide loop, straining to the point of breaking in a severe crash.
Sloan said it took a year to issue the recall after the second incident because the company had to design, test and manufacture a replacement part.
GM will mail recall notices Friday to about 459,000 owners of 1990 Chevrolet Lumina, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Pontiac Grand Prix sedans and some 1990-91 Buick Regal sedans. The cars with the defect were built between February, 1989, and August, 1990.
GM dealers will install brackets on the front shoulder belts to ensure that the belts slip evenly over the guide. The service will be performed at no charge.
Clark Cooper, general manager at Sopp Oldsmobile in Downey, said he was not fazed by the prospect of a large number of owners coming in for the repair.
“Typically when there’s a recall, we see a lot of customers we don’t ordinarily see. So it gives us another shot at them that we don’t usually have,” Cooper said. “They can kick around the showroom floor while they’re waiting, and we can maybe get them interested in buying a new car.”
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fd9af6a9e4dc7f67f39d270d3a0001ef | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2611-story.html | Le Nouveau Brewski | Le Nouveau Brewski
Suntory Beer’s latest promotional brainstorm, reports the specialist magazine Japan Design Close-Up, is a new label that reads Beer Nouveau. Obviously an attempt to cash in on the Japanese craze for Beaujolais Nouveau, it must give Suntory drinkers the confident feeling that the beer was made only a few months ago. Or hey, within the last year, for sure.
I’ll Give It a 9, Because I Can Grasp It
American Bandstand Grill is a Miami-based restaurant chain owned by--who else?--Dick Clark Productions. Hold on, we’re wrong. It’s not a restaurant, it’s a concept: a “rock-'n'-roll-themed, memorabilia-studded grill concept” that will provide “one-stop evening entertainment.”
Your Gene Splicers At Work
Genetic engineers are planning to add a safety gene to the starter culture that makes Brie cheese. It will produce a chemical lethal to certain bacteria, including the deadly Listeria monocytogenes. Meanwhile, the Calgene company will ask the FDA this summer for approval of a gene that suppresses the enzyme that causes tomatoes to soften. The idea is that this will make it possible to harvest tomatoes riper and to ship them without flavor-destroying refrigeration.
Any Burger in a Desert Storm
New development in the struggle to provide Stateside eats for American troops in the Gulf: lunch wagons serving hot dogs, burgers and fries near depots, truck stops and satellite phone-home points.
Ma Prose
Ma Maison has given its name--once the most famous among Los Angeles restaurants--to a line of flavored vinegars. The intriguing thing is trying to guess what language (or languages) the press release was translated from: “Vinegar has been appearing throughout the ages starting sometime in biblical period passing way to Cleopatra, the middle ages, 1934 Charles IV establishes the first regulations for vinegar, 1580 Henry III completes this job, 1867 Napoleon III supports Louis Pasteur’s theory of vinegar used as a preservative, until present day with the introduction of Ma Maison Orange and Grapefruit Vinegar.”
Don’t Badmouth the Broccoli
The Colorado Legislature is debating a bill that would make it possible to to sue for damages anybody who makes “reckless and unfounded claims” disparaging a food product.
Fantasy Corner
Upcoming technology, so they say: laser slicers; a griddle with second heat source in a lid for cooking on two sides; a shopping cart with a calculator built into the handle.
hed here
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569560fb73b4ee58abe3f56f0b72d8b5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2612-story.html | It’s the Real Thing: Licorice With Roots | It’s the Real Thing: Licorice With Roots
Chateau D’Lanz
18930 59th Ave. N.E. Arlington, Wash. 98223 (800) 722-0068 Check, money order or major credit cards. The Indian god Brahma called licorice the elixir of life. In ancient China, licorice was used in religious ceremonies. King Tut liked licorice, too; when his tomb was opened, licorice root was found along with golden treasure. But it took an Englishman, George Dunhill, to turn licorice into candy. He blended the extract with molasses and flour and came up with the Pontrefract cakes that remain Britain’s favorite candy.
Americans are also fond of licorice--especially people in Utah, who eat five times the national average. Texans, on the other hand, don’t much like licorice, but that’s probably because they haven’t discovered Chateau D’Lanz.
Howard Lanz, a licorice devotee, spent years searching for a candy with the chewiness and flavor of the licorice he ate as a child in Switzerland. Most of the ones he tried were made with molasses, flour, dyes, fillers . . . but no licorice root. A chemist, Lanz decided to develop something better.
It took six years, but he ended up with the best licorice you can buy. Hand-mixed and hand-poured, his black buttons are made from Mediterranean licorice root and other natural ingredients. Each one is about the size of a quarter, contains only 10 calories and takes about three minutes to chew.
Lanz also makes tasty red buttons flavored with cranberries (he won’t call them licorice because they contain no licorice root). The buttons are packed in 2-ounce bags. At $10 for a three-bag order (that’s a minimum, but it includes postage), this is pretty pricey candy. But if you’re a licorice lover, you probably won’t care.
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1e2cba0771cb4d9af532f8f6b4bac755 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2613-story.html | He thinks food is better than it used to be. He thinks technology’s a dream. Roger Verge is one of the world’s most famous chefs--and he loves L.A. : 3 STARS in LA : The Original Celebrity Chef | He thinks food is better than it used to be. He thinks technology’s a dream. Roger Verge is one of the world’s most famous chefs--and he loves L.A. : 3 STARS in LA : The Original Celebrity Chef
Roger Verge is holding court. The proprietor of the three-star Le Moulin de Mougins sits, his white mustache twitching slightly, while an editor from Architectural Digest pulls out photograph after photograph of Verge’s home. He peers at the image of a lamp. “Ah yes,” he says, caressing it with his hand. Like a good student, he begins cataloguing its virtues. “I try to give pleasure to everyone,” he whispers.
Verge, “with his burnt-almond eyes, his white mustache, his noble bearing and his sweet words,” is, as the Guide Gault-Millau somewhat caustically says, “the very incarnation of the great French chef for foreigners.” Conscious of his role, he is constantly on the move, a missionary who carries the good word about French food to various corners of the world.
Right now, he is proselytizing in Los Angeles. Other three-star chefs have, of course, shown up from time to time to cook a meal or two, but Verge, who does nothing by half-measures, has brought along his chef, his sous-chef and his menu for “Roger Verge Week” at Champagne. “I did it out of friendship,” he says. “You know Patrick (Healy) worked with us for more than a year, so I thought it would be nice. Our restaurant is closed now (Le Moulin de Mougins closes every year from the end of January to the beginning of April), and I like Los Angeles so much. Besides,” he adds, “I have so many friends here.”
Indeed. One night Verge goes off (with no back-up assistance) to “cook a little dinner” for a few of those friends--Michael Douglas, Jack Nicholson, Sylvester Stallone, Danny De Vito. On another occasion, his old pal James Coburn (“you know, he spent six weeks at the Moulin”) stops by. Mougins is less than five miles from Cannes, and its film festival, and so Verge speaks casually of drinking wine with Sergio Mendes, of eating a meal with Anthony Quinn. And then, of course, there are his food friends--Wolfgang Puck, Michel Richard, Joachim Splichal.
In the world of food, Verge is a prince. Chefs love him because he--along with Paul Bocuse--virtually invented the celebrity chef. “When I was young and I had a girlfriend, I would never tell her that I was a chef,” says Verge, who was determined to change all that. He and Bocuse got out of the kitchen and into the limelight, taking a profession that had always been considered mere drudgery and making it glamorous.
This was not hard for Verge, the restless son of a blacksmith from Commentry, a village smack in the middle of France. Unlike ordinary chefs, who laboriously work their way up in the profession, Verge was a comet who used cooking as a passport to the world. He never stayed very long in one place, moving from Paris to Casablanca, from St. Moritz to Jamaica. Eventually he ended up in Africa. “I believe,” he says, “we can all do whatever it is we want to do.”
What Verge ultimately wanted to do was open a big-deal restaurant. Trusting his luck, he opened Le Moulin de Mougins in 1969. Before the year was out, he had gotten his first star in the Guide Michelin, an almost-unheard-of feat. In less than five years, that venerable institution had bestowed the coveted three stars upon Verge. And then the chef started looking around for other worlds to conquer. “I like to take risks,” he says.
And so he has a second restaurant in Mougins, the modest L’Amandier (one star), a cafe in Monte Carlo and a restaurant at Disney World in Orlando, Fla. He’s about to open a restaurant in Tokyo. But that’s just for starters. This businessman-chef also has a couple of cooking schools, a boutique, his own line of china and glassware, and a huge variety of food products bearing his name. His latest coup: a state-of-the-art stove made by Bonnet and bearing his name.
“He is really up on the newest products available to chefs,” says Patrick Healy. “He is always moving with progress, constantly bettering his equipment. Nobody has a kitchen like his.”
Other chefs are famous for their constant lamentations about the way things were in the past; Verge, on the other hand, is a thoroughly modern man who couldn’t be more pleased with the present. He is enormously enthusiastic about the benefits of technology. “Cooking is evolving in a wonderful way,” he says, pointing out that this makes it possible to create the food of the past with the labor force of the present. “We don’t need apprentices who start at 12 and work for nothing,” he says. “We don’t need people who work 100 hours a week. We have all these objects.”
“These objects,” Verge firmly believes, “not only permit you to do things faster but also better.” He speaks of mixers that allow a chef to emulsify a sauce almost instantly, of processors that make the arduous work of creating a quenelle amazingly easy. He talks of how difficult it used to be to make ice creams and sorbets--now a snap--and then speaks lovingly of the very latest technology.
“Have you seen these new induction stove tops?” he asks. “They bombard the food, through the pot, with heat.” His eyes twinkle. “Amazing! This is much hotter than an open flame--but if you put your hand on it, it is completely cool. They are wonderful new tools. You can boil a huge pot of water in seconds. And the new ovens--they are like computers.”
Verge is also pleased with the improvement in produce. Almost everyone else in France will tell you how much better raw ingredients used to be. Verge disagrees; he actually thinks products have gotten better. He calls people who don’t agree “des vieux rabat-joies” (old killjoys). “What you want in cooking,” he says, “is to be able to depend upon the regularity of products. In the old days that was difficult; now it is easy.”
Verge is especially enthusiastic about what he calls the “remarkable evolution of vegetables here in California.” This is, he says, quite a change. “When I came with Paul Bocuse in ’74 to make a meal at L’Ermitage, we didn’t trust any of the local products. We brought everything with us. Now you can come with your hands in your pockets.” For their week at Champagne, Verge and his chefs used only locally purchased ingredients.
Still, he believes, fish continues to be a problem. “There is so much chlorine in the water,” he says, “and you can taste it in the fish.” And while he thinks that our pigeons and ducks are perfectly delicious, he shakes his head over American chickens. “They spit water when you cook them,” he laments.
These are, however, just about the only negative things Verge has to say about America--and Los Angeles in particular. For this man, who sprinkles his speech with words such as adventure, daring, risk and freedom, the United States is a dreamland. “In France,” he says, almost wistfully, “you are immediately beaten down when you want to go too far with your ideas. Here there is a kind of liberty. You can permit yourself to dare.” As for Los Angeles, he says admiringly that it has “the most adventurous cuisine in the United States.”
But the menu that Verge chose to bring to this adventurous city is, for the most part, remarkably tame. Replete with fancy ingredients--baby zucchini filled with a mix of black truffles and mushrooms, a tartare of salmon served with caviar, lobster fricasseed in Sauternes--and complicated techniques, it is standard three-star fare.
There are, however, a few exceptions: the three recipes found below. Each demonstrates, in its own way, why Roger Verge is such an important chef. The scallop dish is a particularly deft and elegant combination of unlikely elements: scallops, oranges and artichokes. The dessert, which is simplicity itself, draws upon the new availability of ethnic ingredients, taking a traditional dish and giving it an entirely new twist. And the third is Verge’s homage to home cooking; here he has elevated a simple stew to three-star status.
Taken together, they represent the joie de vivre that Verge brings to his cooking. For this three-star chef, life really is a feast. Just thinking of the stew, he inhales deeply and smiles his big smile. “Ah,” he says, “how good that smells.”
Roger Verge week took place during the first week of February. It was so successful that 600 hopefuls on the waiting list never got to taste Verge’s food. LA SALADE DE NOIX DE
SAINT-JACQUES EN
ROSACE ET SON
BEURRE D’ORANGE
(Scallop Salad With
Orange Butter)
6 small to medium artichokes
Salt
Juice of 1/2 lemon
7 ounces mache (lamb’s lettuce)
12 large scallops
Pepper
3 oranges
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon whipping cream
7 ounces cold unsalted butter
Chervil sprigs
Remove leaves from artichokes and place central portions in saucepan with boiling water to cover. Add lemon juice. Cook 15 minutes over medium heat. Remove chokes, trim stalk ends and cut artichoke bottoms into fine slices. Wash and dry mache.
Cut each scallop into 5 horizontal slices. Arrange 2 sliced scallops (10 slices) in overlapping rosette on small individual piece of baking parchment. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Repeat with remaining scallops.
Peel zest from 1 orange and cut into very fine matchsticks. Peel pith from orange, then remove segments and set aside. Squeeze juice from remaining 2 oranges and reserve for orange butter. Cook orange zest matchsticks in 1 tablespoon water with sugar and 2 tablespoons orange juice over low heat until lightly caramelized. Reserve for garnish.
Place reserved orange juice in saucepan and reduce by half. Add whipping cream and bring to rolling boil. Reduce heat to medium and whisk in 5 1/2 ounces butter, small amount at time. Season to taste with salt and pepper and keep warm.
Melt remaining 1 1/2 ounces butter in small non-stick skillet over medium heat. One at time, slide each sheet of parchment with scallop rosette onto plate and reverse over skillet. Cook, scallop-side down, 30 seconds or until lightly browned. Invert pan to remove. Keep warm.
Arrange mache leaves around outer edge of 6 chilled plates. Make smaller circle of sliced artichoke bottoms over top. Slide scallop rosette, cooked side up, off parchment onto center of each plate, retaining or re-forming rosette.
Drizzle orange butter over top and garnish with orange segments, chervil sprigs and caramelized orange zest. Makes 6 servings.
CRUNCHY APPLE
AND RAISIN TARTE
1/4 pound dark raisins
4 golden Delicious apples
1/2 cup unsalted butter
Ground cinnamon
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Filo dough
Melted butter
Powdered sugar
4 sprigs mint
Place raisins in saucepan with water to cover and bring to boil. Remove from heat and set aside.
Peel and core apples. Cut each into 10 segments, then saute in butter until tender. Drain raisins. Add to apples along with 1 tablespoon cinnamon and granulated sugar.
Stack 3 sheets filo, each brushed with melted butter, on top of each other. Cut sheets into 5-inch squares.
Place 1 stacked filo square, buttered side up, in oven-proof skillet brushed well with melted butter. Top with 1/4 apple mixture, then second filo square. Sprinkle top with powdered sugar and bake at 400 degrees 5 to 6 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove skillet from oven and heat over burner until filo is browned on bottom. Invert onto serving plate. Sprinkle top with additional powdered sugar and cinnamon and garnish with mint sprig. Repeat procedure to make 4 servings.
ROGER VERGE’S
SEVEN-HOUR
LAMB STEW
4 1/2 pounds boneless leg of lamb
2 carrots, coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
2 onions, coarsely chopped
2 heads garlic, split in half
1 bunch fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
Zest of 1 orange
2 lamb or calves feet, split
2 (750-ml) bottles Cote Rotie wine
1 quart Demi-Glace
1 basket pearl onions, peeled
1/2 pound white button mushrooms
Unsalted butter
Salt, pepper
Trim most of fat from lamb and cut in 2 1/2-inch cubes. Combine with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, orange zest and lamb or calves feet in oven-proof casserole. Add wine and marinate in refrigerator 24 hours.
Place covered casserole in oven and roast at 250 degrees 7 hours or until lamb is fork-tender. Remove lamb and cover with damp cloth. Continue to cook feet until tender, then remove. Remove bones from feet and cut meat, if any, into small cubes. Cover and set aside.
Cook wine and vegetables on top of stove until reduced by half, then add Demi-Glace. Cook again until liquid becomes thick sauce consistency. Strain and set aside.
Boil pearl onions until tender, then drain. Saute mushrooms in small amount of butter. Remove from heat and combine with lamb cubes and onions. Bring wine sauce back to boil. Whisk in 1 1/2 tablespoons butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour over lamb mixture. Makes 8 servings.
Demi-Glace
(From “The Art of
Cooking” by
Jacques Pepin)
10 pounds veal bones, cut in 2 to 3-inch pieces
1 1/2 pounds meat sinews, tendons and scraps
1 pound onions, peeled or unpeeled, quartered
3/4 pound carrots, cut in 1-inch pieces
1 large head garlic, separated into cloves, unpeeled
1 bunch parsley
3/4 pound celery hearts
4 to 6 bay leaves
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 1/2 pounds tomatoes
Spread bones and meat scraps in even layer in 1 very large or 2 smaller heavy roasting pans. Roast at 400 degrees 1 1/2 hours, stirring every 20 to 30 minutes. Bones should be browned, but not burned.
Add onions and carrots to pan. Continue roasting, stirring twice, 45 minutes longer.
Remove pan from oven and, using large skimmer, lift out bones and vegetables and transfer into large stockpot, preferably stainless steel or enamel. Pour out all fat accumulated in roasting pan and discard. Add enough water to pan to cover bottom, place on stove and, using flat-ended wooden spatula, scrape bottom of pan to dissolve all solidified juices. Add to stockpot.
Fill stockpot with water to within 2 to 3 inches from top and bring to boil. Boil gently 2 hours, then skim off as much fat as possible from surface. Add garlic, parsley, celery heart, bay leaves, thyme, peppercorns and tomatoes. Bring back to boil, then boil very gently 8 to 10 hours or overnight.
Strain stock through very fine sieve (should measure 5 quarts). Chill.
When stock is cold, remove any fat from surface. Place stock back in stockpot and boil down to 2 1/2 quarts. Cool.
When cold, scoop into large chunks. Wrap in plastic wrap or foil and freeze. Makes 2 1/2 quarts.
Note: If ripe tomatoes are not available, substitute 3 cups canned Italian plum tomatoes.
MASHED POTATOES
“MOULIN
STYLE”
1 1/2 pounds potatoes
Salt
1/2 cup milk
1 cup unsalted butter, cut in small pieces
Freshly ground pepper
Peel and cut potatoes into large cubes. Cook in salted water until tender. Drain. Press through ricer, then place in food processor.
Bring milk to boil. With motor running, add milk and butter to potatoes. Process just until blended. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes about 1 1/4 cups.
Note: The amount of butter is correct. Fancy French food is rich!
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77b15f403c9f876f1aa76440424f8f4f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2614-story.html | Learning to Love Pate | Learning to Love Pate
Gastronomic delights are tickling taste buds in this city’s schools--as part of the curriculum.
Children in some primary classes have started a course designed to encourage a taste for home-grown haute cuisine rather than American-style fast food.
“France has developed an art of living that we all need to rediscover and to safeguard,” said Culture Minister Jack Lang, who is fiercely opposed to the American attack on traditional French eating habits.
He laughs off suggestions that the 10-part “Awakening of Taste” course is just a patriotic ploy. “We aim to develop desire and passion for good food. Whether or not the hamburger can be considered good food is a personal matter,” he said.
“Hamburgers can be excellent. It depends on the restaurateur. But then, of course, I’m no fan of the hamburger.”
Lang looked on, beaming with pleasure, as one class of 10-year-olds learned to distinguish among four basic food flavors--sweet, salt, bitter and acid.
They tested salt-free diet bread against a regular loaf and compared the bitter taste of coffee with the acidic flavor of lemon juice.
“Bit too sweet for me,” Lang said as one child handed him a glass of lemon syrup with sugar lumps.
Next, the children were to explore the touch, smell and feel of food, and there would also be classes on how to put together a mouth-watering balanced meal in addition to classes on French regional delicacies and the finer points of gastronomy.
