Candidates for mayor take different tacks on education

Los Angeles city government faces a litany of problems, from yawning pension liabilities to poorly paved roads. But few threaten long-term prosperity as much as education, and the ability of the city's public schools to produce an educated, taxpaying workforce.

Though the mayor plays no official role in running the schools, voters frequently name education as their top priority in picking the city's chief executive. And Los Angeles' top elected official in recent years has increasingly tried to exert influence, with mixed results. Education advocates say the future of the Los Angeles Unified School District, where more than one in five students drop out, is dependent on the mayor playing a significant and singular role.

But some say the candidates vying to become Los Angeles' next mayor are just now beginning to do more than pay lip service to the matter.

"I don't think there's been a broad enough or deep enough conversation about education reform, or a kids-first agenda," said Ben Austin, executive director of the Parents Revolution, who is heartened by the fact that the discussions now taking place would have been unheard of four years ago. "Candidates have answered bits and pieces, but the fundamental question is, are you going to make every decision about LAUSD policy through the lens you would make that same decision if it affected your own child?"

Some are more blunt, saying that the candidates are merely focusing on buzz words rather than substance.

"It's about power and politics rather than curriculum and instruction. It's about getting elected, not kids learning," said former school board member David Tokofsky. The candidates' education platforms are "about polling and being safe rather than a city and nation at risk."

Former Mayor Richard Riordan is credited as the first to truly try to leave a mark on the city's schools, and current Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa launched an aggressive drive to remake the district. His efforts were bold and controversial, but his bid to take over the district failed. Since then, he has used political capital to shape the school board, and his nonprofit organization took control of 13 campuses and opened two more.

Of the top contenders in the race to replace the termed-out Villaraigosa, none would follow his exact path.

The two candidates believed to be the most likely to make the runoff — Councilman Eric Garcetti and Controller Wendy Greuel — share many positions on education. Both pledge to advocate for increased funding for the classroom, and support school choice, the use of students' test scores in evaluating teachers — although they decline to specify how much weight they should carry — and the ability of charter-school teachers to organize. They, like all of the mayoral candidates, support the retention of Supt. John Deasy, who has sought to change the way teachers are evaluated and fired, even though it has frequently put him at odds with the district's powerful teachers' union.

But there are shades of difference in rhetoric and priorities.

At a time when there are marked battles over what role bargaining groups should have in shaping school policy, Garcetti, who is backed by United Teachers Los Angeles as well as the California Federation of Teachers, has kept a more conciliatory tone about the matter. He has repeatedly spoken out against the "bullying" of teachers and the need to focus on what unites teachers' unions and reform advocates rather than the few issues that divide them. But his refusal to fully back the parent-trigger law, which allows parents to petition to overhaul a failing school, has led some to question whether his position was swayed by his union supporters.

Garcetti sought to push back at that portrayal during a United Way mayoral forum on education Wednesday, taking positions that are likely to irk union leadership, such as calling for teachers who excel to receive merit pay, while also taking positions supported by the union, such as backing school board member Steve Zimmer in his reelection bid.

"The teachers union … they're not going anywhere. I've disagreed with UTLA on plenty of things, on [laying off teachers based on] seniority, on parent trigger, on other things that are important," Garcetti said. "But at the same time, I want to be a bridge back, because if we don't have teachers and quote-unquote reformers working together, we aren't going to succeed."

Garcetti and City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who is also running for mayor, prioritize the importance of making schools community centers with services not only for children but for their families. Perry said she has seen the benefits — both to student achievement and parental participation — in the new schools that have opened in South Los Angeles.

"Now you see parents walking children to and from school, staying after school, participating in after-school activities," she said. "This is one way to pull test scores upward and build the community from the ground up."

That is in contrast to Greuel, who is heavily focused on local decision-making and frequently cites her experiences at the affiliated charter school her son attends, where a panel of parents and teachers make decisions about leadership, curriculum and priorities along with the district.

"There's a lot of talk of everything around schools," she said. "I'll tell you the most important thing … is what's happening in the schools and those classrooms and with the principals."

Greuel accused Garcetti of changing his positions on education because of mounting pressure.

"He waits and waits and waits, and gets pushed in a corner and makes a decision," Greuel said, adding that Garcetti had hardened his stance on parent trigger and on school board President Monica Garcia. "When we're talking about education for the future of Los Angeles, we need someone who stands up and says this is the direction we're going in."

The candidates who are trying to get into the runoff have made some of the more aggressive proposals. Perry would seek to create a non-voting seat on the school board, a legislative endeavor that could take years. Republican Kevin James is the most skeptical of Deasy and the district, and would set up a clearinghouse in the mayor's office for parents who are having problems with the district but are afraid to speak out because of fear of retribution.

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Chinatown landmark named for pioneering jurist

He was the first Chinese American graduate of Stanford Law School and the first Chinese American judge to be appointed to the bench in the continental United States.

On Friday, he became the first Chinese American to have a Los Angeles landmark named after him: Judge Delbert E. Wong Square, which encompasses the intersection of Hill and Ord streets at the western edge of Chinatown.

Councilman Ed Reyes hopes that someday the stretch of Hill Street that runs in front of the Chinatown public library will be named after Wong, who died in 2006 at age 85. Wong and his wife, Dolores, were instrumental in getting the library built, so the location would be fitting.

"The square is a starting point," said Reyes, who presided over the dedication.

A street in Little Tokyo bears the name of Judge John Aiso, the nation's first Japanese American judge.

Wong was born in the Central Valley town of Hanford in 1920, the son of a grocer from China's Guangdong province. The family later moved to Bakersfield, where Chinese and other minorities were restricted to the balconies of movie theaters and could only use the public swimming pool on Fridays, according to an oral history by Wong's son, Marshall Wong.

Wong graduated from UC Berkeley and enlisted in the Army Air Forces during World War II. As a navigator on a B-17 Flying Fortress, he completed 30 bombing missions in Europe, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross and four Air Medals.

When he returned home, Wong decided to attend law school. His parents disapproved, fearing that racial prejudice would prevent him from finding work.

After graduating from Stanford, Wong found that his job options were indeed limited. The few Chinese American attorneys in California practiced immigration law. Wong gravitated to the public sector, working as a deputy legislative counsel and then as a deputy state attorney general.

In 1959, Wong became the first Chinese American judge in the continental United States when then-Gov. Pat Brown appointed him to the Los Angeles County Municipal Court. He later joined the Superior Court, serving for more than two decades. He continued to make headlines in retirement, leading a probe into racial discrimination at the Los Angeles Airport Police Bureau and working as a special master in the O.J. Simpson case.

Wong and his wife were among the founding benefactors of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and the Chinatown Service Center. They were also pioneers in another arena: housing. After a real estate agent told them that Chinese could not buy in Silver Lake, they sought out the property's owner, who was happy to sell to them.

Wong's widow and three of his four children attended Friday's dedication.

California now has more than 90 Asian American trial judges. Four of seven state Supreme Court justices are Asian American, including Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. But young people passing through Judge Delbert E. Wong Square should remember those who paved the way, perhaps even drawing inspiration from them, Marshall Wong said.

"The children who grow up in this neighborhood will pass by and wonder, 'Who was Judge Wong?' Hopefully, they'll learn something about his story and his work and think, 'Maybe I should go to law school and be a judge someday.'"

cindy.chang@latimes.com

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Las Vegas Strip shooting suspect is arrested in L.A.

A man suspected in a deadly car-to-car shooting in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip was arrested Thursday at a Studio City apartment complex, bringing an end to a weeklong manhunt.

Los Angeles police and FBI agents surrounded the suburban apartment complex in the 4100 block of Arch Drive about noon and ordered Ammar Harris to surrender. Officers said there was a woman inside the apartment where he was holed up; she was not arrested.

Harris, 26, is being held on suspicion of murder and is expected to be extradited back to Nevada.

"This arrest is much more than just taking Ammar Harris," said Las Vegas Sheriff Doug Gillespie, speaking at police headquarters near the Strip. "The citizens of our community as well as tourists who visit and work in the Las Vegas Valley are entitled to a safe community."

Harris — described by law enforcement officials as a man with an "extensive and violent criminal history" — is accused of being the gunman in the Feb. 21 shooting that killed three people, including Kenneth Cherry Jr., an Oakland native and rapper known as Kenny Clutch.

Las Vegas police said Harris opened fire from his Ranger Rover on Cherry's Maserati on Las Vegas Boulevard after an altercation at a valet stand at the Aria hotel resort.

The Maserati then sped into the intersection at Flamingo Road, where it rammed a Yellow Cab, which erupted in flames near the mega-wattage casinos of the Bellagio, the Flamingo and Ceasars Palace. The explosion killed the taxi driver and passenger inside.

Cherry and a passenger in his Maserati were taken to a hospital, where Cherry was pronounced dead. Four other vehicles were involved in the fiery crash, which left three other people with injuries.

"What I can tell you is that Mr. Harris' behavior was unlike any other I've seen, and I've been in this community in law enforcement for 32 years," Clark County Dist. Atty. Steve Wolfson said.

"I cannot imagine anything more serious than firing a weapon from a moving vehicle into another moving vehicle on a corner such as Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo."

Even in a city accustomed to spectacle, the shooting and collision were shocking.

On the night of the shooting, Harris was accompanied by three people in his Range Rover, none considered suspects, said Lt. Ray Steiber of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. On Saturday, Las Vegas police found Harris' black Range Rover at an apartment complex in the city. The district attorney charged Harris with murder even though he could not be located, and a federal magistrate signed off on a charge of fleeing the jurisdiction.

Federal court documents show Las Vegas homicide detectives suspected that Harris may have fled to California because his phone showed he made calls in the state.

According to law enforcement sources, Harris operated as a pimp in Las Vegas. In a video released by Las Vegas police, Harris flashed a fistful of $100 bills as he bragged about the money. He boasted about money, guns, expensive cars and run-ins with the law on social media accounts, authorities said.

On one social media site, using the name Jai'duh, someone authorities believe was Harris posted pictures of stacks of $100 bills and a Carbon 15 pistol.

Harris' record includes a 2010 arrest in Las Vegas on suspicion of pimping-related offenses of pandering with force and sexual assault. He has previously been arrested on suspicion of a variety of crimes in South Carolina and Georgia, authorities said.

Harris is slated to appear in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Monday for an extradition proceeding.

richard.winton@latimes.com

john.glionna@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

Glionna reported from Las Vegas. Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.

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Eric Garcetti showed political savvy during busy student years

Fourth in a series of articles focusing on key periods in the lives of the mayoral hopefuls.

Ben Jealous still recalls walking into a Columbia University meeting of a new group called Black Men for Anita Hill and seeing a half-Jewish, half-Mexican kid from Los Angeles leading the discussion.

"What's he doing here?" he asked the professor who organized the meeting.

"Honestly brother," the teacher replied, "he's the only one here I'm certain will really work hard."

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It was Jealous' first exposure to Eric Garcetti, a committed young progressive known on campus for gliding between different worlds and liberal causes. As a political science major at Columbia, Garcetti patched plaster and painted walls in low-income apartments in Harlem while also serving as the president of an exclusive literary society known for its wealthy membership. He led a men's discussion group on gender and sexuality, ran successfully for student government, and wrote and performed in musicals.

His busy student years offered hints of the future political persona that would later help him win a Los Angeles City Council seat and emerge as a leading candidate for mayor. As he pursued countless progressive causes — improved race relations in New York City, democracy in Burma and human rights in Ethiopia — Garcetti also exhibited a careful stewardship of his image and a desire to get along with everyone.

Some of his critics complain that he is confrontation averse, and say his chameleon-like abilities are political. Others complain that he has lost touch with his activist roots, citing his recent advocacy for a plan to allow taller and bigger buildings in Hollywood despite strong opposition from some community members.

But Jealous, who went on to study with Garcetti at Oxford, where they were both Rhodes scholars, remembers his classmate as "authentically committed" to social justice and naturally at ease in different settings. That was a valuable trait in early 1990s New York City, when tensions between whites and blacks were high, said Jealous, who is now the president of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. Against a backdrop of racial violence, including the stabbing of the Rev. Al Sharpton in Brooklyn in 1991, "there was an urgent need to build bridges," he said.

On Columbia's campus, Garcetti pushed to involve more men in Take Back the Night protests against sexual violence and tracked hate crimes as president of the National Student Coalition Against Harassment. He also worked against homelessness and founded the Columbia Urban Experience, a program that exposes incoming freshmen to city life through volunteerism.

Judith Russell, a Columbia professor who taught Garcetti in a yearlong urban politics course, remembers him as a skilled organizer. "Eric was one of the best people I've ever met at getting people to agree," she said.

He was also ambitious. Russell says she wrote countless recommendation letters for Garcetti, who was always applying for some new opportunity. "For most people I have a file or two. For Eric I have a folder," she said.

Even as a student, Garcetti went to great lengths to guard his image and public reputation. In a 1991 letter to a campus newspaper, a 20-year-old Garcetti sought a retraction of a quote that he acknowledged was accurate. A reporter wrote that Garcetti called owners of a store that declined to participate in a Columbia-sponsored can recycling program "assholes." Garcetti said the comment was off the record.

"I would ask, then, if you would retract the quote, not because of the morality of my position, rather the ethics of the quoting," he wrote.