Some 6,000 primary school children across Paris are taking part in the pilot program this year. Lang hopes the idea will soon spread across the country. It was conceived by the National Council of Culinary Arts, an institute he founded in 1989 to promote French cuisine.
Teachers say the 90-minute lessons are encouraging children to take a healthy interest in the food they eat at home.
The result? “One child said he no longer went to dinner with his Walkman on,” one teacher said.
But teaching children to appreciate gourmet delicacies may still prove an uphill struggle.
“Chips and lollies are my favorites,” a youngster named Julien said. Another, Emilie, professed a taste for pasta and hamburgers.
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f17bc5eeb73cf6b5963eee9699f1cf6e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2615-story.html | Impress Your Friends: Make Puff Pastry | Impress Your Friends: Make Puff Pastry
Puff pastry is the most challenging cooking technique discussed in this column thus far. Most of us simply purchase the prepared frozen dough. However, making it once (or just reading how it’s done) will provide an understanding of how a few simple ingredients are combined to create this spectacular pastry.
The French name for puff pastry is pate feuilletee --roughly translated, leafy dough. The name refers to the leaf-thin layers of dough, separated by equally thin layers of butter, attained by rolling and folding. In the oven the butter melts and the moisture in the dough turns to steam, lifting the pastry to many times its original thickness.
Two factors--keeping the dough cool and allowing it to rest between rollings--are the keys to making puff pastry. If the dough becomes soft and limp, showing that the butter is melting, stop and refrigerate it 30 minutes before proceeding. Do the same any time it turns rubbery because the gluten has been overworked.
A marble slab, which is naturally cool, is the optimum material on which to make puff pastry, but any work surface will do. Chill the area by covering it with a jellyroll or roasting pan containing ice.
The dough, or detrempe, is made with a mixture of all-purpose and pastry or cake flour. The softer pastry and cake flours dilute the gluten in the all-purpose flour.
A combination of unbleached white pastry flour and unbleached all-purpose flour creates a dough that is easy and fast to handle because it needs shorter rest periods; a dough made of all-purpose flour and cake flour is slower to work but produces the lightest and puffiest pastry.
The flour is combined with salt, water and a small amount of butter or oil and mixed into a soft, slightly sticky dough. Chill the prepared dough for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, pound the unsalted butter with a rolling pin to soften it (Step 1). Sprinkle a small amount of flour over the butter (Step 2) and knead with the heel of your hand (Step 3) until pliable but still cold. Shape the butter into a 6-inch square (Step 4).
The temperature of the butter is very important. If it’s too cold, it will break through the dough during rolling; if it’s too soft, it will blend into the dough instead of forming a layer.
Pat the chilled dough into a 18x8-inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface. Center the square of butter on the upper half (Step 5), then fold the lower portion of the dough over it. Gently press the edges to seal (Step 6). Roll it out again to a 18x8-inch rectangle (Step 7). This spreads the butter between the upper and lower layers of dough.
Now fold the new 18x8-inch rectangle into thirds (Step 8) like a business letter, turn 90 degrees (Step 9) and roll out again into another 18x8-inch rectangle. The rolling movement should be a firm, even push away from you. Aim for as even a rectangle as possible, straightening the sides with the rolling pin when necessary. Now fold the dough into thirds letter-fashion again, wrap in plastic and refrigerate 45 minutes to one hour.
Each time you roll the dough out and then fold it in thirds is called a “turn,” so you have now done two turns. By the time you’ve done six turns, hundreds of layers will have been created.
If you plan to use the pastry immediately, repeat the process twice more with a 45-minute to one-hour rest in the refrigerator between work periods. If the pastry is not going to be shaped immediately, repeat the process once, making only the third and fourth turns, then store until needed. Complete the fifth and sixth turns an hour before shaping.
Either way, finished puff pastry dough should always be chilled at least an hour before shaping. It may be stored for up to two days in the refrigerator or--packaged carefully--frozen up to one month (defrost in the refrigerator six to eight hours before using).
To shape, roll the dough to 1/4-inch thickness or thinner. Turn it over before cutting so theunstretched side is down. Trim the edges with a sharp knife or cutter so the dough rises straight, then press it onto a damp baking sheet. Trimmings may be chilled, rerolled and used for recipes in which the richness of the dough is more important than lightness.
During baking, puff pastry should rise three to four times its original thickness. The oven needs to be very hot when the pastry is put in so the butter melts and moisture converts to steam, then the heat should be reduced as the pastry cooks through. Toasting will enhance the flavor and crispness, but if the pastry browns too quickly, cover loosely with foil.
PUFF PASTRY
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup unbleached white pastry flour
1 cup cold unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold water, about
Combine all-purpose flour and pastry flour in mixing bowl. Remove 1/2 cup and set aside, then make well in center of remaining flour mixture. Place 2 to 3 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces, salt and 1/2 cup water in well.
Gradually draw in flour mixture, working ingredients together with fingertips to form dough, adding more water if necessary. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill 15 minutes.
Pound remaining butter with rolling pin to soften. Sprinkle reserved flour over butter, then knead until smooth with heel of hand. Shape mixture into 6-inch square.
Pat chilled dough into 18x8-inch rectangle on lightly floured surface. Center butter on upper half, then encase by covering with lower portion of dough. Gently press edges to seal.
Roll again to 18x8-inch rectangle. Fold into thirds, turn 90 degrees, roll out, and fold again. Cover with plastic wrap and chill 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Repeat rolling and folding 2 more times, then chill again. Roll and fold 2 additional times, then chill 1 hour before shaping. Makes about 1 pound puff pastry.
Suggestions for column topics may be sent to Back to Basics, Food Section, The Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.
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71407de93c8ed7396f0c46167a8425dd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2617-story.html | Fragrant Chicken in a Salty Crust | Fragrant Chicken in a Salty Crust
Peter Roelant arrives at your table. He is bearing a tray containing something wrapped in a stiff, doughy blanket. Crack, goes the mallet. Off comes the crust. Up goes the fragrant steam as it escapes into the air. There on the tray sits a plump, juicy tiny chicken waiting to be carved.
The idea of salt-crust cooking is not new. The method is found in Turkey--where it is often used for fish--and in France.
“On sweet-fleshed baby chickens,” says Roelant, “the salted crust is far more subtle than direct salting. When the crust opens, fragrances throw themselves at you. I love the experience.”
With the chicken, Roelant suggests a starter of tomato soup flavored with garlic, a simple green salad and a decadent dessert. For the wine, try a light Bordeaux, or even a good Cabernet Sauvignon from the Napa Valley.
PETER ROELANT’S SALT-CRUSTED CHICKEN
1 (1- to 1 1/2-pound) baby chicken or Cornish hen
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 large shallot
1 clove garlic
1 sprig marjoram, thyme or rosemary
Dash black pepper
2 tablespoons oil
Salt Crust Dough
Chive Sauce
Rinse chicken and pat dry inside and out. Place 1 tablespoon butter, shallot, garlic and marjoram in cavity. Season chicken to taste with pepper.
Heat remaining butter with oil in skillet or wok until butter melts. Sear chicken until well-browned on all sides. Place in baking dish and bake at 400 degrees 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool slightly on baking dish.
Roll Salt Crust Dough as you would any dough into size large enough to blanket exposed surface of chicken (underside of chicken does not need to be covered with dough). Tuck in sides around chicken. Bake 15 to 20 minutes longer.
When ready to serve, cut through hardened salt crust with knife to remove crust. Remove chicken and carve as desired. Serve with Chive Sauce. Garnish platter with cooked baby carrots, celery root, leek, whole shallots and small potatoes, or as desired. Makes 2 servings.
Salt Crust Dough
2 egg whites
Flour
1/4 cup kosher salt
Combine egg whites, 1/2 cup flour and kosher salt in mixer or food processor and knead or process until dough is no longer sticky, adding more flour as needed until dough is manageable.
Chive Sauce
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 clove garlic
1/2 small shallot
Salt, pepper
1/2 bunch chives, cut up
Bring whipping cream to boil. Simmer 2 minutes. Place in blender with garlic, shallot, salt and pepper to taste and chives. Blend 2 minutes until sauce is formed. Makes about 1/2 cup.
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cd4a38e579afe9d8e96db114a105203b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2618-story.html | A Quick Classic: Sea Bass Stew | A Quick Classic: Sea Bass Stew
Menu
Caesar salad Sea Bass Stew
Garlic bread Amaretto cookies with fresh berries
Here’s an updated classic--fish stew--that makes a casual yet elegant weeknight dinner.
Sea bass is the perfect base, since this firm white-fleshed fish holds up well in stews and soups. Be careful not to overcook or it will become tough and dry; simply simmer a few minutes until the fish turns opaque and flakes when tested with a fork. Fresh herbs sprinkled over the stew just before serving will bring out the sweet rich flavor of the fish.
Caesar salad served with crunchy garlic bread complements the flavors of the fish stew. It is easily made by tossing salad greens, croutons, Parmesan cheese and chopped anchovies with a bottled Caesar salad dressing.
Amaretto cookies and chilled sliced strawberries make a great--and easy--ending for your dinner.
SEA BASS STEW Staples
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic
Salt
Cayenne pepper
Shopping
1 medium onion
1 large carrot
1 large tomato
2 (8-ounce) bottles clam juice
1 (14-ounce) can clear chicken broth
1 pound sea bass fillets
1 bunch basil leaves
1 bunch thyme leaves
1. Chop 1 onion to measure 1 cup. Chop 1 carrot to measure 1/2 cup. Chop 1 tomato. Mince 2 cloves garlic.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in large saucepan. Saute onion, carrot and garlic in oil until tender.
3. Add tomato and saute briefly.
4. Stir in 2 (8-ounce) bottles clam juice and 1 cup chicken broth. Bring to simmer.
5. Add 1 pound sea bass fillets. Simmer 2 to 3 minutes or until fish is cooked through.
6. Season to taste with salt and cayenne pepper.
7. Cut basil into julienne strips to measure 1 tablespoon. Measure 1 tablespoon thyme leaves. Sprinkle basil and thyme leaves on top of soup. Ladle into bowl and serve with lemon and garlic bread.
Makes 4 servings.
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c053774cdff269d11922b5fa41526273 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2619-story.html | Finding the Best Pepper Mill | Finding the Best Pepper Mill
Pepper mills are available in a multitude of designs and sizes, but it’s the grinding mechanism that really counts. The important question is how well each mill grinds whole peppercorns.
The best grinding mechanisms are made either of stainless steel or tough carbon steel treated to harden its surface (case-hardened). Mechanisms made from softer materials have two related problems: Tiny particles of metal shave off into food during grinding and the teeth eventually become dull.
We evaluated 14 mills, all of which required two hands to operate. Two models had “fins” or “ears” that are turned to activate the grinding mechanism; three models had crank handles, and nine models were the type where the top portion of the mill is rotated.
Choosing which type of mill to buy is strictly a matter of personal preference. One interesting note, however, is that with a crank-style mill, both hands tend to move in a circular motion so the freshly ground pepper tends to be distributed in the shape of a circle rather than evenly over the food.
A note about warranties: they can be a bit confusing, so it’s best to ask for clarification before purchasing a pepper mill. The term lifetime typically refers to that of the purchaser, although it sometimes means the expected lifetime of the mill as determined by the manufacturer. A forever warranty usually covers not only the original purchaser but even subsequent owners. All warranties cover only the grinding mechanism, not the exterior housing.
CONCLUSIONS:
Despite claims that mills were “fully adjustable,” few of the models produced significantly different grinds (except for fine and coarse) at the various settings.
Prices varied from $15 to $130. The William Bounds mill, judged highest on all criteria by our testers, sells for less than $30. The models are listed in descending order of preference on the accompanying Product Comparison chart.
EVALUATION:
Each of the 14 mills was evaluated on the following criteria:
* How well did it grind peppercorns?
* Did the mill produce a sufficient amount of pepper for each turn?
* How easy was it to change the grind?
* Was the mill easy to fill?
* Did it hold enough peppercorns to alleviate too-frequent filling?
* Did the mill feel comfortable in the hand?
* Was the exterior housing easy to clean?
* Did the mill seem durable?
Since many of the companies produce a wide variety of designs, the mills were not judged on aesthetics of the exterior housing.
RESOURCES:
WILLIAM BOUNDS, LTD. (1)--This company makes more than 32 models in a variety of exterior housings, some of which are pepper mill/salt shaker combinations. Both top and crank models. All use the same grinding mechanism. Each has three grind settings--fine, medium and coarse--changed by rotating a metal band at the shoulder of the mill. Mills can be used to grind pepper or rock salt.
Available at Cook ‘N’ Things, South Pasadena, and Neiman Marcus, Beverly Hills.
TWERGI (12)--The Italian company manufactures a variety of uniquely designed pepper mills, all of which use the same grinding mechanism. Grind was changed in model tested by a screw adjustment at bottom of mechanism.
Available at MOCA, Los Angeles; Tesoro, Los Angeles; By Design, Los Angeles.
GREEK (14)--The company markets 11 models in four styles. All are based on the traditional Middle-Eastern coffee-mill design and use the same grinding mechanism. Housings are made of brass (three models are available in chrome plate). Change the grind by loosening or tightening the screw on the bottom of the mechanism. Handles and security nuts are replaced free of charge.
Available at Gelson’s supermarkets; Cook ‘N’ Things, South Pasadena; Montana Mercantile, Santa Monica; and Bazaar Del Mundo, San Diego.
ALESSI (7)--Part of a matching line designed by Michael Graves that includes a water kettle, creamer, sugar bowl with spoon and salt shaker. Housing is 18/10 polished stainless steel with blue polyamide fins. Change the grind by loosening or tightening the red top knob.
Available at Robinson’s department stores, Bullock’s department stores and Zero Minus Plus, Santa Monica.
BANTON (5)--The company produces a variety of models with hardwood or high-gloss painted housings. Three choices of case-hardened steel grinding mechanisms are offered. Change the grind by loosening or tightening the top nut.
Available at Williams-Sonoma in Southern California; Montana Mercantile, Santa Monica; Cook ‘N Stuff, Torrance; Kitchen Things, three stores in Orange County; Village Kitchen, Glendora.
PEUGEOT (13)--The French company manufactures a variety of natural wood and high-polish pewter housings. All use the same grinding mechanism. Change the grind by loosening or tightening the top knob.
Available at Kuntz Hardware, West Hollywood; Montana Mercantile, Santa Monica, and Kitchen World, Santa Monica.
BRENTWOOD TRADING POST (8)--The company manufactures three models, one of which is a pepper mill and salt shaker pair. Housings are solid maple or cherry wood. All use the same grinding mechanism. Change the grind by loosening or tightening the top knob.
Available at Cook ‘N Stuff, Torrance and La Habra; Graber Olive House, Ontario; Kitchen Corner, La Canada.
WOODARD & CHARLES (4)--Varied line of models manufactured in England. All use the same grinding mechanism. The grind on the model tested was changed by an adjustment of the top knob.
Available at Gelson’s Markets; Mrs. Gooch’s Natural Foods Ranch Markets; Cook ‘N’ Things, South Pasadena; Esprit de Cuisine, Pasadena; Kitchen Collections, Huntington Beach; Kitchen Korner, La Canada; Ports ‘O Call, Pasadena.
PERFIX (6)--Cast aluminum exterior with crank handle. Change the grind by loosening or tightening the nut on the bottom of the grinding mechanism.
Available at Montana Mercantile, Santa Monica; Cook ‘N Stuff, Torrance; Kitchen Things, three stores in Orange County; Village Kitchen, Glendora.
MR. DUDLEY (3, 10)--The company manufactures some models in the United States, others in Taiwan. The line includes a variety of both top and crank models. The grind was changed in models tested by an adjustment of the top nuts.
Available at Adray’s, J.C. Penney, FEDCO, 3 D Bed & Bath.
ASTRO (9)--Designed to resemble an astronaut. Two grind settings: fine and coarse. Directions are included for changing the grind.
Available at--call FRAMACO, (800) 648-2022 for information.
OLDE THOMPSON (2)--The company produces a large variety of pepper mills. All use the same grinding mechanism, which is manufactured in the United States. Housings are made in the United States, Europe and Asia. The grind in the model tested was changed by loosening or tightening the top nut.
Available at the Broadway, May Co., Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn.
PRODUCT COMPARISON Make & Model William Bounds, Ltd. (1) Gourmet Professional, Model 401 Price $28. Features Manufactured in the United States. Stainless steel mechanism mills or tears, rather than grinds, the peppercorns. Height: 8 1/2 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. Forever warranty. Features Best features: Grind settings easiest to change of all models tested. Obvious difference between grinds of the three settings. Easy to fill.
Biggest drawbacks: Nothing significant.
Make & Model Twergi (12)
Model MPO210 Price $130. Features Manufactured in Italy using the French Peugeot grinding mechanism. Height: 9 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. One year warranty. Comments Best feature: Smooth top facilitated ease of grinding.
Biggest drawbacks: Filling from the bottom was somewhat awkward. Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Greek(14)
Atlas, Model 103 Price $48.50 Features Manufactured in Greece. Steel grinding mechanism with hand-cut burrs. Height: 8 inches. Capacity: between 1/3 and 1/2 cup. Fifteen-year warranty. Comments Best features: Largest capacity of all models tested. Very easy to fill.
Biggest drawback: Some testers found crank grind awkward.
Make & Model Alessi (7)
Model 9098 Price $115. Features Michael Graves design, manufactured in Italy using French Peugeot grinding mechanism. Height: 5 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. Lifetime warranty. Comments Best features: Holes in sides allow you to see peppercorn level. Large “fins” facilitate grinding.
Biggest drawbacks: Holes in sides make it somewhat difficult to clean. Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Banton (5)
Federal, Model F10-PM-CO Price $37. Features Manufactured in the United States. Case-hardened steel grinding mechanism. Height: 11 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. Forever warranty. Comments Best features: Feels comfortable in the hand.
Biggest drawbacks: Narrow neck made it slightly difficult to fill. Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Peugeot (13)
Model 1476 Price $20. Features Manufactured in France. Peugeot grinding mechanism. Height: 7 inches. Capacity: less than 1/8 cup. Lifetime warranty. Comments Best feature: Quality grinding mechanism.
Biggest drawback: Hard to achieve a really coarse grind.
Make & Model Brentwood Trading Post (8)
Model LPXB Price $38. Features Manufactured in the United States. Metal grinding mechanism. Height: 14 1/2 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. Five-year warranty. Comments Best features: Nothing significant.
Biggest drawbacks: Size and shape made it somewhat difficult to handle. Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Woodward & Charles (4)
Model 505PM Price $12.95 Features Manufactured in England. Stainless-steel grinding mechanism. Height: 5 1/2 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. Lifetime warranty. Comments Best feature: Allows you to see peppercorn level.
Biggest drawback: Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Perfix (6)
No model number. Price $58. to $60. Features Manufactured in France. Peugeot grinding mechanism. Height: 4 inches. Capacity: 1/8 cup. One-year warranty. Comments Best feature: Easiest to fill through chute on side.
Biggest drawback: Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Mr. Dudley (3)
Model 78 Price $24. Features Manufactured in the United States. B-113 steel grinding mechanism. Height: 7 1/2 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. Forever warranty. Comments Best feature: Nothing judged significant.
Biggest drawbacks: Fills from the bottom and needs to be jiggled to get peppercorns down inside and bottom back in place. Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Astro (9)
Model 349-612 Price $15. Features Manufactured in Taiwan using a grinding mechanism modeled after the Peugeot. Height: 5 1/2 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. Three-month warranty. Comments Best feature: Price.
Biggest drawbacks: Only two grinds. Has most complicated method of changing grind settings of any model tested. Larger “ears” would make it easier to operate.
Make & Model Olde Thompson (2)
Coronet, Model 3008-40-0-0 Price $20. Features Case-hardened, copper alloy steel grinding mechanism manufactured in the United States. Pepper mill/saltshaker combination. Height: 7 inches. Capacity: 1/4 cup. Lifetime warranty. Comments Best feature: Easier to fill than the other similar model tested.