That self-awareness came partly from being raised in a politically active family. Back in Los Angeles, his father was mounting a successful campaign for county district attorney. His mother, the daughter of a wealthy clothier, ran a community foundation. Her father, who had been President Lyndon B. Johnson's tailor, made headlines in the 1960s when he took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling on Johnson to exit the Vietnam War.

Garcetti's family wealth allowed him to carry on the legacy of political activism. While attending L.A.'s exclusive Harvard School for Boys, he traveled to Ethiopia to deliver medical supplies. In college, while other students worked at summer jobs, he traveled twice to Burma to teach democracy to leaders of the resistance movement.

In 1993, after receiving a master's degree from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, Garcetti departed for Oxford. There he met Cory Booker, a fellow Rhodes scholar who is now the mayor of Newark, N.J., and a likely candidate for the U.S. Senate. Garcetti, Booker said, "was one of those guys who would be in the pub at midnight talking passionately about making a better world."

In England, Garcetti worked with Amnesty International and also met his future wife, Amy Wakeland, another Rhodes scholar with activist leanings. Garcetti remembers being impressed when Wakeland missed President Clinton's visit to the Rhodes House at Oxford because she was on the streets protesting tuition hikes. Her worldview aligned with his, he told friends.

In his second year at Oxford, Garcetti persuaded student leaders to join him in a hunger strike after the passage of Proposition 187, the 1994 California ballot measure that denied immigrants access to state healthcare and schools.

Looking back, he sees the hunger strike as a bit of youthful folly. "We were young," Garcetti said. "Was a fast an ocean away going to overturn 187? No. But in my book, whether it's me in Los Angeles seeing an injustice across an ocean or vice versa, you have to stand up and be heard."

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Wendy Greuel acquired a love of politics from working with Tom Bradley

In the early 1980s, Wendy Greuel was at a crossroads. In one direction was the family building supply company housed in a dusty North Hollywood warehouse. The other way, a career at Los Angeles City Hall in Mayor Tom Bradley's administration beckoned.

Bright, young and ambitious, Greuel had balanced duties on the high school cheerleading squad and as student body president with part-time work at Frontier Building Supply — where she kept the books, drove a forklift and answered the phone that sometimes rang for her mother's side business, the White Lace Inn.

The 17-year-old Greuel, raised a Republican, was star-struck when she first met the Democratic mayor during a youth leadership ceremony atop City Hall. "Here was this 6-foot-5 inspirational leader," she said, "and as I've jokingly said, I fell in love that day."

When Bradley handed her an award, her course was set. Over the next decade, she would join a group of young aides who drove the five-term mayor's agenda, from the inspiring run-up to the 1984 Olympic Games to the difficult rebuilding after the city's 1992 riots. Her portfolio at City Hall — homelessness, housing, child care and AIDS — took the young UCLA graduate from the conservative enclaves of the Valley into the most destitute corners of South and East L.A.

"I used to call her the mayor of hopeless causes," former Bradley Deputy Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said. "She had all the really tough, intractable issues … and she dove in."

Now a leading contender to follow her political hero to City Hall's top office, Greuel says she learned from Bradley the skills the job demands: a tireless work ethic, an ability to glide between city factions and a relentless focus on basic city services.

"What I really learned from all of those years was that the details matter," said Greuel, whose admiration for Bradley's zeal in reporting potholes led her to style herself as the "pothole queen" when she later represented the San Fernando Valley on the City Council.

But critics contend that as Greuel, currently the city's controller, raised her political profile she shied away from the imaginative and idealistic projects that were a hallmark of her years in the Bradley administration. Councilman Richard Alarcon, who worked with Greuel in Bradley's office, said he endorsed Greuel's chief rival, Eric Garcetti, after watching her gravitate toward politically safe initiatives.

"When Wendy was with Mayor Bradley, it was all about action — all about creating projects, ideas, L.A.'s Best," Alarcon said, alluding to the acclaimed after-school program that has now expanded to more than 150 Los Angeles schools. "We were doing a lot more than filling potholes."

Greuel says Bradley inspired her "passion to fight for social justice" and to stand up for the most vulnerable. But some saw her City Council focus as tending toward the more narrow — modernizing parking meters and synchronizing traffic signals.

Councilman Bernard C. Parks, the former police chief who is supporting Greuel's rival Jan Perry, said that Bradley created the downtown skyline, rebuilt the airport and brought the Olympics to L.A.

"He had a variety of legacies — most of them were big-picture ideas," Parks said. "In Wendy's era on the council…it was more of the mechanics of dealing with transportation and potholes."

In the early years however, Greuel's drive on those social issues was unquestioned.

Olivia Mitchell, Greuel's first boss in Bradley's youth development office, described Greuel as the ultimate "go-getter." At night, Greuel volunteered to be Mitchell's driver, ferrying her boss to community gatherings, prisoner probation meetings and continuation high schools in her brown Camaro.

"She wanted to know everything I knew and the people I knew," Mitchell said. Later, colleagues would tease her about being willing to "go to the opening of an envelope," Greuel said.

Former Bradley aide Donna Bojarsky said Greuel sought out "high-value, low-glamour" assignments. She also cultivated long-term political relationships that have helped her stack up endorsements in the current race.

Fellow Bradley aide Kerman Maddox noted that she was the one staffer who went to every group's party.

"We're talking 1980s Los Angeles, a tough, gritty, racially-balkanized city," Maddox said. "We'd tease her: 'How many white girls are hanging out in South L.A? It's just you.' But that's her.... She could move from camp to camp, faction to faction, because she got along with everyone."

Greuel was tasked with developing programs to deal with the city's burgeoning homeless population, which was threatening Bradley's drive to redevelop downtown's Bunker Hill. Greuel was in the thick of the issue when tensions grew over a proliferation of urban encampments, including the much-publicized "Justiceville."

Ted Hayes, Justiceville's leader and an advocate for the homeless, recalled that he and Bradley were at sharp odds because "I ran like a buzz saw right smack dab into his plans." Greuel began showing up at the camp, wandering among the plywood and cardboard structures in her prim navy suits.

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Healthcare overhaul may threaten California's safety net

Millions of uninsured Californians will gain medical coverage under the national healthcare overhaul beginning in January, but Guadalupe Luna won't be one of them.

Luna, an illegal immigrant and tamale vendor in Los Angeles, doesn't qualify. So she will continue going to the clinic where she has received free care for more than 20 years: Los Angeles County's Hudson Comprehensive Health Center. There, publicly funded doctors will help manage her diabetes and high cholesterol.

An estimated 3 million to 4 million Californians — about 10% of the state's population — could remain uninsured even after the healthcare overhaul law takes full effect. The burden of their care will fall to public hospitals, county health centers and community clinics. And those institutions may be in jeopardy.