Biggest drawback: Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Mr. Dudley (10)
DeVille, Model 5007 Price $23. Features Manufactured in Taiwan. Pepper mill/saltshaker combination. Stainless-steel grinding mechanism. Height: 6 1/2 inches. Capacity: 1/8 cup. Forever warranty. Comments Best feature: Allows you to see peppercorn level.
Biggest drawbacks: Difficult to get top back on after filling (instructions do not say to push up from the bottom). Hard to achieve much change in grind.
Make & Model Moller (11)
Model 103.10.1/0 Price $23. Features Model discontinued.
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c94e7bacc30284b64fdcab4ba1b1a710 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2621-story.html | A Pair of Sparkling Debuts | A Pair of Sparkling Debuts
“Hey, Champagne! So what’s the occasion?”
That, in a nutshell, is why sparkling wine sales are flat as, well, last week’s Champagne. People simply don’t drink bubbly in this country unless it’s a special occasion--a wedding, a graduation, New Year’s Eve. Sales are up in June and December, sluggish at other times. On top of that, for the last five years sparkling wines have been selling poorly even in season.
So here, where angels fear to tread, come . . . two brand new sparkling wines.
The first is J, which aims to be the American Dom Perignon. It comes from Jordan, the winery that more than a decade ago unveiled a 1976 Cabernet Sauvignon that was a trendmaker among California Cabernets--drinkable upon release.
The Jordan winery is designed with dining in mind. Throughout the years, Tom and Sally Jordan have begun meals at the secluded Sonoma County property by serving their visitors premium sparkling wines--made by other wineries. One of the Jordans’ favorites was from Iron Horse, using grapes grown in the nearby Russian River area.
Jordan, a successful oil industry entrepreneur, began his own sparkling wine project in 1987. He first sent wine maker Rob Davis and consultant Andre Tchelistcheff to the Champagne district of France to do research, then hired Claude Thibaut, who had made those Iron Horse wines Jordan liked.
The result is 1987 J, a well-balanced, marvelously delicate yet flavorful sparkling wine. Made of 54% Chardonnay and the remainder Pinot Noir, the wine is mostly from Russian River fruit, making it not unlike the superb Iron Horse wines. To be released April 1, J--in a unique bottle and sporting a silk-screened letter J on the bottle--will sell for $21.50.
This wine is clearly designed to be a special-occasion product, to be marketed to that very niche that has recently had poor sales. But industry analysts believe that the quality and packaging of this wine are so good that there should be no problem selling all 12,000 cases.
There will only be 5,000 cases of the new Robert Mondavi sparkling wine when it debuts in October. The result of two decades of experimentation, it too is targeted at that special-occasion niche.
Both of these products were conceived long before the slump, which is much worse than that affecting other premium wines, began.
Sparkling wine consumption reached its peak in the United States in 1985, when we drank 19.2 million cases of it. By 1990, that figure had dropped 24% to 14.6 million cases. Sales of sparkling wine in December 1990 were 23% below those of December 1989.
But there is still hope for American sparkling wine. Jon Fredrikson, a San Francisco analyst, says that sales of French sparkling wine are down, leaving, “a lot of room for growth in the high-end California sparkling wines.”
“Until recently you could still find Mumm Extra Dry at $11.99. Well, now it’s up to near $20, with more increases coming. The prices are drifting up, and this opens the door for these kinds of products like the Jordan and the Mondavi and others,” he said.
One industry analyst pointed out sparkling wine has a unique problem: “People are under the misunderstanding that you get drunk faster on Champagne than you do on table wine. It’s not the product, it’s the way it’s consumed.”
Sparkling wine is typically consumed as an aperitif, which means two things: It’s consumed on an empty stomach and it’s consumed when people are thirsty. And, because people don’t want the bubbles to go away, they drink it faster.
Actually, when sparkling wine is consumed during a meal, the actual alcohol intake is lower than with some other table wines. The alcohol in sparkling wine is usually about 12%, compared with 13% and more in Chardonnay and Cabernet.
Wine of the Week
1988 Bruno Giacosa Nebbiolo D’Alba ($17)-- Wines from the great 1988 vintage in Italy are appearing on store shelves--and they are excellent. This deeply rich, complex and most appealing Barolo-styled wine is made from the grape that makes Italy’s No. 1 prized red. The tar, rose petal and cherry aroma is overlaid with a hint of cedar. The wine is fairly tart, but it works well with hearty foods and should age well for a number of years.
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ab1698aa7570ac34fca8c3b32f72ebed | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2622-story.html | The New Fondues: Skinny Dipping | The New Fondues: Skinny Dipping
If you were savvy enough to hold onto that fondue set that’s been gathering dust for the last 30 years, now is the time to dig it out of the closet. If you weren’t, you might want to go out and buy another. Fondue is back.
This renewed popularity should not come as a big surprise. Fondues offer home cooking on an entirely new level: The food is fresh and the cook needs no experience. What’s more, spearing morsels of food on long forks and dipping them into a potful of hot bubbling sauce is lots of fun.
But fondues have a new focus for the ‘90s. Fondue used to come in three basic styles--all of them fattening. First there was the standard cheese fondue: bits of bread dipped into a bubbling mixture of cheese and wine. Then there was beef fondue: cubes of meat cooked by immersion in boiling oil. Finally there was chocolate fondue: fruit bathed in melted chocolate.
But the new fondue features a well-flavored broth in which vegetables, meat and poultry are cooked. The result is delicious, straightforward food that takes its cue from classical dishes such as bollito misto and pot au feu.
Aside from preparing the broth and horseradish sauce and blanching some of the vegetables, fondue preparation is minimal and easily done ahead of time. Rice pilaf, also a do-ahead dish, is an ideal accompaniment, as are a crusty loaf of bread and a bottle of light red wine, such as a Zinfandel.
Should you feel the urge for dessert fondue, buy your favorite fudge (or caramel) sauce and put it into the fondue pot to heat. Thin as necessary with cream, milk or water, then pass strawberries, thick slices of banana, pear, kiwi and small chunks of pound or angel cake. Plan on good, leisurely eating, lots of fun . . . lots of napkins.
Here, the meat is essentially poached and the vegetables are reheated in a fragrant broth. Except for the mushrooms and snow peas, the vegetables need to be blanched or steamed in advance until they are almost cooked. When these vegetables are speared onto the fork, they will take a short time to become tender and hot. Any leftovers--beef, vegetables and broth--can be cooked into a great-tasting soup. The Horseradish Sauce is sharp and bright-tasting, very much in the style of pot au feu. NEW BEEF AND VEGETABLE FONDUE
Choice of vegetables (choose at least 3, keeping in mind color contrast and flavors): asparagus spears, 2-inch pieces peeled carrots and parsnips, quartered peeled turnips, broccoli florets, thick slices zucchini, small trimmed mushroom caps, Chinese pea pods
1 pound beef tenderloin, trimmed of all visible fat, cut in 1-inch cubes
Fondue Broth
Horseradish Sauce
Blanch choice of vegetables in large quantities of salted water or steam just short of being completely cooked so they are not limp. (Mushrooms and Chinese pea pods do not require precooking.) Place in colander and hold under cold running water to stop cooking and preserve bright color. Drain well and pat dry with paper towels.
Arrange vegetable selection and meat attractively in separate dishes. Or arrange complete dinner portion on each guest’s plate, grouping each food separately. (Can be done ahead and refrigerated, covered airtight. Let come to room temperature before using.)
Heat Fondue Broth on stovetop or in microwave oven. Fill fondue pot and keep remaining broth hot on stovetop to refill pot as needed. Broth should be hot and simmering. Cook meat in fondue pot 1 to 1 1/2 minutes for rare, vegetables about 1 minute or until hot and tender-crisp. Serve with Horseradish Sauce. Makes 4 servings.
Fondue Broth
3 (14 1/2-ounce) cans clear chicken broth
1 small onion, cut in half, each half stuck with whole clove
1 carrot, thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
1 leek, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 bay leaf
2 cloves garlic, cut in halves
Salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Combine chicken broth, onion, carrot, celery, leek, tomato paste, bay leaf and garlic in 3-quart saucepan. Bring to boil over high heat. Simmer covered 30 minutes.
Strain vegetables from broth, pressing out as much liquid as possible. Season to taste with salt and cayenne pepper. (Can be made up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated or frozen as long as 3 months. Heat to boiling before using. Adjust seasonings.)
Horseradish Sauce
3/4 cup whipping cream
3 to 4 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 to 4 tablespoons horseradish
2 teaspoons minced parsley
Whip cream to soft peaks in mixer bowl. Fold in 3 tablespoons each mustard and horseradish. Add remaining mustard and horseradish to taste. Garnish with parsley.
Here, a traditional Armenian pilaf combines rice with strands of pasta that are sauteed quickly in oil until they are golden brown. It’s an easy, interesting and delicious variation on the rice theme.
RICE PILAF
1/2 cup capellini, vermicelli or spaghettini, broken into 2-inch lengths
1 tablespoon light-tasting olive oil
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced
3/4 cup long-grain rice
2 cups chicken stock or broth
Salt
Cook pasta over medium-high heat until lightly browned, about 2 minutes, stirring often. Heat olive oil in 1 1/2-quart saucepan. Add garlic and onion. Cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes, stirring often. Add rice and saute few minutes. Add pasta and 1 3/4 cups broth and bring to boil. Simmer, covered, until liquid is absorbed and rice is cooked, about 17 minutes. Stir with fork. Add remaining broth if needed.
(Can be made 2 days ahead and refrigerated. Reheat gently in microwave oven or on stovetop, adding water as needed for desired consistency.) Makes 4 servings.
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5ac4e48a366a3bbf4be3eed7f264c958 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2623-story.html | Stocks, Cream Puffs, Broccoli | Stocks, Cream Puffs, Broccoli
A fish stock so versatile that it can be used in anything from soup to desserts and even for stir-frying is now on sale at Santa Monica Seafood. Called the Ultimate Stock, it is made with halibut and purified water, and with vegetables that are organic and pesticide-free. In addition, it contains no salt and no preservatives and is a source of omega-3 fatty acids.
Kelly Mullarney, executive chef of Ocean Ave. Seafood in Santa Monica, developed a whole parade of dishes without butter or oil to showcase the product. For stir-frying, he poured it into a hot wok and boiled it down to a concentrate. Instead of the butter that usually soaks garlic bread, he made an infusion of stock, garlic and herbs, dabbed it lightly onto the bread and baked it until crusty. And for dessert he made a blueberry soup that combined pureed berries with the stock, a rare blueberry wine and a dash of red wine. “If you didn’t know that it was made with fish stock, I don’t think that you would taste it,” Mullarney says.
It’s available frozen at the seafood company’s two outlets, 1205 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, and 1700 N. Main St., Orange. The price is $2.98 for an 8-ounce container.
When a recipe calls for veal stock, most cooks simply pass it by and make another dish. Veal stock is laborious to make, and although dedicated cooks may be willing to spend hours baking bones and skimming stock, most people are anxious to substitute something easier. The problem is that veal stock does not come in cans or bouillon cubes.
However, you can get the real thing at Bristol Farms for $2.98 a pound, which is approximately one pint. (The stock is frozen and thus can be weighed.) Each Bristol Farms market has its own catering kitchen, where the stock is made from fresh veal bones, onions, tomatoes, carrots, fresh thyme and pepper--no salt. The three locations are South Pasadena, Rolling Hills Estates and Manhattan Beach.
A dessert that tastes as if you labored for hours, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in hand, actually requires no work at all. All you need to do is jump into your car and drive to Gardena or Little Tokyo. Your goal is a box of mini cream puffs from the Chateau Cake Shop. They’re filled with luscious soft custard in three flavors--plain, chocolate and lemon. For a little extra, you can have sliced fresh strawberries tucked into the pastry shell too. Most commercial fillings are thick and starchy, but these are made daily from good fresh ingredients, so they’re delicate and runny (watch out for dribbles). Freeze the puffs, and they’ll make a nice treat for youngsters, sort of like an ice cream sandwich.
The Chateau Cake Shop is located at 1630 W. Redondo Beach Blvd. in the Pacific Square Shopping Center, Gardena. Puffs and fillings in separate containers are shipped daily to the Modern Food Market in Little Tokyo, where they’re assembled and sold from a counter near the door. A container of 12 puffs is $3.75. With strawberries added, the price is $3.75 for eight.
This is a good week to eat broccoli. The harvest around Santa Maria has been so plentiful that prices are dropping. Carrots from the Imperial Valley and celery from Oxnard are also increasing in volume and dropping in price.
The pale hothouse variety of rhubarb is coming in from Washington State and the field-grown stalks from California are also beginning to appear, The California rhubarb has a deeper color, but both types taste great and will produce a wonderful rhubarb pie.
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fe8c7f2d3fe4de69a268f3d32eb5c853 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2624-story.html | Salad Dressings: The Light Side | Salad Dressings: The Light Side
Dear Eating Right: I’m on a diet and eat a lot of salads. Lately, I’ve noticed “lite” and “reduced-calorie” dressings in my supermarket. Are these dressings really fat-free? --MARGE
Dear Marge: Now that “fat-free” dressings have joined regular, reduced-calorie and lite dressings in the supermarket, it’s more important than ever to read labels carefully. Ignore the front of the bottle and check the ingredient list; it will tell you how much and which kind of fat is used in the product--if any is used at all.
For the record:
12:00 AM, Mar. 14, 1991 FOR THE RECORD Los Angeles Times Thursday March 14, 1991 Home Edition Food Part H Page 45 Column 3 Food Desk 3 inches; 81 words Type of Material: Correction The Low-Fat Ranch Dressing recipe in the Feb. 28 Eating Right column contained an error. The correct recipe follows. LOW-FAT RANCH DRESSING 1/2 cup nonfat cottage cheese 1/4 cup buttermilk 1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon onion powder 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt 1/4 teaspoon sugar 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt Dash seasoned pepper Combine cheese and buttermilk in blender and blend until smooth. Add parsley, garlic and onion powders, garlic salt, sugar, seasoned salt and pepper. Blend until thoroughly mixed. Makes about 2/3 cup dressing.
Also, remember that the serving size on the label is usually just a tablespoon. Some restaurant ladles hold around three tablespoons, so you may be eating more fat than you think.
Regular salad dressing starts with a base of oil or mayonnaise to which flavors and seasonings are added. Some dressings have a mixture of both types of fat.
To make reduced-calorie dressings, manufacturers start with typical salad dressing ingredients, then add commercial thickeners such as xanthan gum, guar gum and carageenan to give the dressing its familiar thick, creamy texture. Or they dilute the fat with water or vinegar.
Some of the highest-fat dressings can have as much as 10 grams of fat per tablespoon. Ranch dressings, for instance, are based almost entirely upon fat; the ranch dressings that merit a “reduced-fat” rating usually have two to three grams of fat per tablespoon. The lowest-fat dressings contain zero or one gram of fat per tablespoon. These are often called fat-free.
In order to comply with Food and Drug Administration label requirements, dressings labeled “reduced-calorie” must contain at least one-third fewer calories than the original, but there still is no legal definition for “lite.” These foods may be lighter in flavor or color yet contain the same amount of fat and calories as regular dressings.
Here’s another reason to watch how much salad dressing you eat: Manufacturers compensate for the missing flavor of fat with salty spices, sugar and seasonings. This is especially true in the fat-free versions, which are primarily synthetic.
In an informal tasting, Take Heart Ranch from Hidden Valley Ranch looked, smelled, poured and tasted closest to the original dressing. It has just one gram of fat per tablespoon and 20 calories. But Weight Watchers’ Creamy Ranch, with 25 calories but no fat, was offensively sweet; Kraft’s Fat Free Ranch, also with just 16 calories and no fat, had a strong garlic and vinegar taste.
Remember that the dressing is meant to be an embellishment; you should still be able to taste the vegetables in a salad. If you’re drowning it in dressing you might as well eat a hamburger.
Making your own dressing at home can be a healthy alternative to commercial dressings. Stir your favorite herbs, spices and flavors into nonfat plain yogurt and eliminate mayonnaise and oil entirely. This recipe Low-fat Ranch Dressing gets its smooth texture from non-fat cottage cheese and low-fat buttermilk milk and its flavor from onion and garlic powders; you may wish to use fresh garlic and onion.
LOWFAT RANCH DRESSING
1/2 cup nonfat cottage cheese
1/4 cup nonfat milk
1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
Dash seasoned pepper
Combine cheese and milk in blender and blend until smooth. Add parsley, garlic and onion powders, garlic salt, sugar, seasoned salt and seasoned pepper. Blend until thoroughly mixed. Makes about 2/3 cup dressing.
Calories Fat Cholesterol Sodium One Tablespoon Regular Dressing Ranch 80 8 10 140 Blue Cheese 75 8 3 164 French 85 9 0 188 Thousand Island 60 6 4 112 Italian 80 9 0 162 One Tablespoon Hidden Val- ley “Take Heart” Ranch 20 1 0 140 Blue Cheese 12 0 0 140 French 20 0 0 115 Thousand Island 20 0 0 140 Italian 16 0 0 140 One Tablespoon Kraft “Free” Ranch 16 0 0 150 Blue Cheese 16 0 0 120 French 20 0 0 120 Thousand Island 20 0 0 135 Italian 6 0 0 210 One Tablespoon Weight Watchers Ranch 25 0 NA 100 French 10 0 0 170 Thousand Island 50 5 5 80 Creamy Italian 50 5 5 80 One Tablespoon Wishbone “Lite” Ranch 45 4 5 150 Blue Cheese 40 4 0 200 French 30 2 0 65 Thousand Island 40 3 65 110 Italian 6 0 0 210
Source: Product labels
Only questions of general interest will be printed. Eating Right cannot respond to inquiries regarding therapy for a specific ailment, nor is this column designed to replace medical advice. Send diet and health questions to Eating Right, Food Section, The Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.
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ba0f4b61e2630e32706fa1eff8ad87c6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2625-story.html | Salmon Pasta and Avocado Pie | Salmon Pasta and Avocado Pie
DEAR SOS: Is there a chance you could get the recipe for pasta with salmon from Market City Cafe in Old Town Pasadena?
--SUSAN
DEAR SUSAN: Yes, and they offer this time-saving restaurant trick: Prepare the pasta ahead and reheat it by submerging it in boiling water just before serving.
MARKET CITY PASTA WITH SALMON
1/2 pound penne
1 teaspoon butter
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced
Salt, pepper
10 ounces salmon fillet, cut in 1-inch squares
1/4 cup white wine
2 cups half and half or whipping cream
1 1/4 tablespoons chopped parsley
Freshly ground pepper
Cook penne in boiling, salted water until tender. Drain in colander and rinse in cold running water. Leave in cold water in pot. Set aside.
Melt butter in skillet until bubbly. Add onion, season to taste with salt and pepper and saute until onion is transparent. Add salmon and white wine. Cook salmon 1 minute; do not allow to turn pink. Remove salmon. Continue cooking until wine is reduced by half. Add cream and reduce mixture by 1/3, or until it coats metal spoon. Add salmon.
When ready to serve, submerge penne in boiling water until heated through. Strain and place pasta in bowl large enough to toss with sauce (reheat if necessary). Garnish with chopped parsley. Season to taste with freshly ground pepper. Makes 4 to 6 servings.
DEAR SOS: A recipe for avocado pie, please, while I still have some avocados.
--MRS. P.F.
Dear MRS. P.F.: Here’s one from Marilyn Windhausen of Burbank. By the way, Hass variety avocados (thick, pebbly skin) are available year round, peaking from March through August. The thin-skinned, smooth Fuerte, Pinkerton and Reed varieties peak from November through May.
MARILYN’S AVOCADO PIE
2 avocados
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (9-inch) baked graham cracker crust
Non-dairy whipped topping
Chopped walnuts
Peel avocados and remove pits. Combine avocados, lemon juice and condensed milk in blender container. Blend 3 to 5 minutes until smooth.
Turn into crust and cover completely with whipped topping. Sprinkle with walnuts. Chill 3 hours before serving. Makes about 8 servings.