County health leaders and others say the national health law has had the unintended consequence of threatening the financial stability of the state's safety net.

Newly insured patients who no longer have to rely on public hospitals and clinics may seek care elsewhere, meaning a loss in revenue, they say. And under the federal law, some of the funding that goes to safety-net hospitals is also set to decrease.

Now, as the state scrambles to create the new healthcare infrastructure, Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to take back another crucial pot of money that counties have depended on for more than two decades to care for the uninsured.

"Safety net providers are imperative ... and some of their funding streams are in serious danger," said Lucien Wilson, director of the Insure the Uninsured Project, a consumer organization.

Melissa Stafford Jones, president and chief executive of the California Assn. of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, said many of the patients who are uninsured now still won't have coverage next year. "Those communities are still going to need care, and we need to have a safety net to serve them," she said.

Under the healthcare overhaul, the state could enroll as many as 1.4 million additional residents in Medi-Cal, its program for the poor and disabled, and sign up 2.1 million others for subsidized private insurance through a marketplace known as Covered California, according to a recent UC Berkeley report.

About a quarter of those left uninsured will be undocumented immigrants, and nearly three-quarters will be U.S. citizens or green-card holders, according to the report. Some already qualify for Medi-Cal but don't receive it; others will be eligible to buy subsidized healthcare through Covered California but won't be able to afford it.

Martin Garcia, 39, a U.S. citizen with five children, said he doesn't know if he could get Medi-Cal now or what he might qualify for next year. Garcia lost his job and insurance in 2010 and recently started going to the Hudson clinic in Los Angeles because of stomach pains.

Garcia needs hernia surgery, which he said he will receive at L.A. County-USC Medical Center, a public hospital. He said he was relieved to learn that he could get free healthcare through the county. Without it, he said, "I really don't know what I would do. I would probably head to Mexico."

Even with massive outreach by the state, it will take time for eligible people to learn about and enroll in the new coverage. During the early years, the demand for public health services is expected to remain high, and counties will be responsible, said report author Ken Jacobs, chairman of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.

To pay for care for the uninsured, counties have long relied on revenue from sales tax and vehicle license fees — a pot of money known as realignment funds. In fiscal year 2012, the funds amounted to an estimated $1.3 billion.

Brown argues that counties will no longer need all that money because so many of the uninsured will gain coverage under the federal law. At the same time, the governor's administration has said, the state will need the funds if it is going to run the expanded Medi-Cal program.

"There is going to be a fundamental shift in responsibility of healthcare to the state from the counties," said Toby Douglas, director of the state Department of Health Care Services. "There needs to be a realignment of county dollars."

The Legislative Analyst's Office released a report this month recommending that the state run the Medi-Cal expansion and that it take control of some of the realignment funding to help pay for that expansion.

But county health directors argue that the state is just trying to balance its budget on the backs of safety-net systems. They say the counties already struggle to meet demand and contend the state should not take the money before it's clear how many people will sign up for Medi-Cal and how much savings there will be for counties.

"The state needs money, and they see this as an opportunity to get it," said Mitch Katz, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. "I think it is completely unreasonable."

If the state does take back the realignment funding, counties such as Los Angeles that run their own hospitals and clinics could be seriously affected, he said.

Alex Briscoe, director of Alameda County's Health Care Services Agency, said the state proposal shows a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the pressures facing safety-net systems. About 100,000 people might remain uninsured in the county, he said. "If the state takes the money, who is going to pay that care?"

In addition, Briscoe said the state doesn't have any justification for taking the money because the Medi-Cal expansion is 100% covered by the federal government for the first three years.

Who ends up paying doesn't matter to Luna, the tamale vendor. But without the Hudson clinic, the 43-year-old said, her diabetes would spiral out of control.

"I don't have anywhere else to go," she said. "I have to come here."

Luna is one of about 42,000 patients who go to the clinic and urgent care center to manage their chronic diseases, get their children vaccinated, check their eyes and monitor their pregnancies.

Hudson's administrator, Michael Mills, said that even after the healthcare law takes full effect, the clinic will be vital to the community. Nearly half its patients now are uninsured, and many will remain without coverage next year.

"Those are our patients," Medical Director Rona Molodow said. "Those are the people the county has traditionally served."

anna.gorman@latimes.com

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Mahony answers questions under oath about clergy sex abuse cases

A "relatively unflappable" Cardinal Roger Mahony answered questions under oath for more than 3 1/2 hours Saturday about his handling of clergy sex abuse cases, according to the lawyer who questioned the former archbishop.

"He remained calm and seemingly collected at all times," said attorney Anthony De Marco, who represents a man suing the Los Angeles Archdiocese over abuse he alleges he suffered at the hands of a priest who visited his parish in 1987.

Mahony has been deposed many times in the past, but Saturday's session was the first time he had been asked about recently released internal church records that show he shielded abusers from law enforcement.

De Marco declined to detail the questions he asked or the answers the cardinal provided, citing a judge's protective order.

The deposition occurred just before Mahony was to board a plane for Italy to vote in the conclave that will elect the next pope. In a Twitter post Friday, Mahony wrote that it was "just a few short hours before my departure for Rome."

Church officials did not return requests for comment.

The case, set for trial in April, concerns a Mexican priest, Nicholas Aguilar Rivera. Authorities believe he molested at least 26 children during a nine-month stay in Los Angeles.

Recently released church files show Aguilar Rivera fled to Mexico after a top Mahony aide, Thomas Curry, warned him that parents were likely to go the police and that he was in "a good deal of danger." Aguilar Rivera remains a fugitive in Mexico.

The archdiocese had agreed that Mahony could be questioned for four hours about the Aguilar Rivera case and 25 other priests accused in the same period. De Marco said he did not get to ask everything he wanted and would seek additional time after the cardinal returned from the Vatican.

Past depositions of Mahony have eventually become public, and De Marco said he would follow court procedures to seek the release of a transcript of Saturday's deposition.

Meanwhile, a Catholic organization Saturday delivered a petition with thousands of signatures asking that Mahony recuse himself from the conclave in Rome.

The group, Catholics United, collected nearly 10,000 signatures making "a simple request" that the former archbishop of Los Angeles not participate in the process because of the priest abuse scandals that happened under his watch, said Chris Pumpelly, communications director for Catholics United.

The petition was delivered Saturday to St. Charles Borromeo in North Hollywood, where the cardinal resides. It was accepted by a church staff member.

After delivering the petition, organizers attended Mass at the parish to pray for healing and for the future of the church.

harriet.ryan@latimes.com

Times staff writer Rick Rojas contributed to this report.

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Paroled sex offenders disarming tracking devices

SACRAMENTO — Thousands of paroled child molesters, rapists and other high-risk sex offenders in California are removing or disarming their court-ordered GPS tracking devices — and some have been charged with new crimes including sexual battery, kidnapping and attempted manslaughter.

The offenders have discovered that they can disable the monitors, often with little risk of serving time for it, a Times investigation has found. The jails are too full to hold them.

"It's a huge problem," said Fresno parole agent Matt Hill. "If the public knew, they'd be shocked."

More than 3,400 arrest warrants for GPS tamperers have been issued since October 2011, when the state began referring parole violators to county jails instead of returning them to its packed prisons. Warrants increased 28% in 2012 compared to the 12 months before the change in custody began. Nearly all of the warrants were for sex offenders, who are the vast majority of convicts with monitors, and many were for repeat violations.

The custody shift is part of Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislature's "realignment" program, to comply with court orders to reduce overcrowding in state prisons. But many counties have been under their own court orders to ease crowding in their jails.

Some have freed parole violators within days, or even hours, of arrest rather than keep them in custody. Some have refused to accept them at all.

Before prison realignment took effect, sex offenders who breached parole remained behind bars, awaiting hearings that could send them back to prison for up to a year. Now, the maximum penalty is 180 days in jail, but many never serve that time.

With so little deterrent, parolees "certainly are feeling more bold," said Jack Wallace, an executive at the California Sex Offender Management Board.

Rithy Mam, a convicted child stalker, was arrested three times in two months after skipping parole and was freed almost immediately each time. After his third release, his GPS alarm went off and he vanished, law enforcement records show.

The next day, he turned up in a Stockton living room where a 15-year-old girl was asleep on the couch, police said. The girl told police she awoke to find the stranger staring at her and that he asked "Wanna date?" before leaving the home.

Police say Mam went back twice more that week and menaced the girl and her 13-year-old sister, getting in by giving candy to a toddler, before authorities recaptured him in a local park. He is in custody on new charges of child molestation.

Californians voted in 2006 to require that high-risk sex offenders be tracked for life with GPS monitors strapped to their bodies.

The devices are programmed to record offenders' movements and are intended, at least in part, to deter them from committing crimes. The devices, attached to rubber ankle straps embedded with fiber-optic cable, transmit signals monitored by a private contractor.

They are easy to cut off, but an alarm is triggered when that happens, as it is when they are interfered with in other ways or go dead, or when an offender enters a forbidden area such as a school zone or playground. The monitoring company alerts parole agents by text message or email.

Arrest warrants for GPS tamperers are automatically published online. The Times reviewed that data as well as thousands of jail logs, court documents and criminal histories provided by confidential sources. The records show that the way authorities handle violators can vary significantly by county.

San Bernardino County releases more inmates early from its cramped jails than any other county in California, according to state reports. But sex offenders who violate parole there generally serve their terms. A spokeswoman said the county closely reviews criminal histories, and those with past sex offenses are ineligible for early release.

By contrast, parole violators in San Joaquin County are often set free within a day of arrest.

A review of the county's jail logs shows that nine of the 15 sex offenders arrested for violating parole in December and January were let out within 24 hours, including seven who immediately tampered with their trackers and disappeared. One of the nine, a convicted rapist named Robert Stone, was arrested two weeks later on kidnapping charges and returned to jail, where he remains.

Raoul Leyva, a sex offender with a history of beating women, was arrested in April for fleeing parole and ordered to remain jailed for 100 days. He was out in 16 days and soon bolted again, after allowing the battery on his device to go dead, according to the documents reviewed by The Times.

Less than two weeks later, a drug dealer led police to a Stockton apartment where Leyva's girlfriend, 20-year-old Brandy Arreola, had lain for days on the floor, severely beaten and in a coma. Now brain damaged and confined to a wheelchair, Arreola spends her time watching cartoons.

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Bell jury is handed the fates of six onetime civic leaders

Before jurors left the courtroom to deliberate, the prosecutor took a final shot at the six former City Council members accused of corruption.

"The one-percenters of Bell," he called them, a band of small-town politicians who had "apparently forgotten who they are and where they live."

After four weeks of testimony, a jury of seven women and five men was handed the fates of six onetime civic leaders accused of raiding the small town's treasury with huge salaries.

Jurors now must decide whether it was legal for Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal to receive salaries as high as $100,000 a year, spiked by pay for serving on city boards that the prosecution insisted seldom met and did little work.

If convicted, the former officials — one a preacher in town, another a retired steelworker — could be sentenced to prison.

The huge salaries in Bell were exposed in 2010, an era when the town's finances were sagging, workers were being cut from the city payroll and a long-promised sports park remained fenced off.

While the prosecution cast the six as thieves who thought more of their own wallets than their constituents' needs, defense attorneys argued their clients were tireless advocates in a town that had been forced to weather the misdeeds of a scheming, ruthless city manager.

They stressed to jurors that the prosecution failed to prove criminal negligence — that their clients knew what they were doing was wrong or that a reasonable person should have known.

Throughout the trial, the defense maintained that their clients relied on experts to tell them if their salaries were illegal. Stanley L. Friedman pointed out that his client, Hernandez, had only an elementary school education and was elected for his heart, not his intellect.

"There's a lot of elected officials who we have quite a bit of respect for who maybe, maybe, weren't the most scholarly," Hernandez said, mentioning former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Cole, Jacobo and Mirabal, the only defendants to take the stand, said independent auditors and former City Atty. Edward Lee never raised concerns about their paychecks. Although Lee was on the prosecution's witness list, neither side called him to the stand.

The defense pinned much of the blame on a culture where City Administrator Robert Rizzo ruled with a strong hand, drafting resolutions for salary increases and manipulating council members to take city money. Cole testified that he voted in 2008 for a 12% annual pay raise because he feared Rizzo would gut the community programs he helped develop.

"We're here for Mr. Rizzo's sins," said defense attorney George Mgdesyan.

His client, Artiga, a pastor at Bell Community Church, said people around the country were praying for him. "I believe God already has set in motion that I will be found not guilty," said Artiga, who days before his arrest described his bountiful salary as "a trap from the devil."

At the center of much of the trial was Bell's charter, which was passed in a 2005 special election in which fewer than 400 people voted. The charter allowed Bell greater flexibility in governing itself than if it had remained a general law city.

However, Miller argued that the charter limited council members' annual pay to what state law dictated a city of a similar size could receive. That amount — $8,076 — was paid to Lorenzo Velez, the lone sitting council member in 2010 who was not charged with a crime. Velez said he was unaware how much his colleagues were making until the salaries were revealed by The Times.

Velez's salary, as well as the council's refusal to answer a resident who asked during a 2008 meeting how much they were being paid, was proof that defendants knew their pay was illegal, Miller said.

"They knew they were in trouble," he said.

The defense insisted that the charter allowed their clients to be paid extra for city boards, such as the Surplus Property Authority, and that those raises were voted on in open session.