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673c754ad971ec13a3f08642767eb7f4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-fo-2626-story.html | You pull out a credit card to... | You pull out a credit card to...
You pull out a credit card to pay your bill--and the restaurant only takes cash. You wanted to go out for food and live music but you didn’t know where to go. Sound familiar? Now eating out is easier than ever. Future Fone, a Pasadena-based company, has come out with a free restaurant hot line. The 24-hour Dine Line is a computerized information system that advertises restaurants throughout Southern California. Call (800) 542-DINE and Dine Line will recommend their advertisers by location or speciality. Additional information is available, such as restaurant hours, parking availability, whether you need reservations, acceptable dress code, price range, what credit cards are accepted and a list of daily and weekly specials.
You can rent just about anything these days--cars, furniture, magicians. Now you can rent the Easter Bunny. The City of Montebello’s Parks and Recreation Department will start booking appointments for Mr. Bunny on March 5. He is available to hop over to your home or party from March 11 through March 30. Forms are available at the Parks and Recreation office. The cost is $25 for a half hour with an additional fee for non-residents. Call (213) 887-4540 for details.
The Long Beach Rescue Mission will serve traditional Easter dinners on Easter Sunday, March 31. Everyone is welcome. Easter services and dinners will be held at Samaritan House, 1335 Pacific Ave., at 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Food contributions such as boneless hams, canned vegetables, instant potatoes, yams, dinner rolls, margarine, colored Easter eggs and decorated Easter cupcakes are needed. Financial contributions are much appreciated. For information, call (213) 591-1292.
Wine Tasting. Bristol Farms’ vertical tasting of Niebaum-Coppola Rubicon, a Bordeaux-styled Napa Valley red wine, with bread and cheese. Chez Melange, 1716 S. Pacific Coast Highway, Redondo Beach. (213) 541-9157. 7 p.m. $20.
Food Preserving. Spend 40 hours learning how to safely can, dry and freeze fresh produce, make jams, jellies and pickles and pick up a Master Food Preserver certificate. Those accepted into the program will receive 40 hours of training. In exchange for the training, students must donate at least 40 hours to the program within one year. University of California’s Common Ground Garden Program, 2615 S. Grand Ave., Suite 400, Los Angeles. (213) 744-4341. Thursdays at 10 a.m. A $50 materials fee is charged, but a fee waiver is available for qualified low-income applicants.
Friday
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5d90c3ff9f7f952008ec2b8001bc0b46 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-2992-story.html | San Dimas : Johnstone House Spared | San Dimas : Johnstone House Spared
A Superior Court judge has temporarily blocked San Dimas officials from issuing a demolition permit for a 100-year-old house.
A temporary restraining order was issued Tuesday when The Friends of the Johnstone House and Mike Ebiner filed a petition in Superior Court in Pomona. A hearing is scheduled March 8. Ebiner is the brother of Councilman John Ebiner, who dissented Jan. 22 when the council voted to allow owner Elizabeth Johnstone Rimpau to tear down the house.
Mike Ebiner told the council the house has historical value and should be preserved because Rimpau’s father, city pioneer William A. Johnstone, lived in the stucco Monterey Revival-style house.
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2d56e5892bcad4cc6a7b5ac892f97a9c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-2993-story.html | Claremont : $300,000 OKd for Drain | Claremont : $300,000 OKd for Drain
The City Council agreed Tuesday to contribute $300,000 toward a $2.25-million storm drain to be constructed by the county in north Claremont.
Plans call for construction of the Pomalamar Drain to begin in early summer or late fall.
According to the city staff, $205,000 of the contribution will be through a loan from the city’s sewer fund; the remaining $95,000 will come from the drainage fund. The loan will be repaid with money from drainage fees that will be assessed on proposed developments at Padua Avenue and Mt. Baldy Road.
Council member Algird G. Leiga abstained from the vote because he lives in the area north of Base Line Road that will be served by the new storm drain.
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ec913bf756590dd0a6d55192f203ecbb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-2995-story.html | Alhambra : Warehouse Renovation | Alhambra : Warehouse Renovation
The City Council gave the Alhambra School District a break Monday by allowing it to rebuild an earthquake-damaged warehouse at 609 S. Palm Ave. without meeting all the requirements set by the city’s Planning Commission.
The council said the district does not have to provide street lighting, improved sidewalks or gutters next to its property.
The council also gave the district two years to meet nine other non-structural requirements, such as providing outside lighting and large address numbers. In a written report, Assistant City Manager P. Michael Paules said the relief was reasonable because the building was not so much a new structure as a replacement for an existing building damaged in the 1987 Whittier Narrows quake.
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150cb46ecc75aa7dde3226202c51eb61 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-2996-story.html | Claremont : Less Water to Help Oaks | Claremont : Less Water to Help Oaks
The city is celebrating Arbor Day by cutting the water rations of its stately, historic oaks at Blaisdell Park.
Park planner Dale Kuehnert said some oaks in the park are declining because of over-watering that began with installation of a drip irrigation system 15 years ago. To improve the health of the oaks and to save water during the drought, the city has adjusted the irrigation system and will observe Arbor Day by inviting the public to spread mulch under the trees in a ceremony at 1 p.m. Sunday (at the park on Oak Park Drive, east of College Avenue.
The mulch will include wood chipped from Christmas trees collected from residents after the holidays. Kuehnert said oak seedlings will be distributed to those who prefer to observe Arbor Day with a more traditional activity: planting trees. Arbor Day is March 7.
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5a689e1dc7a3ffeb56ad042e1e321260 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-2998-story.html | For folk music lovers, the Caltech campus... | For folk music lovers, the Caltech campus...
For folk music lovers, the Caltech campus is the place to be this weekend. On Saturday, Scottish folk singer Jean Redpath, known throughout the world as an extraordinary exponent of her homeland’s traditional music, will perform.
Since Redpath’s first trip to America in 1961, audiences at folk festivals, Greenwich Village coffee houses, college auditoriums and formal music halls have become acquainted with her. She was a frequent guest on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” radio show in the 1980s. A Los Angeles Times reviewer once said of Redpath: “She is a wonder.”
The show will be at 8 p.m. at Beckman Auditorium on Michigan Avenue south of Del Mar Boulevard in Pasadena.
Then on Sunday, Virginia’s John McCutcheon will appear at 7:30 p.m. in Dabney Hall, near Wilson Avenue and California Boulevard. He is considered one of America’s leading revivalists of traditional Appalachian music.
During his concerts, he glides from instrument to instrument, stirring rich, moving sounds from fiddle, Autoharp , banjo, piano, guitar and hammer dulcimer.
Tickets for the Redpath concert are available from Ticketron outlets and the Caltech Ticket Office at 332 S. Michigan Ave. Prices range from $20 to $27.50. There is a $2 discount for people under 18, and special rush tickets for students and senior citizens will go on sale for $7.50 a half-hour before the show begins.
McCutcheon tickets are $12.50 each. Information for both concerts is available by calling (818) 356-4652.
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683e26de261322caa7da499a6c3b6fd6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-2999-story.html | Pasadena : Parking Plans Studied | Pasadena : Parking Plans Studied
Shuttle buses and on-street parking are among possible parking improvements in Old Pasadena that will be studied by consultants hired Tuesday by the City Directors.
The directors approved a $35,000 contract with Rich & Associates for a three-month study.
Because city-owned parking structures are filled about twice a week, Old Pasadena merchants have asked for a moratorium on new restaurants. The board also directed the city attorney to determine whether the city can legally impose a moratorium on one area and not citywide.
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84265e02e40d6bee9adc240ebd9f7bcf | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3000-story.html | El Monte : Spray Paint Law Is Passed | El Monte : Spray Paint Law Is Passed
The City Council on Tuesday unanimously adopted an ordinance requiring businesses to keep spray paint under lock and key.
Aimed at reducing the city’s graffiti problem, the ordinance would also bar juveniles from possessing or purchasing spray paint unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.
More than 100 local merchants received a Feb. 14 letter outlining the ordinance, and none have expressed opposition, City Administrator Gregory Korduner said.
Los Angeles and Monterey Park have similar ordinances. City Atty. David Gondek said others with ordinances include La Puente, Huntington Park and Gardena.
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5d54489575215b8fb74a38489b9ea92b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3001-story.html | Glendora : House-Size Limits Approved | Glendora : House-Size Limits Approved
The City Council has approved an ordinance limiting the size of single-family homes. At its Tuesday meeting, the council agreed to limit the total floor area of homes to 35% of the lot size and to limit second stories to 75% of the first story.
The 35% floor-area limit is more restrictive than the 30% lot-coverage rule previously in effect in most of the city because it counts the floor area of second stories, which was not previously considered.
The ordinance requires a special city review of plans for two-story homes and second-story additions; establishes new standards for how far houses must be set back from the street, and requires that neighbors be notified of impending demolition and construction.
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91fe3b3325967bdb9854bb7927753b1f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3002-story.html | BUSINESS NEWS : W. Covina Agrees to Help Finance 291 Homes Near BKK Dump | BUSINESS NEWS : W. Covina Agrees to Help Finance 291 Homes Near BKK Dump
City officials dismissed concerns of a sluggish economy and drought and agreed Tuesday to help a developer finance construction of 291 luxury homes near the controversial BKK Corp. landfill.
The council voted 4 to 1 to create a Mello-Roos Community Assessment District that will allow a special tax on the new development. Councilman Richard Jennings voted against the measure, saying the city should help finance public facilities, not private development. He was also concerned that the developer waited until after some of the improvements were made before asking the city for help.
For the record:
12:00 AM, Mar. 03, 1991 For the Record Los Angeles Times Sunday March 3, 1991 Home Edition San Gabriel Valley Part J Page 2 Column 1 Zones Desk 3 inches; 103 words Type of Material: Correction South Hills development--A map in Thursday’s San Gabriel Valley section showed the BKK landfill as being larger than it actually is. Though BKK property extends east to the West Covina city limit and into Walnut, the landfill ends west of the city limit and does not abut the eastern portion of the proposed South Hills subdivision. The accompanying story incorrectly characterized the uses of a special bond issue the West Covina City Council will vote on March 25. The bond money, under the Mello-Roos state law, can be used only for streets, sewers and other improvements. Also, city spokesman Tom Manheim said the bond underwriter intends to include a full disclosure statement on the nearby BKK landfill to prospective bond buyers.
On March 25, the council will vote on whether to issue up to $37.5 million in bonds to pay for streets, sewers and other improvements, as well as construction of the homes on the proposed 308-acre site west of Citrus Street. Construction is to begin in April, with completion expected sometime in 1992.
Hassen Development Co. has completed 90% of the improvements, including grading, storm drains, sewers and water facilities, according to city officials. The estimated cost is $25 million.
During a six-hour public hearing, some people questioned whether the city should finance such a risky venture when the region is already faced with a severe drought and a weak economy.
“Because of the recent real estate market conditions and the soft economy, the market for luxury housing in Southern California is soft,” said Joseph J. Evans, of Empire Economics, a real estate consulting firm hired by the city.
Royall Brown, a West Covina resident who also is director of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, pointed out that the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in northwest Los Angeles County had already put a moratorium on new water meter hookups, because of the drought. West Covina gets its water from the Metropolitan Water District.
But city officials said they are confident the slow economy will pick up and predicted that the South Hills project will generate about $2 million in building fees and more than $500,000 yearly in property taxes.
The 1983 Mello-Roos law allows taxes to be imposed on planned communities in California before residents move in, to help developers pay for streets and other improvements.
Taxes on the single-family homes in the proposed South Hills subdivision will vary from $8,060 to $14,508 a year, according to the size of each house. The money from the tax will pay off the bonds and interest.
Evans, however, said it would take at least eight years for the developer to sell the homes at estimated prices of $630,000 to $1.3 million. He also said the development’s location near the landfill could hurt sales.
In 1986, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that toxic wastes at the dump threatened ground water and ordered a cleanup. On the advice of the state Health Services Department, the city imposed a two-year moratorium on residential development within 2,000 feet of the dump.
The South Hills site is outside the moratorium area. The city lifted the moratorium in 1988. EPA officials are still working with BKK on the cleanup.
When the council votes on the bond issue next month, a major factor in the discussions will be how much information about the dump should be included in the disclosure statement to prospective bond buyers.
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b8887b74bfb4f641b7c4e0e39bce5443 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3003-story.html | Claremont Tests Clear the Air on Propane : Pollution: The Police Department did its own survey after hearing complaints that cars using the fuel ran slowly. Pleased with the results, it will use the fuel in its cars. | Claremont Tests Clear the Air on Propane : Pollution: The Police Department did its own survey after hearing complaints that cars using the fuel ran slowly. Pleased with the results, it will use the fuel in its cars.
Pleased by the results of a four-month test drive, the Police Department will convert its fleet of a dozen patrol cars from gasoline to propane to reduce air pollution and save money.
Officials with the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Energy Commission said they believe Claremont will be the only police department in the state running all of its cars on propane.
The conversion will cut smog emissions by more than 40% and will save Claremont nearly $900 a month, said Tom Baffa, the city’s assistant director of community services.
The South San Francisco Police Department fueled most of its fleet of squad cars with propane from 1971 to 1987, but switched back to gasoline because of sluggish performance.
Burl Thompson, shop supervisor at the South San Francisco city yard, said propane worked well until the Police Department acquired 1984 Dodge Diplomats that accelerated poorly on propane because of newly required smog-control equipment.
Thompson said police officers constantly complained about the cars and lobbied for a return to gasoline. “They got tired of having bicycles outrun them,” he said.
But Claremont police say the propane-powered 1990 Chevrolet Caprice that they have been testing as a patrol car since October accelerates just as well as the same model running on gasoline.
Sgt. Gary Armstrong, who frequently drives the test car, said he hasn’t been in a high-speed chase yet, but “just around town, it accelerates real well.”
The propane is stored in a steel tank that protrudes into the car trunk, but leaves plenty of room for a patrol car’s radio equipment. Armstrong said the tank is as safe or safer than a regular gas tank. Armstrong said: “I was told that if the car got hit by the impact it would take to explode (the steel propane tank), I wouldn’t survive the crash anyway.”
The test car was converted to propane by Eagle Propane Service of Montclair, which claims to have solved some problems that made propane-powered vehicles impractical for police use in the past. Gary Tiffany, Eagle general manager, said the acceleration problem has been overcome by adapting the computer technology that controls fuel flow on new cars. Tiffany said it costs about $1,800 to convert a patrol car from gasoline to propane.
The Claremont City Council Tuesday night approved an agreement with Eagle Propane Service to convert a dozen city-owned Chevrolet Caprice patrol cars to propane. Under the agreement, the city will pay Eagle $780 a month for the conversion costs and for use of the propane equipment over the life of the squad cars, about three years.
Baffa said the city now pays 75 cents a gallon for propane, compared to $1.06 for gasoline. Because of that, the city will save $1,674 a month--a net savings of $894 after deducting the cost of the propane conversion, he said.
Baffa said the conversion, which will take about a month, will reduce carbon monoxide emissions by half and hydrocarbons by as much as 40%. And because propane is a cleaner-burning fuel than gasoline, there is less engine wear and maintenance costs are reduced, he said.
James Lents, executive director of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said Claremont’s switch to propane “will significantly reduce emissions.” In a statement issued to support Claremont’s action, he said: “Police officers in clean-fueled cars give new meaning to their promise to serve and protect.”
Claudia Barker, assistant director of the California Energy Commission, said the state is trying to encourage governments at all levels to look at alternative fuels, including electricity, methanol, compressed natural gas and propane to reduce air pollution and to promote fuel competition that will keep costs down.
Barker said she knows of no other police department in the state that has moved entirely to propane. “It’s a very good effort by a local government,” she said.
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eaf99a3fcd736c0b55efa506bee4b9a0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3005-story.html | ELECTIONS : PASADENA SCHOOL DISTRICT : Board Candidates Offer Solutions to Education Problems | ELECTIONS : PASADENA SCHOOL DISTRICT : Board Candidates Offer Solutions to Education Problems
Faced with budget cuts, campus security worries and declines in enrollment and test scores, many of the candidates in Tuesday’s Pasadena Unified School District election have looked outside the district for solutions.
Increased use of volunteer teachers, hiring of outside contractors for custodial services and sale of school district land are among the ideas suggested by candidates to improve the quality of the district’s education and facilities.
But candidates also emphasized the value of experience in education matters and advocated that the school board show greater accountability
All the candidates are running at-large for four-year terms in the district, which serves Sierra Madre and Altadena as well as Pasadena.
The race for Office 4 will see Elbie Hickambottom, who has served 12 years, running for a fourth consecutive term. Hickambottom, a retired U.S. Army major, said: “I consider myself the watchdog on the board to keep down spending.”
Among the excesses that Hickambottom cites are expenses of consultants, lawyers and car phones used by administrators. Hickambottom, a former director of relocation and property management for the Pasadena Redevelopment Agency, says money can be saved through competitive bidding for outside services and careful management of district properties.
“I have been known to be controversial on the board because I have made an issue of things discussed in closed session,” he said. “There is a need for us to protect the rights of citizens to participate in the running and decision-making of the board.”
Hickambottom said he would like to see more neighborhood schools.
Attorney and businessman E. Clark Coberly, also running for Office 4, agreed some budget cuts are essential. But he said budget revamping may be a more feasible way to save money.
“Cuts are painful; they’re going to have to be made,” said Coberly, who is chief financial officer of both California Pools in El Monte and Bonneville Steel in Irwindale. “I would like to see a minimum of cutting, a maximum of re-directing going on.”
One way to save money is to use independent contractors for services such as security and custodians, he said.
New approaches are needed for students with academic and discipline problems, Coberly said. Citing districtwide declines in SAT scores, Coberly said students need more attention during their formative years in elementary school.
“We have to give kids an opportunity to find success at school,” he said. “Reasons kids are having problems is because they’re failing. They have lots of negative things in their life.”
Dan Wimberly, the third candidate for the seat, also emphasized parental and community involvement. A real estate developer who works as a substitute teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Wimberly said volunteers would improve the quality of education.
In addition, Wimberly called for improved teacher benefits. These changes, combined with better test-preparation programs, will enhance the education environment and SAT and other achievement test scores, he said.
“Every parent looks for two things in schools: academic performance and an environment conducive to learning,” he said.
Wimberly also supported funding help from city agencies and corporate sponsorship of schools.
No incumbent is running for Office 2. The three candidates in the race emphasized the need for community involvement and school security, which became an issue after student fights this school year at Pasadena’s Blair High School.
George Van Alstine, minister of the Altadena Baptist Church for 18 years, said schools need to improve instruction of basic learning skills. He said community organizations can improve education by volunteering.
Van Alstine is on the Pasadena Commission on Children and Youth and is author of the book, “The Christian and the Public Schools.”
“Neither schools nor parents have the ability of solving problems in the schools without help from the Chamber of Commerce and the business community,” he said. “They all have to be part of the mix.”
Van Alstine said school security can be increased by the presence of parents and other volunteers.
Chris Cofer, a Bank of America service representative, also is running for Office 2. A Pasadena native who served with the U.S. Army Reserve and the National Guard, Cofer has said he favors reducing busing and a neighborhood school policy.
“It is going to take awhile” to implement his plan, he said, adding that he would like to see the reopening of closed schools in Northwest Pasadena.
Cofer said funding for the schools could be enhanced by the lease or sale of school district land such as the Education Center on South Hudson Avenue.
He said instructors need more assistance in dealing with problem students. “Teachers need to be supported so that when one kid disrupting the class is asked to leave the class, that teacher knows that the kid isn’t going to come back 10 minutes later,” he said.
The third candidate for the seat is Glenn E. Taylor, an attorney with the Los Angeles law firm McKiernan, Moriwaki & Brady. Taylor advocates parent groups that would periodically meet with teachers and administrators.
Taylor, who has been a resident of the district since 1977, said: “I believe that the school administrators and teachers have to come up with rules of discipline that have to be enforced districtwide. I believe that there should be penalties ranging from taking away students’ rights all the way to suspension and expulsion.”
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ec25a6df59e58f4fb631090dfda29b87 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3006-story.html | ELECTIONS : ROSEMEAD CITY COUNCIL : 3 in Race Stress Backers--or Lack of Them | ELECTIONS : ROSEMEAD CITY COUNCIL : 3 in Race Stress Backers--or Lack of Them
In a three-way race to complete the term of the late Councilman Robert DeCocker, two candidates are capitalizing on their ties to City Hall, while the third is depicting himself as an outsider beholden to nobody.
DeCocker, 64, died Oct. 19 of complications from a brain tumor. Tuesday’s election will decide who will serve the rest of his term, which expires in April, 1992.
The candidates are Planning Commissioner Margaret Clark, 48, who has the backing of three City Council members; Jean DeCocker, 58, the late councilman’s widow, who is supported by the mayor; and Joe Vasquez, 42, a school board member who has garnered no City Hall endorsements. Whoever captures the most votes will win.
Rosemead is a largely low- to middle-income bedroom community of 50,000 residents.
Clark, a planning commissioner since 1988, is the candidate most directly involved in city government. She served on the traffic commission from 1987-88 and has worked on several council members’ campaigns, including Robert DeCocker’s.
She has the endorsement of City Councilmen Robert W. Bruesch, Jay T. Imperial and Gary A. Taylor.
Clark, a mother of three and a former kindergarten teacher, became politically active five years ago, when she helped lead a group of residents fighting plans to build a high school in Rosemead. Several hundred homes would have had to be condemned and demolished to make way for the school.
Clark and others lobbied state officials to block the plan. They eventually won; the Alhambra High School District decided to expand instead.
From that experience, Clark said, she became wary of government powers to condemn land for public or private projects through eminent domain. If elected, she said, she would oppose any redevelopment project that required land condemnation. Instead, she said, Rosemead should use redevelopment funds for street repairs and other improvements.
Jean DeCocker, who moved to Rosemead in 1943, stresses her experience working with her husband on community issues, starting in the 1960s, when residents on her block fought plans to use their street as a feeder to the Pomona Freeway.
After her husband was elected to the council in 1988, DeCocker said she would accompany him on Sunday afternoons when he visited city areas to be discussed at the next meeting.
“I have been involved behind the scenes because my husband was involved, and we were a team,” DeCocker said. “I really know a lot about the city and was always interested in government. But there can only be one in the spotlight at a time.”
She said she also would bring her own priorities to city government. For example, she said, she would push for swift adoption of a recycling program and construction of senior citizen housing.
She has the endorsement of Mayor Dennis McDonald, but many of the volunteers who worked on Robert DeCocker’s campaign in 1988 are supporting Clark.
Vasquez, a board member of the Rosemead School District since 1985, is the most detached from City Hall politics. He said his minimal involvement in city affairs is an advantage because he would be less beholden to special interests and powerful political allies.
“I feel like the outsider against the insiders,” he said. “Maybe that could be a plus for me. I have nobody in City Hall supporting me.”
Vasquez, a technician for Pacific Bell, said his six years of experience on the school board have given him insight into gangs and juvenile delinquency, problems he says cities should address more aggressively.
He said that if elected he would push for the establishment of a task force made up of city officials, teachers, students, businesses and union members to come up with ways to combat drug use and other crimes among youth.
He also said he is concerned that the city suffers from poor planning, especially in commercial areas.
“I hear so many residents complaining we have too many malls,” he said. “I notice a lot of duplication of restaurants and a number of video stores. We can’t tell the businesses they have to do this or that, but we can go out there and attract the ones we like.”
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29c84c2ed1ed661708fdd408c2444c72 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3007-story.html | San Dimas Boosters Plan Art Auction | San Dimas Boosters Plan Art Auction
If it works for athletes, it can work for scholars too, reasons Joe Lyons and other San Dimas High School academic boosters.
They are hoping to mirror the astounding success of the high school’s Saturday night bingo, which primarily aids sports pro gram, with a more intellectual alternative.
The academic boosters will hold an art auction Saturday at the San Dimas Civic Center. Preview time is 6 p.m. The $3 admission includes light refreshments. The auction starts at 7 and includes photographs, sculptures and paintings donated by local artists and Principal Colleen Gaynes.
A professional art distributor will auction these works along with those of nationally known artists. The distributor gets a commission on the sales of art that it provides.
Proceeds will be used to support the academic decathlon team and to pay for Scholastic Aptitude Test prep courses, field trips and letters, like those athletes receive, for students who achieve A or B averages.
The academic boosters have a tough act to follow. The athletic boosters have raised close to $1 million, said bingo organizer Doug Shultz. They’ve built a football stadium and a weight room. Workers broke ground last weekend on a $300,000 field house, which will include a snack bar, restrooms and locker rooms.
The Saturday night bingo, a community fixture for four years, draws between 250 and 400 players per session.
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441136d2da0b2d797d09a0e684cdd852 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3011-story.html | Cal Poly Pomona Guard Harrell Saves His Best for Last : Basketball: After slow start, community college transfer comes on strong to lead Broncos into CCAA playoffs. | Cal Poly Pomona Guard Harrell Saves His Best for Last : Basketball: After slow start, community college transfer comes on strong to lead Broncos into CCAA playoffs.
As a community college transfer, Andre Harrell joined the Cal Poly Pomona men’s basketball team this season with impressive credentials.
After all, it is not every season that the Broncos are able to attract a guard who was an all-state selection to play for them.
Harrell, 21, had earned the honor as a sophomore at L.A. Valley College last season and was being counted on to make an impact in his first season in Pomona.
Only the season didn’t exactly get off to a flying start for Harrell.
“We were asking him to play the point, something that was an adjustment to him, and he has also had to adjust to playing at this level, which is a higher level than junior college,” Pomona Coach Dave Bollwinkel said.
But since the start of California Collegiate Athletic Assn. play in January, there has been a noticeable improvement in Harrell’s all-around play.
After having relatively nondescript statistics in nonconference play, Harrell finished in the CCAA top 10 in five offensive categories, including sixth in scoring at 13.6 points a game and a tie for sixth in assists with at 3.8.
“I think that parallels his improvement for us during the season,” Bollwinkel said. “He’s come a long way since the start of the year.”
On the season, Harrell has been averaging 10.6 points but has been scoring at an 18.6 clip in the last 10 games.
In fact, he turned in his best two scoring outings of the season with 22 points against Cal State Los Angeles and 19 points against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as the Broncos clinched a berth in the CCAA postseason tournament for the first time in school history. The third-seeded Broncos (14-13) meet second-seeded UC Riverside (21-5) in a first-round game at 6 p.m. Friday in the Cal State Bakersfield Activities Center.
The 6-foot-1, 160-pound Harrell attributes his improved play to his mastering of a new position.
“The only major adjustment was turning from an (off) guard to a point guard,” he said. “The only reason that was so much of an adjustment was that I had never done that before. But once I got it down, everything has been OK for me.”
He also had to adjust playing at the NCAA Division II level.
“The difference here is it’s not just one player who is competitive, it’s a whole team,” Harrell said. “Where I came from it wasn’t as team-oriented because there were always scouts in the stands and everyone wanted to go to a higher level and play.”
There was also the mental adjustment of playing for a team in Pomona’s position.
“When I first came over here, I had to get adjusted to playing for a team that really wanted to win,” he said. “Everyone wants to win but over here they really wanted to do anything they had to do to win. So I had to prepare a lot mentally, more than with the rest of my game, to play here.”
Bollwinkel says Harrell has brought a lot of skills to the Broncos.
“He can play both guard spots and he’s a pretty good penetrator,” he said. “I think the key has been his ability to drive to the basket and that gets him to the free-throw line a lot. When he gets there, he’s a 70-plus percent shooter.
“I think right now he has helped the team most with his ability to create off the dribble.”
With his performance in conference play, Harrell has started to receive added attention from opposing teams.
San Luis Obispo Coach Steve Beeson went so far as to call Harrell the best guard in the conference. Bollwinkel isn’t ready to go quite that far yet.
“But I think he has the potential to be an all-conference player and he is already one of the best guards in the conference,” Bollwinkel said. “I think by next year he can definitely be one of the best players in the conference.”
Harrell is starting to receive the attention on the court that always seemed to elude him when he was younger.
Of course, it was difficult to receive much notice when his teammates at Inglewood High included Harold Miner and Bobby Sears. Miner has since become a standout at USC and Sears is a starter at Cal State Long Beach.
Two other teammates of Harrell’s at Inglewood were Corey Arnett, who played at New Orleans before transferring to Hancock Junior College, and Pat Holbert, who starts for the University of San Diego.
So despite playing well enough to earn All-Ocean League honors at Inglewood, Harrell didn’t receive much interest from four-year colleges.
“I was pretty overshadowed by my teammates,” he said. “We had some pretty good players there and I didn’t get a lot of attention.”
In fact, there was only one college that even sent Harrell a recruiting letter when he was in high school.
“I only got one letter my whole high school career and that was from West L.A. College, so that’s where I went,” he said.
But Harrell stayed at West L.A. for less than a season before he transferred.
“It was kind of an up-and-down season for me,” he said. “I had some family situations to deal with and we moved a lot, so I’d say I had a lot of problems at the time.
“We lived in Inglewood and then we moved to the (San Fernando) Valley and I had to take the bus to school. I had to catch five (buses) to get there, so it was a strain on me and a strain on the team. I missed a lot of practice and the coach wasn’t very happy about that.”
Harrell’s career started to blossom after he transferred to L.A. Valley during his freshman year.
“I went to Valley College, redshirted a year and I took time to work on aspects of my game that needed improvement,” he said.
After more than a season away from competitive basketball, Harrell played for Valley as a sophomore and averaged 18.2 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
“I was pretty surprised with my success but it all came as a result of my summer league play and Coach (Jim) Stephens, who gave me the freedom to succeed and he also stressed defense a lot,” he said.
With his reputation as a player improving, Harrell was recruited by a handful of Division I schools, including Fresno State, Colorado State and Cal State Northridge. But he didn’t think twice about settling on Division II Pomona.
“I think the school recruited me real strong,” he said. “They made you feel like you were part of the family. I made it a point in high school that the first school that recruited me hard was where I would go to and they really recruited me. When I talked it over with my mom, we decided that’s where I was going to go.
“I felt that in Division I there was too much politics involved that I didn’t understand. A lot of schools didn’t really make a commitment to me and I just wanted to play basketball. Coach Bollwinkel just layed it all out to me and told me they wanted me and this was where I wanted to go.”
Harrell said he hasn’t regretted his decision for a minute.
“Whether it’s Division I or Division II doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said. “If your a good player, you can shine anywhere.”
While he is starting to impress opponents, Harrell realizes that he still needs to improve in several areas.
“Physically, he needs to get stronger,” Bollwinkel said. “He’s always going to be very wiry. Even if he works out, he’s never going to look like Arnold Schwartzenegger. He also has to work on his passing decisions, although he is improving in that area, and he has to work on his shooting percentage, which is about 45%.”
But the coach has never been worried about Harrell’s willingness to improve. In fact, Harrell can usually be spotted in Kellogg Gym long after practice. He also finds time in the morning to practice.
“Some people call them ‘gym rats’ but I like to call them ‘Basketball Bennies,’ ” Bollwinkel said. “He’s a player who just hangs around the gym a lot.”
Harrell said he is looking forward to next season.
For the moment, though, he is focused on the CCAA tournament. He will also celebrate his 22nd birthday on Saturday--the day of the conference tournament final--and he is hoping to receive a special present.
“I’m hoping for a (Division II) tournament bid on my birthday,” he said. “That would be the best gift of all.”
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748556e1c17768d950fc8941c5667b53 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3052-story.html | Landfill’s Closing May Bring Loss of Cleanup Funds : Pollution: Azusa Land Reclamation Co. might take back some of its $20.5 contribution to fight underground water contamination. | Landfill’s Closing May Bring Loss of Cleanup Funds : Pollution: Azusa Land Reclamation Co. might take back some of its $20.5 contribution to fight underground water contamination.
The court-ordered closure of the Azusa Land Reclamation Co. landfill has cast doubt on the future of a $20.5-million contribution the dump’s operator made in 1989 to assist the cleanup of the San Gabriel Valley’s polluted underground water supply.
State and landfill officials said it is uncertain what will now happen with the money, considered one of the few sure funding sources for a cleanup estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The money--included in calculations of a state and federal plan for a $106-million short-term pollution cleanup--originally was placed in an escrow account as a condition of the dump’s planned expansion. But now the expansion has been blocked by the courts, effectively forcing the dump to close.
On the eve of the closure last week, landfill manager Paul Schelstrate said company officials had decided to withdraw all but $3 million of the money from the escrow account.
He said some of the money might be used to pay for the court-ordered environmental studies that must now be undertaken before the 302-acre rock quarry south of the Foothill Freeway would be permitted to reopen.
But later, Schelstrate said no final decision had been made. “It’s still very much up in the air,” Schelstrate said.
Craig M. Wilson, assistant chief counsel for the State Water Resources Control Board, said it is unclear whether the landfill will be allowed to withdraw the money. He said there is ambiguity in the agreement concerning in what circumstances the money would revert to the landfill company.
The $20.5 million was set aside in 1989 after a unusual offer by the landfill’s parent firm, Browning-Ferris Industries, and its chairman, William D. Ruckelshaus, twice administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ruckelshaus personally made the proposal in 1989, first in a letter and then in an appearance before the state water board in Sacramento.
Ruckelshaus, giving assurances that his firm wanted to do everything it could to protect the landfill environs and the surrounding San Gabriel Basin, offered the money to be used to pay for three water treatment plants. For years, state and federal officials have been perplexed about how to finance the region’s expensive cleanup of ground-water pollution.
A majority of the five-member state water board found the Ruckelshaus offer enticing enough to make it one of the conditions for approval of expansion of the landfill.
Landfill officials have maintained that the $20.5-million payment was in no way an admission that the landfill has polluted the underground water supply, which suffers from heavy contamination from industrial solvents and degreasing agents.
“It was a good-faith effort to try to help the valley,” Schelstrate said.
Some environmentalists, however, have long been skeptical about the company’s motives in donating the money.
“It seemed like an attempt to buy off the opposition of the dump,” said Maxine Leichter, head of the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter water quality group.
If the landfill company now takes the money back, Leichter said, “it just shows that their attempt was not to clean up, but just to get their landfill (expansion approved).”
Local water officials--joined by a diverse coalition of environmentalists and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California--criticized the state board for accepting the $20.5 million in the first place.
“We always kind of felt the money didn’t matter, that we were going to battle (the dump’s expansion) to the end,” said Robert G. Berlien, an official with the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster. “We thought that the stopping of the expansion of the landfill was more important than the dollar amount BFI offered for the cleanup.”
And landfill opponents say the BFI money, whether withdrawn or not, by no means solves financial issues surrounding the contamination.
“We certainly are happy to have all the funds we can get for the cleanup,” said Victor Gleason, deputy counsel of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. “But that doesn’t begin to deal with the (funding) problems we might have down the road.”
State officials said they are continuing to research the escrow agreement. They said the matter is expected to come up soon when the state water board holds meetings to discuss a host of subjects related to the landfill’s closure. The environmental studies and subsequent hearings could take from 18 months to five years, Schelstrate said.
Meanwhile, the dump--once the final resting place for 10% of Los Angeles County’s trash--now legally may only accept demolition and construction debris. Last week it laid off about half of its 40 employees.
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a1bc0132464912c5de45d4a02bd230f6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3053-story.html | Pasadena Reverses Policy, Will Disclose Officials’ Pay : Government: Dissenters in the 4-2 Board of Directors vote expressed concern about possible violations of the privacy of people on the city’s payroll. | Pasadena Reverses Policy, Will Disclose Officials’ Pay : Government: Dissenters in the 4-2 Board of Directors vote expressed concern about possible violations of the privacy of people on the city’s payroll.
Faced with the threat of a lawsuit by Director Chris Holden, the city Board of Directors on Tuesday reversed a decades-old practice of withholding from the public the specific salaries earned by the city attorney, clerk and manager.
Instead of providing only salary ranges--maximum and minimum amounts paid to the top three city employees--the board approved Holden’s idea to have the mayor publicly announce any changes to their salaries.
But the hourlong haggling over the issue and the 4-2 vote displeased Holden. Directors William Paparian and John Crowley voted against the measure. Director William Thomson was absent.
“Some of the city directors of this city need to take a gut check and figure out what they’re doing here,” Holden said after the vote. “It’s just good government, and if they can’t vote for that, then what are they doing here?”
Under Holden’s revisions, both annual salaries and one-time-only bonuses will be announced. Information about the amounts will also be available on request.
But Crowley and Paparian were concerned that revealing information about salary increases could violate city employee privacy. Pay raises in Pasadena are based partially on merit. Varying percentages of raises can indicate whether a person was evaluated as “needs improvement,” “meritorious” or “superior.”
Paparian said anyone who did the math could calculate from the salary the evaluation earned by the employee. Such information could harm an employee’s career if no pay raise were received, he said.
“I want to make sure we’re not putting ourselves in a situation where our employees will challenge us in court or we will have subverted a system we have used for years,” Paparian said.
City Manager Philip Hawkey and Director Rick Cole also expressed concern that the change for the three board-appointed, city employees could lead to modifications for all city employees who are evaluated under the same system.
“I’m getting a queasy feeling, because I’m hiring people” and touting the city’s merit pay system, Hawkey told the board.
But Holden said the change applies only to the board-appointed employees. “The bottom line is full disclosure,” he added.
In the past, specific salaries were announced publicly when employees began work with the city. Subsequent changes in salaries were approved in closed session by the board, but only salary ranges were revealed.
Holden, along with the rest of the board, followed the practice for former City Manager Donald McIntyre. But the controversy over Hawkey’s hiring prompted Holden last month to propose changes.
Hawkey, who is white, was selected last April over two black finalists. The action angered members of the city’s minority community. The criticism continued when Hawkey was given generous benefits and a $377,500 city loan to help buy a $615,000 home.
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9590aca2a180cdedc492c86c0439879a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3054-story.html | Monterey Park to Put Its Own Stars on the Map | Monterey Park to Put Its Own Stars on the Map
Do potato chip queen Laura Scudder and Tiburcio Vasquez, a legendary Mexican bandido, have anything in common?
They do. For better or for worse, both helped put Monterey Park on the map. And for some reason, both were forgotten, or simply overlooked, in the days when city officials were naming new streets, parks and meeting halls after other local luminaries.
On Monday night, the City Council decided it wasn’t too late to honor those left by the wayside. It approved a list of 20 names of Monterey Park’s most notable characters, each to be used whenever a new street is paved. The top six constitute a kind of A-list and will be used first.
Among the honorees is Scudder, who on Nov. 26, 1926, fried her first batch of potato chips in a factory near the corner of Garvey Avenue and Atlantic Boulevard.
Vasquez was a stagecoach robber and horse-and-cattle thief. In 1874, according to popular legend, he buried $40,000 in gold on a ranch in Monterey Park, setting off a decades-long treasure hunt that proved fruitless.
First on the list is Kenneth R. Gribble, the former mayor of Monterey Park and Chamber of Commerce president who died of cancer last year. His parents, John and Carrie, ran the city’s first grocery store, Gribble’s Food and Fuel. They share a spot on the list with their son.
Last on the list, but not least, is Anna Edwards, a longtime teacher at Ynez Elementary School who was “loved by all,” according to biographical information accompanying the names.
“None of these people have a street named after them,” said Beatrice Rexius, a member and former chairwoman of the city’s Historical Heritage Commission, which compiled the street names list. “There definitely should have been a street named after the Gribbles.”
And what about No. 14 on the list, Dan and Leona Hurley? During the 1920s, Dan Hurley played the drums in a burlesque theater on Garfield Avenue. It was there he met Leona Mason, a chorus girl who attracted his attention. The two married in 1932, opened a dance studio and held musical shows in Monterey Park every Friday night.
In fact, at one point the Hurleys informally named a small side street after themselves. But for some reason, the name Hurley Drive never became legal, according to a transcript of an interview with Leona Hurley, who still lives in the city with her husband. Today, the street is Roselyn Way on the map.