Defense attorneys also urged jurors to take into consideration the character of their clients, who multiple witnesses had testified were so dedicated to their community that they often put residents ahead of their own family.

Miller cautioned that a person who is well-liked can still commit a crime.

"A liquor store robber's weapon is a gun," he said. "The weapon of the white-collar criminal is the trust he or she has gained over a number of years that allows them to occupy positions of elevated trust where they can steal a large amount of money."

corina.knoll@latimes.com

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

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Garcetti and Greuel in duel for funds

Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti remain locked in a tight fundraising battle, with the front-runners in Los Angeles' mayoral contest each raising just under a half-million dollars in recent weeks and both showing ample cash reserves to wage a vigorous effort in the closing days of the primary campaign, according to disclosure reports filed with the City Ethics Commission on Thursday.

Greuel has a razor-blade edge — the city controller raised $473,582 and spent more than $1.7 million in the latest reporting period between Jan. 20 and Feb. 16. She enters the final days before the March 5 contest with nearly $1.7 million cash on hand, according to the reports.

Noting that nearly three-quarters of her recent contributions came from first-time donors and more than half were from contributors who gave $250 and under, Greuel said the figures signified the momentum behind her campaign.

"It's amazing that so many Angelenos from every corner of the city are coming together to join our grassroots campaign," Greuel said in a statement. "In this election, we can fight together to change our city. We can build a stronger economy that creates jobs, a seamless public transportation system and better schools. We can crack down on waste in government so Angelenos can get the services they deserve. Today's report shows that people across L.A. are joining together to make this vision a reality."

Greuel's main rival, City Councilman Garcetti, raised $452,819 and spent nearly $2.5 million during the same time frame, ending the filing period with $1.5 million cash on hand, according to campaign filings. He noted that with more than 10,000 donors, he leads the field in grassroots support.

"I'm proud that our campaign's momentum is growing every day as more people learn about my plans to create jobs and solve problems for L.A. residents," Garcetti said in a statement. "You can see our grassroots strength through our fundraising, our energized volunteer corps and our thriving online network."

Overall, fundraising by the mayoral candidates has topped $11 million. Greuel and Garcetti are saturating the television and radio airwaves and have started attacking one another in voters' mailboxes. They have been fairly even in their fundraising efforts for many months, allowing them both to run a robust advertising campaign. But while Garcetti spent more during the filing period, Greuel has a steep advantage in outside efforts on her behalf. Of the $1.7 million spent by independent committees, more than $1.2 million has been spent to boost her bid, largely by labor.

Voters typically only see the candidates' ads and mailers, or clips of them on the nightly news. Under the radar, the candidates are spending significant time raising the kind of money it takes to campaign in a city as sprawling as Los Angeles. On Wednesday night, Garcetti held a fundraiser at the Petersen Automotive Museum with some of the city's hottest chefs — turning out a young and stylish crowd who sampled craft beers and delicacies such as braised and crispy pork with salted oats, house mostarda and toasted broccoli. On the same night, Greuel held a fundraiser with U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) at the Beverly Hills manse of billionaire media mogul Haim Saban. But unlike Garcetti, her campaign did not allow the media to attend.

Greuel's ads have highlighted her efforts as controller to root out "waste, fraud and abuse" — claims her opponents say she has exaggerated. On Thursday, Garcetti launched two new 15-second ads featuring his endorsement by the Los Angeles Times. Those followed two introductory spots in English and Spanish. The councilman is spending more than $600,000 this week airing ads, according to a Democratic media consultant who is not working for any candidate. Greuel and the efforts on her behalf, which are not allowed to legally coordinate with her campaign, spent about $1.3 million in the same period, according to the media consultant.

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who has been waging a blistering mail campaign against Greuel, continues to lag behind. She raised nearly $68,000 in the filing period, and spent nearly $809,000, leaving her with less than a half-million dollars for the remainder of the race. Emanuel Pleitez, the former technology executive who has never held elected office, reported raising nearly $20,000 and spending nearly $194,000 during the period, leaving him with nearly $146,000 cash on hand.

Kevin James, the sole Republican in the race, has been the beneficiary of nearly $500,000 in outside spending. He has had difficulties raising money, but his campaign has claimed that the numbers were improving. They did not file a disclosure report by press time, but his campaign manager said James had raised $52,000 and had spent $181,000 during the filing period, leaving the former entertainment attorney with about $25,000 cash on hand.

seema.mehta@latimes.com

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

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Bulgari shows off Liz Taylor's gems

It isn't easy sometimes to be an ordinary person in Los Angeles, so near to and yet so far from the city's glamorous events.

You hear about the grand Oscar parties, but you will never be invited. The award ceremony may be taking place minutes from where you live, but you watch it at home, on TV, in your sweat pants — and you might as well be in Dubuque.

Rodeo Drive too can make you feel like a scrap on the cutting room floor. As you stroll the wide and immaculate sidewalks of Beverly Hills' iconic shopping street, you pass by boutiques you'd feel self-conscious walking into. In the windows are baubles and trinkets you could never in three lifetimes afford.

Which is why it is rather nice to be invited to make a private appointment at the house of Bulgari, the fine Italian jeweler that opened its doors in 1884.

Elizabeth Taylor loved Bulgari jewels. Richard Burton, whose torrid affair with her began during the filming of "Cleopatra" in Rome, accompanied her often to the flagship shop on the Via Condotti. He liked to joke that the name Bulgari was all the Italian she knew.

So it is fitting that starting Oscar week, the jeweler is celebrating the Oscar-winning star with an exhibit of eight of her most treasured Bulgari pieces.

They are heavy on diamonds and emeralds — of rare size, gleam and value.

And Bulgari knows their value well.

After Taylor's death, it reacquired some of the gems at a Christie's auction. One piece, an emerald-and-diamond brooch that also can be worn as a pendant, sold for $6,578,500 — breaking records both for sales price of an emerald and for emerald price per carat ($280,000).

That brooch, whose centerpiece is an octagonal step-cut emerald weighing 23.44 carats, was Burton's engagement present to Taylor. He followed it upon their marriage (his second, her fifth) with a matching necklace whose 16 Colombian emeralds weigh in at 60.5 carats. Bulgari bought the necklace back too, for $6,130,500.

They are in the exhibit, along with Burton's engagement ring to Taylor and a delicate brooch — given to her by husband No. 4, Eddie Fisher — whose emerald and diamond flowers were set en tremblant so that they gently fluttered as Taylor moved.

The jewels are not for sale.

On Tuesday night, actress Julianne Moore wore the Burton necklace, with pendant attached, at a gala for Bulgari's top clients. At the dinner hour, guests were escorted along a lavender-colored carpet to a nearby rooftop that had been transformed into a Roman terrace.