The city’s first mayor, John Dutcher, made the list. So did the city’s first woman mayor, Leila Donegan, who held the post in 1960-61.
No. 3 on the list is landowner and developer Peter Snyder, famous for envisioning a community within Monterey Park that he hoped would rival Bel-Air and Beverly Hills.
But Snyder’s ambitious project, proposed in 1928 as Midwick View Estates, flopped during the Great Depression. After that, Snyder donated 1.5 acres of the land to the city. A distinctive Spanish-tiled fountain and meeting hall, called Jardin El Encanto, still stand on the property.
There were no Chinese names on the list, which city officials justified by saying that Chinese immigration to Monterey Park was too recent to have produced any historical figures yet.
One council member, Fred Balderrama, questioned why the only Latino was Vasquez, the bandido.
“You mean the only one you could find is a Frito Bandido type?” he asked Rexius. “That’s all we have from Monterey Park’s history is a bandido who buried treasure here?”
Balderrama voted to approve the list, but said he plans to suggest a list of Latinos who helped shape Monterey Park.
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ae9ef788852b1a6f6105e9e51c57008b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3055-story.html | Last Year’s Quake Led to Shake-Up in Safety Procedures | Last Year’s Quake Led to Shake-Up in Safety Procedures
A 2.2-magnitude shaker rattled a few windowpanes in the Upland area Sunday.
Though it wasn’t much, as earthquakes go, Sunday’s seismic hiccup served as a fitting commemoration of last year’s 5.5-magnitude earthquake, which showered boulders on mountain roads, toppled chimneys and smashed plate-glass windows in San Bernardino and eastern Los Angeles counties.
It was one year ago today that the Upland earthquake hit in the midafternoon, leaving at least 243 homes and 92 businesses damaged in Upland, Claremont, Pomona and La Verne. More than three dozen people were injured. It was felt as far away as Las Vegas.
Since then, the communities have repaired broken windows and chimneys and largely put the memory behind them, residents say.
But that earthquake may actually have left some good in its wake, officials say. The 30 seconds of havoc last Feb. 28 created ideal conditions for a kind of dry run for larger earthquakes to come.
“If you have to test your emergency plan, you want to do it in a situation where there’s clearly an emergency but where lives aren’t being lost,” said Bridget Distelrath, Claremont’s assistant city manager.
“We learned a lot from the experience,” said La Verne City Manager Martin R. Lomeli.
For example, La Verne emergency workers found they had to scramble to find tools and supplies, such as yellow tape to barricade buildings, most of it stored in various places at the city yard on Third Street, Lomeli said.
The city has since acquired two cargo containers for storage of equipment such as cots, street barricades, chain saws, crowbars and flashlights, and it has begun a three-year cycle to replenish supplies.
“The idea was to have it all in one place, so when you show up at the city yard, you know exactly where to go,” Lomeli said.
After last year’s quake, Pomona imposed strict new operating procedures on city employees. “Some people heard the news that it was a minor earthquake, and they didn’t respond,” said Robert DeLoach, director of public works. “For a time, we couldn’t get city personnel out to do things like checking sewers.”
Claremont has fine-tuned its procedures for evacuating city buildings and mobilizing city staff. “We’ve given authority to building officials and city planning officials to immediately shut down their counters to get all the engineers and planners out doing inspections,” Distelrath said.
For those close enough to feel the full effects, the Upland earthquake seemed a particularly jolting one, with an insidious series of aftershocks.
“I’m a native Southern Californian, and I’ve been through all of earthquakes since the ‘60s,” Lomeli said. “This one seemed a lot more violent.”
At the Upland City Hall, city workers immediately dived under their desks, said senior management analyst Sheryl Williams. “Ceiling tiles were coming down--that was the scariest part,” she said. “Then a file cabinet hit a big archway window, and it shattered.”
But the worst part, Williams said, was the aftershocks. “There were stories that the first earthquake could have been just a foreshock to something larger,” she said.
Sunday’s 2.2-magnitude event was just the latest in hundreds of aftershocks, a Caltech spokesman said. “There have been way over a thousand,” he said.
A year later, there still are signs of the destruction that the quake left. An auto parts distribution center at D Avenue and Arrow Highway in La Verne, where the roof caved in with 60 people inside, remains in wreckage, said Fire Chief Bob Miller. There were no injuries in the building.
The original sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Pomona, at Holt and Garey avenues, is still blocked off with an eight-foot wooden fence. The 1910 structure’s bell tower sustained cracks in its stone facade. Repairing it was deemed too expensive, and the congregation is now accepting bids for demolition of the tower, said business manager Denis Endert.
But Pomona encouraged quick rebuilding of broken chimneys by suspending the $50 to $85 permit fee for repairs done within 90 days of the quake, said community development official Bill Paine.
In Upland, the 40-foot-high “Madonna of the Trails” statue, depicting a pioneer woman and her two children, still has cracks in its base. The 62-year-old statue at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Euclid Avenue will undergo $30,000 in repairs before the end of this year, Williams said.
But for the most part, the Upland earthquake of 1990 is a fading memory. “We’ve pretty much put it behind us,” Williams said.
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1ad5c0b86a68c3e134150d49324539ac | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3056-story.html | Pasadena Faces Lean Times as City Runs Out of Growing Room : Finances: Major companies need room to expand. They may go to less expensive areas, taking a chunk of Pasadena’s tax base with them. | Pasadena Faces Lean Times as City Runs Out of Growing Room : Finances: Major companies need room to expand. They may go to less expensive areas, taking a chunk of Pasadena’s tax base with them.
After two decades of economic growth, a built-up Pasadena could face leaner times as other San Gabriel Valley cities--and cheaper areas in other states--combine with the recession to bust the city’s boom.
That was the message city officials got Tuesday in a two-hour presentation on Pasadena’s economic health.
As if to underscore it, city directors also were told Pasadena needs to shave $1 million from its $277-million operating budget.
In addition, Pasadena faces a 25% decrease next year in its capital improvement program, with $67.7 million budgeted compared with $89.8 million this year, City Manager Philip Hawkey said. The decrease means postponement of $2.9 million in preventive maintenance for city buildings and streets.
Directors also were told the city’s sales tax rate is stagnant; it lacks sufficient space for office expansion, and its high utility rates may force companies to relocate.
“Pasadena is king of the (San Gabriel) Valley right now in sales taxes,” said William Reynolds, the city’s housing and development director. “But if you look at the growth in sales taxes in the surrounding communities, they’re growing much faster.”
According to a midyear budget review by Finance Director Mary Bradley, the city will receive $500,000 less than the $102.9 million it expected this year from General Fund sources, taxes, fines, allocations from state and federal government, and city fees for service, licenses and permits.
The rest of the city’s operating money comes from city agencies such as the Water and Power Department, the redevelopment agency and the city-run Convention Center.
From July 1 through Dec. 31, 1990, the city received $48.2 million from the General Fund, 2% less than over the same period in 1989, Bradley said. She blamed declines in real estate, construction activity and traffic fines.
Bradley recommended a variety of budget cutbacks to meet the shortfall and provide a $500,000 cushion, including delaying filling 18 staff vacancies, reducing fire and police overtime and dropping some consultant and contract services.
But the board postponed any action after Directors Chris Holden and Rick Cole said the cutbacks might harm human service programs.
Reynolds’ more general report assessed Pasadena’s economic future and competition with other cities. Although Pasadena is home to industrial and high technology manufacturers as well as many corporate headquarters, it lacks expansion space, Reynolds said. “Irwindale, San Dimas, Rancho Cucamonga, someplace east, that’s our competition,” he said.
Lack of space forced the Ralph M. Parsons engineering company to take an 80,000-square-foot office in Glendale, rather than Pasadena, where it has headquarters and 1 million square feet of office space, he said.
Other large retailers including Avon and Fedco have no place to expand in Pasadena, Reynolds said. If the city loses them to other areas, 35% of the city’s $20.2-million annual sales taxes would also disappear, he said.
High utility costs, meanwhile, may force the Bank of America to relocate its 1,700 employees and 400,000-square feet of office space, he added.
“Our competition is not just, can they build a bigger building in Glendale?” Reynolds said. “It’s Phoenix, Salt Lake, places with housing at the $100,000 rate or less.”
A series of recommendations in Reynolds’ report included establishing a liaison with corporations and shuttle buses for shoppers. City directors said they will decide on the recommendations individually.
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d306b5d43998ab0b1d465886744b2fff | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ga-3061-story.html | Monterey Park : Building Upgrades Ordered | Monterey Park : Building Upgrades Ordered
Owners of seven unreinforced brick buildings on Garvey Avenue must strengthen their buildings to make them earthquake safe or face eviction and possible prosecution, the City Council decided Monday night.
The council unanimously voted to impose a July 15 deadline for owners to submit repair plans to the city, and an April 15, 1992, deadline for work to begin. Under city law, all unreinforced masonry buildings must be demolished or reinforced.
Of 31 unreinforced brick buildings in Monterey Park, two have been repaired, 11 are undergoing repair, plans to repair 11 others have been submitted to the city, and owners of the remaining seven have made no attempts to comply with the law, city officials said.
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0379139fa115ef3d7c5b01592124eace | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3080-story.html | Glendale Orders 15% Cutback in Water Use : Drought: The reduction applies to residences and small businesses. Companies such as carwashes and coin-operated laundries must trim consumption by 10%. | Glendale Orders 15% Cutback in Water Use : Drought: The reduction applies to residences and small businesses. Companies such as carwashes and coin-operated laundries must trim consumption by 10%.
Echoing warnings by the city’s main supplier of water about an increasingly severe shortage, the Glendale City Council this week approved what is expected to be the first of several mandatory rationing measures.
Beginning April 1, residents and small businesses must reduce their water consumption by 15%, according to a plan approved Tuesday. Major businesses and industries that use water in their operations, such as coin-operated laundries and carwashes, must cut their consumption by 10%.
The cutbacks will be based on 1989 usage. City staff next week will present to the council a plan for enforcing rationing and for educating residents on conservation, said Michael Hopkins, public service director.
In initiating the measures, the council responded to recent warnings by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California that the five-year drought has been harsher than expected. The agency supplies 90% of Glendale’s water.
Starting Friday, the MWD is requiring its customers to reduce their shares by 31% or face stiff financial penalties. But those levels are expected to rise to at least 43% by April or May. Consequently, local mandatory rationing is almost certain to get tougher--perhaps reaching 30% cutbacks by summer, Hopkins and other officials warned this week.
“There is little doubt we’ll be back later looking for higher levels of the mandatory reduction process,” Hopkins told the council. “I don’t see any way around that.”
A 15% cutback “is not a large cut,” said Don Froelich, water services supervisor. “It’s just taking some of the fat out of the use.”
A 15% cutback will probably result in brown lawns at residences and parks because most residents and city employees will eliminate outdoor water use to comply, Hopkins’ staff predicted.
However, owners of apartment buildings, most of which do not have large lawns, will have to install low-flow shower heads and toilet water displacement devices to meet the 15% requirement, Froelich said.
Glendale’s 32,000 water customers use about 27 million gallons of water each day. An average household uses nearly 15,000 gallons a month, about half of that outdoors, Hopkins said.
Under the city’s plan, customers who do not reduce their consumption will pay double the usual rate for the extra water. Those who continue to exceed their limits will pay four times the rate, or the city will install flow-restriction devices on their meters or disconnect their water service.
However, customers who are billed once every two months--including all residential and most small-business users--will be allowed to compile water “credit” if they conserve by more than 15%. Likewise, customers who exceed their limits one month can make it up the next, Froelich said.
Similar rules apply to large business and industries, whose consumption cutback is 10% rather than the 15% for residential and small-business users.
In addition, homeowners will be guaranteed a minimum of 6,358 gallons of water each month--about 1,100 gallons less than what an average household uses indoors, Hopkins said.
“We don’t want to collect penalties. We just want to get the water back,” Froelich said. “The city is very concerned about manufacturers cutting back and laying people off if their water levels become too low, so we’d like to give them an additional break.”
An earlier citywide campaign was somewhat successful in saving water, he said. The city’s customers voluntarily reduced consumption by 7% under the first phase of a five-phase conservation plan enacted in May by the City Council, which prohibited daytime lawn watering and hosing off of sidewalks and driveways.
Officials have been trying to step up water production from local wells to lessen the effect of the cutbacks. But only four of the city’s nine wells are in production because the others, contaminated by industrial chemicals, have toxic levels that exceed state standards, officials said Tuesday.
Councilman Carl Raggio complained that those standards are outdated. He instructed Hopkins to look into how the city could use its remaining five wells. “I think you can die of thirst faster than you can die of toxicity in that water,” Raggio said.
The 15% reduction level represents the third phase of the conservation plan, which can reach 25%. It is based on water usage in 1989, the same year on which the MWD is basing its cutback. The council may soon have to create tiers for higher percentages because the MWD’s cutback is expected to increase to at least 43%, officials said.
“It’s getting worse by the week,” Froelich said.
The council’s initial plan drew a modest round of complaints Tuesday. Some residents asked that an earlier base year be used. They said that because they began conserving in the mid-1980s, they in effect will face more severe water rationing than those who did not conserve.
Others complained that landlords should not be held responsible if their tenants waste water. Most landlords have a central meter in their buildings, making it difficult to impose penalties on individual tenants, Frank Drewe, owner of a 41-unit apartment building on Palmer Avenue, told the council.
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64fb98a44ffb244e27fc5f7a9c34a421 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3081-story.html | Crime Drops, but Violence on Increase | Crime Drops, but Violence on Increase
Following a nationwide trend, violent crime in Glendale rose 26% last year over 1989, mainly because of significant increases in robberies and assaults, according to Police Department statistics released Monday.
Police also reported a dramatic increase in the use of firearms, particularly among gang members.
Despite the rise in violent crime, the incidents of burglaries and car thefts were down, accounting for an overall drop in crime of 4.7%.
Homicides and forcible rapes also were down. There were four fewer homicides last year compared to 1989 for a 57% decrease and 17 fewer forcible rapes for a 31.5% decrease.
Sgt. Pete Michael, Police Department spokesman, attributed the overall decrease in crime to heightened public awareness as a result of the department’s successful Neighborhood Watch and public information programs.
“Our crime-prevention unit shows people how not to get things stolen,” Michael said. “This creates better awareness in the community for both property crimes and violent crime.”
Statistics showed a 10.4% drop in the number of reported thefts in 1990. Motor-vehicle thefts were down 6.9%, while residential burglaries dropped 15.7%.
The number of robberies rose 44.6%, and assaults were up 22.5%. The largest statistical change was a 60.5% increase in the use of firearms during assaults.
Michael said the increased use of weapons is most significant among gang members. He said a gang task force established two years ago is confiscating “a significant number of firearms” not only from gang members but from growing numbers of people who are carrying these weapons with them.
Sgt. Don Meredith of the department’s gang task force said the increasing use of weapons is a common problem throughout Los Angeles County.
“People tend to forget that we’re the third largest city in the county, so weapons come from all over,” Meredith said. “It’s not uncommon for firearms to be found by our people in robbery and by officers out on the street. So it’s not just gangs. It’s a universal problem.”
Michael said weapons are increasingly being used during robberies, especially those that occur on the street. These types of crimes include armed theft from motorists, pedestrians and automated teller users. The high increase in robberies can be attributed primarily to a 49% increase in these crimes, which the department calls highway robberies, Michael said.
Sgt. Robert MacLeod, the department’s supervisor for crime prevention, said that despite the increase in violent crimes, the statistics indicate his department is achieving its goal of reducing property crimes, including residential burglaries and car thefts.
“Our recent thrust, in the past year, has been in helping prevent residential burglaries, and we’ve seen a reduction in these crimes,” MacLeod said.
“I feel that we’re doing really well from this big push, but it’s also due to the citizens,” MacLeod said. “We encourage them to improve the security of their homes and cars and to report these crimes, which they are.”
Compared to crime statistics in other communities with populations over 100,000, Michael said, Glendale still remains one of the safest cities in California.
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4a068f45b765acd5d5259b847e0cc9e4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3082-story.html | Judge Shuts Charity for Lack of Tax Exemption : Courts: Glendale-based American Veterans Committee has been accused of raising funds illegally and giving only 5% to service groups. | Judge Shuts Charity for Lack of Tax Exemption : Courts: Glendale-based American Veterans Committee has been accused of raising funds illegally and giving only 5% to service groups.
A Superior Court judge shut down the Glendale-based American Veterans Committee indefinitely after the state attorney general’s office charged that the committee engaged in illegal fund raising for more than a year.
Until recently, the committee was raising thousands of dollars each week, telling donors their gifts to veterans, blind children and battered women were “100% tax-deductible,” state authorities said. But the organization, which has been soliciting funds mainly from a Bellflower phone room, was denied a federal tax exemption in April, 1989, and lost its state tax exemption last May, court documents say.
After reviewing documents filed by the state and the committee, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Huss issued a preliminary injunction Friday, shutting down the organization indefinitely.
State officials said the committee, administered by a Glendale businessman, also has failed to file annual financial reports with the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts for 1987 through 1989, as required by law.
The committee has “engaged in a continuing course of misconduct, in violation of the law,” the attorney general’s staff argued in a civil complaint. “It is anticipated that such misconduct will continue unless enjoined.”
In papers filed with the state, the committee has said that less than 5% of the money it raises goes to charity, with the remainder going to the fund-raisers and their expenses.
The ruling Friday followed a temporary restraining order Huss issued Feb. 7, halting the committee’s fund raising for 15 days while legal arguments were prepared.
“The key issue here is the lack of the proper accounting that the state requires,” the judge said Friday. “That hasn’t been done.”
Turning to Gerald McNally Jr., attorney for the Glendale group, Huss added: “If human beings don’t comply until they’re hit over the head, then the state has to come in and hit them over the head. . . . You’re abusing the system, and your client is, too.”
At the hearing, Huss was told that the group is the target of a second lawsuit filed last August by a Washington-based veterans organization, also called American Veterans Committee. In its suit, the Washington group, formed in 1943, alleged that the Glendale organization, founded in 1986, “wrongfully and unlawfully” adopted its name “for the purposes of deceiving and misleading the public into donating money.”
Huss agreed to combine the state’s case with the suit filed by the Washington committee.
He ordered the two veterans groups and the attorney general’s staff to attend a voluntary settlement conference April 4. If an agreement is not reached, a trial will be held on whether the court should issue a permanent injunction against the Glendale group.
“I believe that resolving it informally would be a better way,” Huss said.
After the hearing, Frank E. Burford, president of the Glendale organization, said the judge’s ruling would have its most serious effect on his fund-raising crew of about 30.
“The only people he’s hitting over the head now are a lot of poor people who don’t have a job,” he said. “For some people, this is the only work they can do.”
Yet, he added: “I think it’s going to be resolved. They’re going to see that everything we’ve sent them is in order. We are not doing anything illegal.”
Burford said his group has been sending financial statements to state officials since last April.
“They have just wanted detail after detail after detail,” he said. “We have the best records in the world for this organization. We have sent them volumes.”
But Deputy Atty. Gen. William S. Abbey disagreed.
“The stuff he has submitted is totally inadequate,” he said. “There are 50,000 other charities operating in California that manage to meet the statutory reporting requirements. So why can’t Burford?”
The injunction prohibits further fund raising or expenditures by Glendale’s American Veterans Committee and its affiliates: Blind Children’s Society, Battered Women’s Society, Child Abuse Network and United Missions.
Burford has said his group seeks donations, then gives money to programs that serve veterans, battered women and others.
Gregory S. Howard, a state charitable trusts auditor, said Burford’s most recent report stated that his organization raised $434,027 during the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, 1989. From this sum, the group gave $20,814--less than 5% of its revenue--to service programs. Most of the remaining funds covered fund-raising costs, such as solicitors’ fees and office rent.