Those honored guests, of course, got private viewings of Taylor's jewels.

But so did Amanda Perry, a healer from West Hollywood who arrived the next morning for one of the first appointments available to the public.

Someone had emailed news of the collection to the 35-year-old Taylor fan. She walked in off the street Tuesday, when the exhibit was open only to press — and Sabina Pelli, Bulgari's glamorous executive vice president, fresh from Rome, was taking sips of San Pellegrino brought to her on a silver tray between back-to-back interviews that started at 5 a.m.

The camera crews were long gone when Perry came back Wednesday. She had the exhibit, and handsome sales associate Timothy Morzenti of Milan, entirely to herself.

In a black suit, still wearing on his left hand the black glove he dons to handle fine jewels, Morzenti whisked Perry off via a private elevator to the exhibit on the second floor. The jewels stood in vitrines mounted high off the ground. Behind them were photos and a slide show of Taylor, bejeweled.

"Which piece would you like to see first?" Morzenti asked her as a security guard stood by. "I personally love the emerald ring."

Then he proceeded at leisure to explain Bulgari-signature sugar-loaf cuts and trombino ring settings, while tossing in occasional Taylor stories.

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Jan Perry attack mailers seek to siphon votes from Wendy Greuel

Jan Perry occasionally lets loose a subtle swipe at her rivals in the Los Angeles mayor's race. But for the most part she has been a polite voice in the campaign's many debates, presenting herself as a truth-teller willing to forthrightly confront the city's challenges.

But away from the public forums, the councilwoman who represents South Los Angeles and part of downtown has unleashed a blistering attack on City Controller Wendy Greuel in an effort to draw fiscally conservative voters into her column. Her latest mailer goes after Greuel's ties to the city utility workers' union and features the smiling controller holding a sign that reads, "I sold you out."

At least three of Perry's mailers include disingenuous criticisms of Greuel, a tactic that appears at odds with the plainspoken and upright image she has sought to nurture. Among other things, Perry has criticized Greuel for supporting utility rate hikes and a city contract that Perry also voted to approve.

Perry defends the attacks as effective campaigning.

"You target your mail and target your message," she said. "Everybody does that. A smart person does."

The mailers are part of a larger gamble Perry is making that she can weaken Greuel and siphon off votes in the relatively conservative San Fernando Valley, the controller's home base of support. Perry, who presents herself as pro-business and willing to stand up to public employee unions, recently opened a field office in North Hollywood and has been courting area activists.

Former City Councilman Greig Smith, a Valley Republican who has endorsed Perry, said that if Perry hopes to make it into a May runoff election, "her best shot is taking out Wendy." And the mailers could help, he said. "Wendy has some liabilities that are going to come up — all her union endorsements aren't going to help her in the Valley."

Valley voters are getting "a tremendous amount of targeted mail from the Perry campaign," said Tom Hogen-Esch, a political science professor at Cal State Northridge who has studied city politics for nearly two decades. "This is a battle between two candidates who are positioning themselves for the conservative vote," he said.

Perry may win over some Greuel supporters, but probably too few to stop her chief rival, he said.

"Wendy Greuel has a long history in the Valley, and I think people know her record. Jan Perry, to a large extent, is unknown outside of her district," he said. And the negative tone of Perry's mailers could work against her, Hogen-Esch said. "I just don't think those kind of attacks are really going to resonate with a lot of voters," he said.

Perry is running third in fundraising and appears unlikely to have money for television ads unless she receives a late infusion of contributions. In a mass media market such as Los Angeles, that puts her at a disadvantage against Greuel and Councilman Eric Garcetti, who have been airing TV ads heavily for more than a week.

Perry and the other two elected officials in the race have been painted by other candidates as three peas in a City Hall pod. But Perry is viewed as having a more fiscally conservative record than Greuel or Garcetti, and has a testier relationship with organized labor. Indeed, she underscores not being the favored candidate of the powerful union that represents Department of Water and Power workers and that is the primary funder of an independent pro-Greuel effort that has raised nearly $1.3 million.

Perry hopes that political profile will attract Valley voters. But Greuel grew up in the area, serving as senior class president at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, and later representing much of the area on the City Council. She has a long list of Valley endorsements, including from the Los Angeles Daily News and the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.

With less campaign cash, Perry has been dependent on less-costly mailings for her flanking maneuver against Greuel.

Some contain attacks on Greuel that were inconsistent with Perry's own record.

In one, Perry criticizes Greuel for voting three times to raise DWP rates, when Perry also voted for the hikes. Perry said Greuel's votes were fair game in light of the DWP union throwing its support behind her. In another about a controversial expedited parking-ticket review program used by public officials and their staff — known as the Gold Card desk — Perry criticizes Greuel for backing the contract with a firm that ran the program. But Perry voted for the contract as well. Perry also defended that hit, saying that she and her staff never used the service, an allusion to the fact that a Greuel staff member used the service to process a parking ticket for his mother.

In yet another mailer, she criticizes Greuel for her ties to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. At the same time, Perry was sending mailers to Latino voters with photos of her alongside Villaraigosa and suggesting that he views her as a good successor. The mayor has not endorsed anyone in the race.

A spokeswoman for Greuel, who previously called Perry a hypocrite for the mailers, said the latest pieces raise troubling questions about the councilwoman.

"Either Jan doesn't know how deceptive her campaign mail is or she knows and doesn't care," Shannon Murphy said. "Neither inspires much trust in someone who wants to be the mayor of Los Angeles."

Perry's campaign consultant, Eric Hacopian, said the mailers are "common-sense" campaigning. Perry has remained true to her fundamental beliefs about reforming city government, he said.

"What you try to do is try to tailor your message to a particular constituency," he said. "You must always be strategically consistent, but tactically flexible."

He asserted the mailers are working and that Perry's name-recognition among voters now equals that of Greuel and Garcetti.

Smith said some Valley voters assumed Perry was more liberal than she is because she's an African American who represents South Los Angeles. But when they hear directly from Perry, many are impressed, Smith said.

"More and more people are saying I know why you endorsed her," he said, citing her candid approach to the city's financial woes.

But she can't meet the entire region through kaffeeklatsches, homeowners association gatherings and meet-and-greets.

Perry's biggest obstacle remains "not enough name-recognition," Smith acknowledged. "We'll see."

seema.mehta@latimes.com

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Complaint alleges racial bias in Palmdale elections

Latinos and African Americans make up about two-thirds of the population of Palmdale. But since the city's incorporation in August 1962, not a single black resident and only one Latino has ever served on the City Council.

That's the backdrop of a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Antelope Valley civil rights activists alleging racial bias in city elections in this High Desert locale. The complaint argues that Palmdale's system of at-large council seats dilutes the influence of minority voters.