The percentage donated to charity is far below the average for Los Angeles fund-raisers and the voluntary standards set by national watchdog groups. According to figures compiled by the Los Angeles Social Service Department, most charities spend 20% or less to cover their fund-raising expenses. But the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states and cities cannot mandate how much a fund-raiser must donate to a charity.
Over the past year, however, city and state regulators have challenged the Glendale group’s bookkeeping and its lack of tax exemptions.
In an April 16 letter included in the court records, state auditor Howard told Burford that critical sections were missing from his financial reports. “When completing these pages, you should consider seeking professional accounting assistance,” Howard wrote.
Burford operates an accounting business in Glendale but is not a certified public accountant. He is licensed to complete federal tax forms.
In the court case, the attorney general’s office presented evidence that the Glendale veterans committee filed an incomplete application with the Internal Revenue Service and was denied a federal tax exemption in 1989. In addition, California officials rescinded the group’s state tax exemption last May, again because it did not provide enough information on its finances.
Residents who were suspicious of the group’s fund-raising tactics have also contacted authorities.
Los Angeles City Fire Department Capt. Norman M. Pate of Van Nuys said his wife received a call Feb. 7 from a solicitor who said the Blind Children’s Society urgently needed cash. Margaret Pate was told to make out her $35 check to “B.C.S.” and leave it in her mailbox for a messenger to pick up.
The next day, the check was gone, and a receipt was left behind, saying the gift was tax-deductible.
The Pates became suspicious when a friend who works at a school for the blind said she had never heard of the organization. They stopped payment on the check and wrote to the Los Angeles Social Service Department, which last year denied American Veterans Committee and its affiliates a permit to seek donations in the city.
The Pates’ letter was submitted to Judge Huss, along with a written complaint from the Blind Children’s Center, which aids visually impaired children at its Los Angeles facility. In 1987, the center returned a $500 donation from the Glendale group because of concerns about its fund-raising practices, said Gina Erlandson, assistant development director.
Last June, the center received several calls from people who had been solicited by the Blind Children’s Society. They asked if it was affiliated.
“The Blind Children’s Center feels victimized by the use of the name Blind Children’s Society,” Julie K. Wharton, then president of the center, wrote to a city investigator. “It creates confusion in the public sector.”
Erlandson said her center was following the current court case. “We’re very pleased that something is being done,” she said, “because it’s not fair to the community or the Blind Children’s Center to divert funds that could be going directly to provide service at this center or other worthwhile organizations.”
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e9991f180ab32d4ba5815da6e5ce5970 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3083-story.html | Residents Celebrate Canyon Acquisition by Park Panel | Residents Celebrate Canyon Acquisition by Park Panel
One year ago this month, the people who live near Rainbow Canyon in Mount Washington were worried that the rugged area, home to raccoons, red-tailed hawks and rare vegetation, would soon be destroyed to make room for new houses.
Real estate agents had begun showing the 29-acre site to potential builders.
But a yearlong community campaign to preserve the wildlife area paid off last month when Los Angeles officials agreed to buy the canyon and turn it over to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Neighbors gathered Saturday with representatives of the city and the conservancy to celebrate the acquisition.
“Now the canyon belongs to the whole community,” said Debra Vodhanel, one of the neighborhood activists who helped save the site from development. “We think it might set a precedent for preserving other wildlife corridors in Mount Washington.”
About 200 people attended the dedication ceremony. The event was highlighted by a sage-burning ceremony in which Manuel Rocha, a spiritual leader of the Gabrielino Indians, blessed the canyon.
The nature area is between Rainbow Avenue and Avenue 44 in the hillside area west of the Southwest Museum.
The canyon preservation drive earned the admiration of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that acquires land for public recreational use.
“They’re just wonderful neighborhood activists,” Laura Plotkin, a conservancy spokeswoman, said. “Some things sort of drag on for years, but this happened very quickly. We’re really happy to have this because it’s in an area of the city that doesn’t have much open space.”
The canyon acreage, previously owned by Richard W. Altstadt of Los Angeles, was put up for sale by county officials in February, 1990. Diego Cardoso, a deputy planner for Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, said the land was auctioned because the owner owed nearly $45,000 in taxes and other fees, including a significant city charge for brush clearance.
During the auction, a prospective buyer put down a deposit to purchase the site, but he failed to complete the transaction a month later, Cardoso said.
Before that purchase bid was abandoned, Vodhanel, who lives near the canyon, became alarmed and spread the news.
“I saw Debbie on Avenue 44, looking very distressed,” recalled Clare Marter-Kenyon, a neighbor. “She had just talked to a Realtor who had been showing it to a prospective buyer.”
Marter-Kenyon and Vodhanel helped found the Rainbow Canyon Action Committee to work for preservation of the canyon. Community members documented more than 74 species of birds in the canyon and found healthy specimens of a rare tree, the California black walnut.
The group lobbied Alatorre’s office for city acquisition of the acreage. In May, the councilman introduced a motion directing city staff members to explore such a purchase.
But some Los Angeles officials objected to the maintenance costs the city would incur if it took over the canyon, Cardoso said. One official suggested that residents be required to form an assessment district to cover such expenses.
The issue was resolved in December, however, when the conservancy agreed to maintain and patrol the acreage. A month later the City Council agreed to buy the land and transfer ownership to that agency.
Conservancy spokeswoman Plotkin said her staff has pledged to clear hazardous brush and debris from the site. When money becomes available, the agency also plans to improve the canyon’s trail system.
Vodhanel said neighbors have also vowed to make the canyon a more appealing site for nature hikes.
“It’s very hard to get into,” she said. “It’s badly overgrown, and it’s full of poison oak. And there’s a lot of trash in there. We want to clean it up so that a year from now, it looks a lot different.”
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24f2f3d37c2c9213467f2b0f88b3b6c8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3084-story.html | Opening Doors to the Past : Los Feliz: Volunteers are reconstructing the histories of famous properties in an effort to preserve the community’s stately landmarks. | Opening Doors to the Past : Los Feliz: Volunteers are reconstructing the histories of famous properties in an effort to preserve the community’s stately landmarks.
The work is time-consuming, grueling and detailed, but sorting through 60-year-old building permits is Ken Hollis’ idea of a good time.
A plasma research technician by day, Hollis--pursuing his multiple interests in archeology, history and computer programming--often spends up to three hours a night plugging information from building permits and other historic papers into a computer database.
Hollis is just the kind of volunteer Diane Kanner was looking for when she set out more than three years ago to document the history of Los Feliz, the roughly 70-year-old community of old wealth and distinguished architecture built on hilly terrain at the southern base of Griffith Park.
The effort is called the Los Feliz Historic Survey, and its goal is twofold: to put together promotional pamphlets, presentations and a book about Los Feliz, and more broadly, to give historic status to some of the community’s oldest and most famous properties.
Ordinarily, such surveys are initiated not by volunteers, but by city officials who study historic sites as part of a broader project, said Frank Parrello, a city planner. For instance, as the Los Angeles Planning Department updates the city’s 35 community plans, officials will perform a general survey of potentially historic buildings to ensure that they are not endangered by revised land-use plans, Parrello said.
Los Feliz is considered part of the Hollywood community. Its plan won’t be revised by city officials for another five to seven years, he said.
Kanner, a free-lance real estate writer and architecture buff, thought the community should have a more thorough survey than the city would do, and a lot sooner.
“People are curious to know who built the big, old houses in the area--and the modest ones as well,” Kanner said. “We also want to find out where our potential landmarks are so we can prioritize those we feel are worth saving.”
Kanner had experience in historical research as a volunteer for a survey of Hollywood in the early 1980s and later as a historic planning consultant for City Councilman Michael Woo. But a survey on the scale she contemplated would require private donations of perhaps $100,000 and volunteers.
Kanner and other organizers were confident that Los Feliz was the kind of community that could supply both.
Los Feliz, as Kanner explains it, was considered rural and out of reach of the urban transportation systems of the 1920s. But its rolling hills, with Griffith Park as a backdrop and Hollywood as a neighbor, attracted the attention of well-known architects and wealthy celebrities.
Wilbur Cook, a landscape architect who designed the streets of Beverly Hills and Oakland, was thought to have laid out Los Feliz around 1910, Kanner said. Soon to appear on those streets were sprawling houses in the Spanish colonial revival, Mediterranean, Craftsman and modern styles. Frank Lloyd Wright; his son, Lloyd Wright; Richard J. Neutra and Wallace Neff were among the architects who designed many of the houses.
Los Feliz became the home of Cecil B. DeMille, Walt Disney, actress Norma Talmadge and former Los Angeles Times Publisher Harry Chandler. The Bullock’s department store family built a house there in 1915. Travis Banton, the fashion designer of Paramount Studios, followed suit 15 years later.
William Mead, who served in the Assembly from 1897 to 1901, built his house in Los Feliz in about 1906, and in 1916 formed the Los Feliz Improvement Assn., now one of the oldest and most powerful homeowner groups in the city.
In its first year, the association and the Los Feliz Women’s Club planted deodar cedar trees along Los Feliz Boulevard. They still line the wide, heavily trafficked thoroughfare connecting Glendale to Hollywood.
The trees are considered a historic and cultural monument, as are the Los Feliz Manor apartment building, built in 1929, and the William Mulholland Memorial Fountain on the corner of the boulevard and Riverside Drive. The fountain honors the man who created the Los Angeles municipal water system.
Kanner, a resident of the community since 1972, hoped to spotlight those and other celebrated monuments when she initiated the survey in 1987. She pitched her idea to the Los Feliz Improvement Assn. and earned its endorsement.
Her historic preservation committee held its first fund-raiser in 1988. The 1920s-style party drew about 600 people and brought in nearly $30,000 for the survey. A combination street fair, auction and home tour last September raised another $10,000.
Kanner and the association launched the project by hiring an architectural and historical consulting group to do a general “windshield” study of Los Feliz. The consultants sought out houses built before World War II that seemed to have architectural or historical flavor and the potential for designation as historical-cultural monuments.
The search resulted in a list of nearly 2,800 houses--more than half of the roughly 5,000 houses in the area--ranging from the Spanish colonial revivalist properties in hillside neighborhoods to houses on Los Feliz Boulevard, with their broad lawns and winding driveways.
Kanner recruited about two dozen volunteers to help pore over old maps, marriage licenses, tax records and newspaper clippings for glimpses of Los Feliz history. Obscure documents such as the old bylaws of the Los Feliz Women’s Club provided some details.
The volunteers acquired a few old pictures from the Los Angeles Public Library for $10 each. A photography class at Marshall High School agreed to take shots of the properties identified by the consultants.
Meanwhile, Hollis, who joined the effort in December, 1989, was busy sweeping much of the information being gathered into a database he created for the survey. He also helped Kanner file a request with the city’s Building and Safety Department for any building permits related to the nearly 2,800 properties identified in the consultants’ windshield survey.
On a Monday evening in January, 11 volunteers gathered around a table at Kanner’s Hillhurst home to study files of information about famous Los Feliz residents and landowners. Their task was to establish a general chronology of major land and property purchases in the community.
The meeting was organized like a business conference. The volunteers, who wore specially designed name tags with a Los Feliz Historical Survey logo, followed a carefully planned agenda. But the discussion was informal. For most of the volunteers, the research process was a novel experience.
“The goal of many of the volunteers is not to designate historic districts,” Kanner said later. “They just want to learn more about Los Feliz.”
They were not disappointed. The files they delved into that night were tagged with some of the most widely known names in the early years of Los Angeles.
In 1898, affluent landowner Griffith J. Griffith donated thousands of acres of his property to the city of Los Angeles, and Griffith Park was born.
Meanwhile, developer Homer Laughlin was buying scores of parcels nearby. He built and sold a number of large houses in an area called Laughlin Park--now an exclusive, partially gated neighborhood off Los Feliz Boulevard.
Famed movie director DeMille in 1916 moved into a Mediterranean-style house in Laughlin Park, next door to a house that Charlie Chaplin had rented for several months. Four years later, he bought the neighboring property and joined the houses with an atrium. DeMille lived there until his death in 1959.
Chandler, publisher of The Times from 1917 until his death in 1944, built a house on five acres of Los Feliz property the same year DeMille moved in. He also bought parcels in the community for his eight children. His wife lived in the Inverness Avenue house until her death in the 1950s.
Sixty to 80 years of development would bring a flock of celebrities and well-known architects to Los Feliz. The 1920s featured some particularly notable construction: the Ennis house on Glendower Avenue, designed in 1924 by Frank Lloyd Wright; the Lovell house on Dundee Drive, a 1929 creation by Neutra; the Taggart house on Live Oak Drive, designed between 1922 and 1924 by Lloyd Wright, and the Sowden house on Franklin Avenue, another Lloyd Wright creation built in 1926.
Finding details about those properties, well-documented because of their architects or former owners, has been fairly easy. The history of other structures has been harder to track down, Kanner and others said.
Several weeks after the Monday night meeting, Kanner received a response to the group’s request of the Building and Safety Department: copies of about 8,700 building permits for most of the 2,800 properties identified as potential historic sites.
The permits will enable the group to investigate the history of many lesser-known properties in Los Feliz because they list owners and architects during times of construction or modification, Kanner and Hollis said.
Those details will be useful when the volunteers request local, state or national historic status for some of the properties and neighborhoods they have studied, Kanner said.
In addition to nominating specific houses as monuments, the group is likely to recommend that Los Feliz Boulevard, Laughlin Park and one or two other Los Feliz neighborhoods be designated as historic preservation zones, Kanner said.
That goal may be controversial. The designation would subject to city review any major alterations to houses or buildings within the preservation zone. Some residents fear they could be unfairly restricted in making changes to or selling their homes.
“One of the reasons some people live here is because we can do a lot of what we want to do,” said Mark Laska, vice president of the Laughlin Park Homeowners Assn. “We own the streets, we can put up gates, we can do what we want. There would be concerns that we’d be giving up some of those positives if we’d be included in that type of zone.”
The city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, subject to the approval of the Planning Department and City Council, can designate old or famous structures as historic-cultural monuments to protect their historic value, said city planner Parrello.
The commission also can designate entire neighborhoods as historic preservation zones if a significant number of the structures are deemed historically and culturally significant, Parrello said.
Neither designation requires the consent of homeowners. And, after a structure is given historic status, it cannot be significantly altered without approval by the heritage commission or a specially appointed review board, Parrello said.
Kanner said her group would not recommend historic preservation for any neighborhood where most residents did not want it. “We’re not going to shove it down their throats,” she said.
But, she added, the Los Feliz Improvement Assn. has strongly asserted a community voice in deciding what happens to private property with historic or aesthetic value.
The group has had disputes with some Los Feliz Boulevard residents over the construction of high walls in front of their houses, she said.
“We’ve always told people this is not Beverly Hills,” she said. “You can’t build a wall that separates you from the general public.”
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4acd1ad7ad3e2461c38cd718b2435f12 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3085-story.html | Panel Recommends Alex Theater Be Made Into Glendale Arts Center | Panel Recommends Alex Theater Be Made Into Glendale Arts Center
A newly formed 21-member advisory committee on the Alex Theatre agreed Tuesday that Glendale should push forward with plans to acquire and renovate the historic 1925 movie house into a top rank cultural arts facility.
In its first public session since the committee was named in January, members asked the Glendale Redevelopment Agency--which consists of the five-member City Council--to outline guidelines for developing a master plan to save the Alex.
The agency laid down only two basic rules: that the Alex should stay where it is at 216 N. Brand Blvd. and that every effort should be made to incorporate the famed Fox Lanterman theater pipe organ as an integral part of the facility.
Beyond that, Councilman Carl Raggio said, the committee “should start out by blue-skying it"--considering every possibility for developing a viable arts center in the heart of Glendale’s redevelopment zone, including making use of the property around it.
“The bottom line has always been that we are going to save the Alex,” said agency Chairwoman Ginger Bremberg. “Your job is to figure out how.”
The answer to that question has remained elusive for more than a decade. Various organizations in the past had squabbled over whether the 66-year-old theater and its neo-Greek architecture should be preserved as a single-screen theater, converted into a performing arts center or largely demolished to make way for a new arts facility.
Mayor Larry Zarian said he appointed the committee--a diverse group that includes some former rivals--to come up with a final answer.
After years of study that produced multiple, conflicting reports on the potential use of the Alex, Zarian said Tuesday that he wants “to get something done. I’m not interested in writing another report.”
The campaign to renovate the Alex got started last fall when Glendale began negotiating the purchase of a rare pipe organ left to the neighboring city of La Canada Flintridge in the estate of Assemblyman Frank Lanterman, who had played an organ at the Alex on opening night.
An agreement to purchase the organ, the largest and best of only four Wurlitzer Crawford Specials left in the world according to organ specialist William Schutz, was reached in January. The instrument, capable of producing the sounds of a 90-piece orchestra, is being dismantled at the Lanterman home and will be moved to Glendale for storage and renovation by mid-April, said Schutz, who is overseeing the move.
Agency members urged the advisory committee to work quickly to develop a plan for the Alex because they said accelerated development in the downtown area threatens preservation of the theater. They urged the committee, led by Glendale attorney Laurence R. Clarke, to present recommendations to the agency by the end of the year.
Redevelopment Director Jeanne Armstrong said her department will soon ask the agency to authorize seismic and other studies required before the city enters final negotiations to purchase the Alex, owned by Mann Theatres.
City officials have repeatedly warned that the city lacks the millions of dollars needed to save the theater.
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1756ad4b72fa27044eec672b08144643 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3086-story.html | 1 Slain, 1 Injured in Glassell Park Shooting | 1 Slain, 1 Injured in Glassell Park Shooting
One man was killed and another injured Sunday morning during a heated argument among a group of men gathered at a mobile food vending truck, police said.
Carlos Lopez, 20, of Highland Park was killed by a single shot in the chest about 2 a.m. while buying food at the truck parked at 2811 Figueroa St. in Glassell Park, Los Angeles Police Detective Loren Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman said Lopez and Jeffrey Morgan, 25, also of Highland Park, were not involved in the argument that led to the shooting.
Morgan told Zimmerman that a group of men were arguing over which area of Mexico was the best and that Lopez became involved when one of the men asked what he was looking at.
“Lopez said he was free to look at whatever he wanted,” Zimmerman said. “At that point, one of the men pulled out a handgun and started shooting.”
The two men were taken to County-USC Medical Center by friends, Zimmerman said. Lopez died before arriving at the hospital. Morgan was treated for gunshot wounds in the shoulder and leg and released.
No arrests have been made. Zimmerman said the shooting was not gang-related.
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8f624891b48ff9ee1803d40f769999bd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3087-story.html | Glendale, Chamber to Mark Anniversaries | Glendale, Chamber to Mark Anniversaries
The city of Glendale and the Glendale Chamber of Commerce will hold a sold-out celebration tonight at the Civic Auditorium to commemorate the city’s 85th anniversary and the chamber’s 80 years of activities.
More than 600 people are expected to attend “Glendale 85/80,” featuring food and entertainment from Glendale’s Hispanic, Armenian, Indian, Filipino and Korean communities.
Founded in 1906, Glendale has grown from a community of less than 1,500 acres to a city encompassing more than 30 square miles with a population of more than 180,000--ranking it third in size in Los Angeles County and 92nd in the nation, according to the 1990 Census.
Several Glendale organizations, including Carnation Co., Glendale Adventist Hospital and Glendale Community College, paid $400 per table for representatives to attend the event, a chamber spokeswoman said. All seats were sold two days before the event, she said.
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a9e829d2b42ff12d4ee036656ca322e6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3088-story.html | Council Backs Offer for Former Park Site | Council Backs Offer for Former Park Site
The Glendale City Council on Tuesday tentatively accepted an $800,000 offer from a local developer for a 1-acre lot off Rimcrest Drive that city officials decided to sell rather than convert to a neighborhood park.
Sam Danielian, owner of Danielian Real Estate Services, was the sole bidder for the Verdugo Hills property, known as Rimcrest Park. The council is expected to formally approve Danielian’s $800,124 bid next week.
Danielian said he wants to build two houses on the lot, which is in a neighborhood of large, single-family houses. He plans to keep one house for his own family and is negotiating with another family on the second, he said.
The council in January voted to sell the lot, appraised at $1 million, after dropping a plan to turn it into a neighborhood park. A poll taken last year by the city found that most nearby residents thought that the lot had become a dumping ground for trash and a noisy gathering place for teen-agers, and feared that a park would draw even more garbage, noise and traffic.
The lot was deeded to the city in 1975 by Auerbach Construction Co. as part of a plan to build a single-family housing subdivision, on condition that it be turned into a park or returned to the developer.
Under a plan approved last month by the council, Auerbach will receive $400,000 from the sale, with the remaining $400,124 to be used by the city to develop parks elsewhere, City Atty. Scott H. Howard said.
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47dae8a3224d8fcafc084d79e43d427a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-gl-3092-story.html | Contenders Will Tackle the Issues | Contenders Will Tackle the Issues
Eight candidates running for two seats on the Glendale City Council are expected to present their platforms and answer questions at a series of public forums in March.
Candidates John Beach, Eileen Givens, Shirley Griffin, Dick Matthews, Mary Ann Plumley, Mary Ann Prelock, Bob Torres and Mayor Larry Zarian will address such issues as growth, water, preservation of undeveloped hillside land and the future of the city’s transportation system.
Four candidates vying for seats on the Glendale Board of Education and three running for the Glendale Community College Board of Trustees will appear at several of those forums.
Two seats on each board are up for grabs in the April 2 election. Board of Education incumbents Sharon Beauchamp and Blanch Greenwood are competing against Robert Burlison and Peter Musurlian, while Don Pearson is challenging college board incumbents Rae Berry and Robert Holmes.
CANDIDATES FORUMS The following candidate forums are free and open to the public:
* Monday: Sponsored by the Glendale Board of Realtors for council candidates only, 6 p.m., Glendale Centre Theater, 324 N. Orange St.
* Monday: Sponsored by the Verdugo Hills Democratic Club for school board candidates only, 7 p.m., Montrose branch of the Glendale Public Library, 2465 Honolulu Ave.
* Wednesday: Sponsored by the Glendale Historical Society for council candidates, 7 p.m., Glendale Board of Education office, 223 N. Jackson St.
* March 11: Sponsored by the Republican Women’s Study Club for council, school and college board candidates, 12:45 p.m., YWCA, 735 E. Lexington Drive.
* March 11: Sponsored by the Glenmore Canyon Homeowners and the College Hills Community associations for council candidates, 7 p.m., Glendale Adventist Academy, 700 Kimlin Drive.
* March 15: Sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Glendale for council candidates, 11:45 a.m., Tuesday Afternoon Club, 319 N. Central Ave.
* March 15: Sponsored by the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council for council candidates, 7 p.m., Glendale Community College’s Kreider Hall, 1500 N. Verdugo Road.
* March 19: Sponsored by the Chevy Chase Homeowners Assn. for council candidates, 6:30 p.m., 2015 E. Glenoaks Blvd.
* March 20: Sponsored by the Republican Women’s Workshop for council, school and college board candidates, 10:30 a.m., Tuesday Afternoon Club.
* March 20: Sponsored by parents of Muir Elementary School students for school board candidates, 7:30 p.m. A location has not yet been chosen.
* March 22: Sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Glendale for school and college board candidates, 11:45 a.m., Tuesday Afternoon Club.
* March 23: Sponsored by the Greater Glendale Council on Aging for council candidates, 10 a.m., Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St.
* March 26: Sponsored by the League of Women Voters for school and college board candidates, 6:30 p.m., Board of Education office.
* March 26: Sponsored by the Glenoaks Canyon Homeowners Assn. for council candidates, 7:30 p.m., Glenoaks Park clubhouse in the 2600 block of Glenoaks Boulevard.
* March 27: Sponsored by the League of Women Voters for council candidates, 6:30 p.m., Glendale Central Library.
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4f09d1dc7c1ea632cfb379a4a34177e8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-hd-3059-story.html | An Honest Dollar : Bookshop Owner Trusts Patrons to Serve Themselves After Hours | An Honest Dollar : Bookshop Owner Trusts Patrons to Serve Themselves After Hours
You gotta be kidding. It was nighttime and the bookstore on Firestone Boulevard was shut tight. But on the sidewalk in front of Book Raj, there were two bookcases and eight boxes of books, some 300 volumes, most of them hardback fiction.
“Honor system,” a sign proclaimed. “Select book or books. Place cash or check in the mail slot (envelopes provided).”
“No money? Your credit is good. Pay us tomorrow or whenever. We trust you. All we ask is that you do not litter the streets with books.”
Rex and Mary Lou Jones, owners of the Book Raj, started their honor system about a month ago and they say everything is going fairly well so far.
Granted, there is not a lot of money in after-hours sales. The books on the sidewalk go for $1 each; it is a good night if $5 has been dropped through the mail slot.
And they already have lost a box of about 15 books to thieves, Rex Jones said.
But the Joneses say they will continue the honor system because of the promotional value, and because it helps get literature out to a public that is more interested in flipping channels than pages.
“Obviously I’m not making anything with this,” Rex Jones said. “It’s just a little service.”
The Joneses opened their used bookstore two years ago. Rex Jones, 51, is a former college professor and museum curator who holds a doctorate in anthropology. Mary Lou Jones, 42, was an activities director at a convalescent hospital.
The store is open seven days a week, with one or both of the Joneses running the counter. It is not an easy living. Book Raj used to occupy another storefront in Norwalk, but the Joneses moved into the old part of the city near the intersection of Firestone Boulevard and San Antonio Drive last October because the rent is cheaper.
The Book Raj carries a wide selection of books--about 75,000 in all on homemade pine shelves that run along the sides and down the center of the narrow shop.
The store specializes in gambling books. Jones, a semi-professional poker player in the early 1980s, wrote a book on poker. He also has edited and written for various gambling publications.
“I’m trying to build this into a comprehensive gambling collection,” Jones said. “I’m probably the only bookstore in California that specializes in gambling.”
But most of the bookshelves hold reading material of general interest. The store has a few rare books, and there are several shelves of modern first editions. A first edition of Gore Vidal’s “Empire” goes for $10.
The majority of the shelves are filled with common hardback and paperback editions. Some of the popular paperbacks sell for as little as three for $1.
The Book Raj’s bestsellers are Spanish-English dictionaries, automobile repair manuals and cookbooks, Rex Jones said. Paperback science fiction, mysteries and romance also move fairly quickly.
But “since the war started I’ve sold more Bibles than ever before,” he said.
Last December, the couple kicked off a “recession sale” by putting some of their $1 books in front of the shop. They hauled in the books each night. Then Rex Jones decided to save some energy and make a name for his bookstore. He said he had heard of a similar honor system in an Ojai bookstore.
“He decided we needed to do something different to call attention to ourselves,” Mary Lou Jones said. “I said ‘Rex, you’re crazy.’ ”
But Rex Jones had a feeling that his books would be around the next morning.
“Most people who deal with used bookstores around here are very honest,” he said. “I haven’t had a check bounce.”
The Joneses said they had not noticed that a book was missing until last week, when someone stole the box of about 15 volumes. Jones dismisses the theft as “a prank. Probably some kids stopped at the (traffic) light and decided to take them.”
“The only value those books have out there is for people who want to read them,” Jones said. “There’s no resale value. And if they want to read that badly, then take them.”
The Joneses are careful not to put out any first editions or any other books with a high resale value. On a recent afternoon, there was a paperback edition of “Chesapeake” by James A. Michener. A book on the life of Henry Fonda was soiled as if a passerby had accidentally dropped it while leafing through the pages.
The honor system has been well received, the Joneses said.
“I had a transient come in here the other day,” Mary Lou Jones said. “He said, I just wanted to thank you folks for trusting the community.”
Norwalk Chamber of Commerce Director Dick Bass echoed that sentiment.
“I like that openness,” Bass said. “This used to be the kind of town where you didn’t lock the doors. It’s a flashback to the good ol’ days, and we need more of that.”
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da0d206519fccd449b6ba24cc7e0d888 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-hl-3057-story.html | Imported Water Deliveries to Cities Will Be Cut 20% : Drought: The Central Basin District, an MWD agency that sells water to city and independent water companies, will begin reductions Friday. Effects on cities will vary. | Imported Water Deliveries to Cities Will Be Cut 20% : Drought: The Central Basin District, an MWD agency that sells water to city and independent water companies, will begin reductions Friday. Effects on cities will vary.
Beginning Friday, Southeast area cities will have to do without 20% of the water they import for use by residents, business and industry.
The directors of the Central Basin Municipal Water District, which sells imported water to municipal and independent water companies in the area, voted Wednesday to close the spigot a bit more because of the continuing drought. The agency has deepened the level of cutbacks for most of its customers from 10% to 20%.
The action will affect some cities more than others. Pico Rivera, for example, pumps all of its water from wells and will not be affected by Wednesday’s action. Others, such as Santa Fe Springs, rely heavily on imported water.
Santa Fe Springs pumps about half of its water from wells and buys the rest from the Central Basin District. That prompted the Santa Fe Springs City Council to pass a resolution requiring residents to reduce water use by 10% starting Friday. Users who do not cut back face surcharges on their water bills ranging from 10% for a first offense to 200%.
“We’re developing plans for 25% and 50% reductions” in water use, Public Works Director John Price said.
A handful of other Southeast area cities, including Signal Hill, Montebello and Norwalk, have passed mandatory water conservation ordinances. The ordinances prohibit wasteful uses such as washing down driveways and buildings. They also limit lawn watering to every other day. But not all of the ordinances mandate specific reductions in water use.
These cities are expected to toughen their laws. Other cities probably will enact ordinances to meet the cutbacks imposed by the Central Basin District, officials said.
Some cities hold surplus rights to ground water to make up the shortfall in imported water. The area’s aquifers, huge underground fields of water, are relatively full, water officials said.
The Central Basin District is a member agency of the huge Metropolitan Water District, which provides Southern California with water from the State Water Project and the Colorado River.
Through Wednesday’s action, the Central Basin District will require the bulk of its customers to reduce water use by 20%. Others, mostly agricultural customers, will be required to make 50% cutbacks. The goal is an overall reduction of 31%.
During February, the Central Basin District required cutbacks ranging from 10% to 30% for an overall reduction of 17%.
Richard W. Atwater, general manager of the Central Basin District, said preliminary figures indicate that the use of imported water fell by only 12% this month, well short of the 17% goal.
Surcharges, which eventually will filter down to individual consumers, are being imposed for the excessive consumption.
The cutbacks in supplies have come as state water analysts report that drought conditions are much worse than previously thought. This year’s warm, dry winter has made matters worse.
The most recent bombshell was dropped Monday, when Gov. Pete Wilson announced that all cities and industrial users served by the State Water Project will receive only 10% of normal deliveries for the year.
Because of that, MWD officials say they will be forced to rely almost exclusively on water from the Colorado River.
MWD officials said they will consider reducing supplies of imported water by 49% next week. Atwater said the Central Basin District would pass on those stringent cutbacks in late March.
The district has warned Southeast cities that they must adopt a drought contingency plan by March 31 providing for up to a 50% reduction in water use. The district has threatened to impose an areawide plan if cities do not meet that deadline.
“We may not have to go that far this summer, but we want to have a plan in place,” Atwater said.
The cities within the Central Basin District are Artesia, Bell, Bell Gardens, Bellflower, Cerritos, Commerce, Cudahy, Downey, Hawaiian Gardens, Huntington Park, La Habra Heights, Lakewood, La Mirada, Lynwood, Maywood, Montebello, Norwalk, Paramount, Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs, Signal Hill, South Gate, Vernon and Whittier.
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7bd32be1eb4a68f26ec6e4e8bb97fbb3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-hl-3058-story.html | Council Vote Reignites Smoking Ban Debate | Council Vote Reignites Smoking Ban Debate
One week before the city’s strict ban on smoking becomes law, two of its strongest supporters on the City Council have backed away, claiming they made a mistake.
An attempt by the two councilmen to water down the law was defeated by a 3-2 vote Monday night, and the law will go into effect March 5.
Councilman Joseph E. Cvetko, who first suggested that the council adopt a 100% ban on smoking in restaurants, and Councilman John Ansdell said at a council meeting this week that the smoking ban was hastily passed and is unfair.
“We’ve done wrong,” Ansdell said.
Ansdell and Cvetko asked fellow council members to amend the law to allow restaurant owners to set aside at least 20% of their seating for smokers. Cvetko recommended that restaurants also install exhaust fans. The two councilmen also asked that restaurant owners be granted 30 days to comply with the ordinance.
The proposal to change the law came at the end of the council meeting and infuriated the other council members. Cvetko said he will raise the issue again at a later meeting.
“Cvetko has gone completely nuts,” Councilman William J. Pendleton said.
Pendleton, Mayor Randy Bomgaars and Councilman Bob Stone said they knew Ansdell was having doubts. Ansdell has mentioned more than once that he thought all restaurant owners should have been notified by letter that the council was considering a 100% ban on smoking in restaurants.
But Councilman Stone, who first urged the council to consider some sort of smoking ban in the city, said he does not understand why Cvetko is now backpedaling on the issue.
“If I had to sit back and say, ‘That’s the one who is going to sway,’ I never would have picked Cvetko,” Stone said. “I never would have thought he was the weak link.”
Pendleton and Mayor Bomgaars said it is quite clear why Cvetko waffled on the issue: He is up for reelection next April and is afraid that his stand would cost him votes.
Cvetko, who has said for years that he is a “public servant and not a politician,” denied the charges.
“That’s an absolute falsehood,” he said. “I mulled it over and thought to myself, ‘Gee, maybe we did go too far.’ None of the other cities is doing anything like this, and the recession is hurting our restaurant guys economically. The smoking ban really puts our guys at a disadvantage, and I don’t want to hurt them. ‘Live and let live’ is what I say.”
But Bomgaars, Stone and Pendleton said they have gone too far to drop the ordinance at this point without giving it a try.
“If it doesn’t work, if there is a problem, and restaurants are hurt, I’ll be the first to say I made a mistake,” Bomgaars said.
Ansdell said that by then it may be too late and some restaurant owners will be closing for lack of customers.
“How long are we going to wait; where are we going to draw the line?” Ansdell asked.
The City Council has been debating some form of a smoking ordinance in the city for the past three months. Council members said they were concerned about the effects of secondhand smoke on nonsmokers and said the health of nonsmokers should be protected. In December, the council settled on a law that would require restaurant owners to set aside 80% of their seating for nonsmokers. Smoking also will be prohibited in all enclosed building in which the public congregates, with the exception of private homes, offices, places of worship, bars and tobacco stores.
During the December meeting, council members began debating the effectiveness of forcing small restaurants to set aside 20% of their seating. Councilman Cvetko suggested that the council “go all the way” and ban smoking outright. The plan received quick and unanimous parlors, pool halls, and bowling alleys are still allowed to smoke. “It’s only fair” to give restaurant owners some leeway, he said.
Restaurant owner Lou Galasso, who has been fighting the ban since it was first discussed in December, said that by giving exemptions and partial exemptions to some businesses, the council was guilty of “picking and choosing.”
“It wasn’t fair,” he said. “The whole thing was just breaking down.”
But Stone, Bomgaars and Ansdell said that no one has been given special exemptions, and suggested that if the critics were to read the law, they would see that nothing has been changed.
Rudy Cole, the executive vice president of a Los Angeles-based restaurant lobby association, greeted the news that Cvetko and Ansdell had changed their minds with a cheery “Well, that’s two.”
“The restaurant owners have spent a lot of time with the council, and they succeeded in demonstrating that this is a terrible time to be doing something like this,” he said.
He said that his association, the Restaurants for Sensible Voluntary Policy (On Smoking) will ask the council to amend the ordinance to allow restaurant owners to set aside only 50% of their seating for nonsmokers. But, he said, the 50-50 law would go hand in hand with a law that would require restaurant owners to accommodate nonsmokers first. The “flex program” would require restaurant owners to expand their nonsmoking area once it is filled.
Cole will not be able to bring his plans before the council until the March 11 meeting, six days after the smoking ban goes into effect.
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3ae47e65d0fc89aea9997d44a7a09602 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-hl-3063-story.html | Long Beach : Noise, Time Limits Imposed on Testing of Jet Engines | Long Beach : Noise, Time Limits Imposed on Testing of Jet Engines
Douglas Aircraft Co. last week won permission from the Long Beach Planning Commission to test its C-17 aircraft in the city, but only after the commission imposed noise and time limits on the jet engine testing.
Tests will be restricted to between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and there will be no testing allowed on weekends or holidays. Douglas had requested permission to test the engines from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the week and from 9 a.m to 9 p.m. on weekends and holidays. Douglas officials explained that they didn’t want to find themselves in the middle of testing on a Friday, then have to shut down for several days.
“We would not like to be in a position in the testing process and have something happen to delay it, then have to wait several days to continue. I am disappointed that we weren’t given more consideration. We will appeal this to the City Council,” said Robert Bresette, general manager of the C-17 assembly project.
Residents living near the test site, off Cherry Avenue, voiced their concern about noise from past jet engine testing, and continuing disturbances from operations approved before current noise ordinances were adopted.
The commission responded by limiting the noise level to 50 decibels at Douglas’ Cherry Avenue boundary, by limiting the testing to one plane per day, and by imposing a review of any noise violations after one year.
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3c5b1ab5a77329a3642550886643fae2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-hl-3065-story.html | South Gate : $5,000 Donation Restores Graffiti Reward Program | South Gate : $5,000 Donation Restores Graffiti Reward Program
South Gate is once again paying a $500 reward for the arrest and conviction of anyone caught spraying graffiti.
Payments were suspended when the city ran out of money in December. But the offer became available again when a local business, Rockview Farms, donated $5,000 to the reward fund.
Payment of the reward became an issue last week when a participant, Jason Rhodes, complained in a newspaper article that he had not been paid money due him. Rhodes said he had turned in vandals on three different occasions in 1990 and had been paid only twice.
“On the third time, they wouldn’t pay. They gave me the runaround, saying they lost my paperwork,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes said he complained publicly only after he discovered that the program was out of money. He said officials should have told him immediately that there was no money in the program.
The donation will enable the city to pay Rhodes, a 24-year-old security guard for a South Gate business, and three other people who turned in vandals.
The city appropriated $12,000 for the program last year, but used up the money by December after paying $500 rewards to 24 people, Police Chief Ron George said.
A $5,000 check was given to the City Council on Monday by Rockview Farms’ owner Amos DeGroot and his son Curt DeGroot.
“We care about the city and support the graffiti reward program,” Curt DeGroot said. The DeGroot family has owned Rockview Farms since the late 1960s.
Curt DeGroot said he hoped other businesses would follow his company’s lead and make donations to the graffiti reward program.
Meanwhile, the city will continue to try and find ways to finance the program, Mayor Robert Philipp said. Officials might consider reducing the reward amount, Philipp said. Three years ago the reward was $300.
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6b3d8bd4ac9ee86610336b7d9467195a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-hl-3066-story.html | Santa Fe Springs : $300,000 in Cuts Approved as Budgetary ‘Precaution’ | Santa Fe Springs : $300,000 in Cuts Approved as Budgetary ‘Precaution’
The City Council has approved $300,000 in budget cuts, scrapping plans for two new transit vehicles, two bus shelters, a traffic signal and a fair at Heritage Park.
City Manager Don Powell said that despite the cutbacks Santa Fe Springs is in good financial shape. “There’s no budget crisis. This is just a very conservative move,” he said.
Mayor Al Sharp lobbied for the cuts, claiming that the city should trim programs rather than dip into its $12.8-million reserve fund to make up for an anticipated revenue shortfall. A report last fall found that there could be a $1.3-million deficit in this fiscal year’s $31.3-million budget.
Powell said, however, that the report exaggerated the city’s budget problem and that, with the cuts, the deficit will be $400,000 at most. He called the cutbacks a wise “precaution,” given the potential impact of the drought on the city’s economy. Many industries in Santa Fe Springs require a lot of water and would be hurt by a stringent rationing program, he said.
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