"Latinos and African Americans are locked out of the political system in the city of Palmdale," said Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman, who is representing plaintiff Juan Jauregui, a Palmdale resident. Three local black activists and the NAACP have also said they will join the case, scheduled to go to trial in May.

The litigation is the latest in a series of racially themed conflicts in the Antelope Valley as blacks and Latinos have moved into once mostly white areas. Housing programs and police practices have been flash points as activists have challenged policies they perceive as unfairly targeting minority residents.

Plaintiffs say the city's at-large election system violates the state's 2001 Voting Rights Act, which guards against disenfranchisement of minorities. They seek a change to district-by-district voting.

Palmdale is fighting back. In court documents, city attorneys argue that because blacks and Latinos are a majority of registered voters in the city, they are "in a position, numerically" to elect the mayor and City Council members.

The lawyers also insist that district voting would not have helped minority candidates who lost. "They simply had very little support from voters, and no drawing or gerrymandering of districts would have resulted in a district which would have elected them," the attorneys said.

Moreover, in November 2001 Palmdale's residents voted against a measure to introduce district voting. City Atty. Wm. Matthew Ditzhazy said via email that "ultimately it was the community's decision to make."

In a recent deposition, James Ledford, who has been elected the city's mayor 11 times since 1992, said he did not even know the race of his fellow council members and was not aware that all but one had been white.

Asked whether it bothered him "in any way that racial minorities in Palmdale might feel that they are not being represented in the City Council," Ledford said no.

Ledford declined to be interviewed for this article, although in the past he has said he favored district voting.

Traditionally, low voter turnout among blacks and Latinos in Palmdale's municipal elections has shrunk their voting power compared with that of whites, who turn out in greater numbers, statistics show.

The majority of Palmdale Latinos voted yes for district elections in 2001, but the measure was defeated because 66% of whites opposed it, according to data compiled by a city consultant and cited by Shenkman.

Similarly, in 2009, when V. Jesse Smith, president of the Antelope Valley chapter of the NAACP, ran for City Council, he split the Latino vote 49% to 51% with Steve Fox, who is white. But neither won a council seat. The spots went to white candidates Tom Lackey and Laura Bettencourt, who scored heavily among whites, although neither got a single Latino vote, Shenkman said.

Shenkman acknowledged the poor voting record of minority groups, but he blamed the system of at-large voting. Blacks and Latinos didn't vote because they had "grown to understand that their vote doesn't matter," he said.

At least a dozen government entities in California, including cities, school districts and county boards, have been sued under the state's Voting Rights Act, said Shenkman. Some cases are still pending, others have ended in settlements resulting in district elections, he said.

One of those was Compton, which placed the issue on the ballot last June to settle a lawsuit. Voters approved the switch from at-large to district voting. The change may give Latinos — who make up a majority of the city's population but a minority of eligible voters — a greater chance of putting the first Latino on the City Council in April.

For supporters of district voting in Palmdale, the claim represents a new effort to shake up the political status quo in the Antelope Valley. They say it will make city representatives more accountable to voters.

But Richard Loa, an attorney who in 2001 became the only Latino ever to win a council seat in Palmdale, said that although he supported Latinos' push for representation, he opposes resolving the issue through litigation.

"The important thing is to have effective leadership," said Loa, who has said he will run again.

Race isn't everything, agreed Darren Parker, who as chairman of the California Democratic Party's African American caucus helps recruit potential minority candidates to run for local office, but he said High Desert cities need black voices in leadership.

"I don't believe that anyone who doesn't get up in the morning and look like me can really walk in my shoes," Parker said.

Among the lawyers representing the plaintiffs is attorney R. Rex Parris, mayor of neighboring Lancaster, which uses at-large elections but is weighing a change.

Lancaster's population is about 40% Latino and 20% African American, but the City Council has four white men and one Latina. The city has also faced charges of racial bias, but Lancaster has a track record of minority representation on its council, including an African American who twice served as mayor.

Lilia Galindo, who has used her Palmdale-based Café Con Leche radio talk show to encourage Latinos to get out and vote, said High Desert Latinos were eager to find their political voice. District elections would help, she said.

"We've started to realize how important it is to express our rights as citizens," Galindo said.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

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Major donor to GOP helping L.A. mayoral candidate Kevin James

Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Kevin James crossed paths just once.

It was an intimate cocktail fundraiser for James in the tony Montecito enclave near Santa Barbara, where Simmons owns a weekend retreat and counts Oprah Winfrey among his neighbors. Simmons, one of the top donors to Republican "super PACs" in 2012, turned to the candidate and asked, "What on Earth can you do to save L.A.?"

James, recounting the exchange, said he launched into his political pitch, railing against the city's flirtation with bankruptcy and the power of its labor unions. "I remember him telling me he was impressed," James said.

Later, when James made formal remarks to the group, which included a few of Simmons' fellow Texans, the industrial magnate stood up and announced that he would give. By mid-January, Simmons had given $600,000 to an independent group backing James, making him the largest single contributor to any political committee affiliated with the L.A. mayor's race — a sphere most often dominated by labor unions.

His contributions made it possible for a super PAC known as Better Way LA, created by GOP ad man Fred Davis, to buy half a million dollars of TV ad time last week promoting James, the only Republican in the race.

But that political help could come at a price in a city as liberal and Democratic as Los Angeles, where James needs to win over moderates, as well as conservatives, to reach a two-way runoff in May. In recent years, Simmons has funded some of the most controversial conservative groups in presidential politics, and last year he called President Obama "the most dangerous American alive."

Simmons' interest in city politics and a long shot like James remains something of a mystery. A corporate investor whose net worth was valued at $7.1 billion by Forbes last September, Simmons declined to be interviewed. He votes in Texas and has not contributed to any other Los Angeles city candidates in recent years, according to election records.

By the standards of his past political giving, Simmons' support for the pro-James super PAC has been small.

In last year's presidential race, Simmons, his wife, his companies and their employees gave $31 million to a network of super PACs that proliferated after the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, which loosened the reins on political spending by corporations and labor unions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

"This is one of a handful of mega-donors in U.S. politics who has given extraordinary sums of money over many, many years," said Sheila Krumholz, the center's executive director who has monitored Simmons' political giving for two decades. "He's a savvy donor, somebody who is very familiar with how this game is played at the highest levels and on down."

James, an openly gay Republican, said he knew of no specific business that Simmons has before the city. And Simmons did not mention any particular Los Angeles issue, he said.

James suggested that Simmons, 81, may be interested in elevating a moderate Republican voice statewide. Simmons has contributed to another California moderate, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and told the Wall Street Journal last year that he was "probably pro-choice."

"For donors who are looking for the Republican Party to be able to plant a flag again in California," James said, "I'm the kind of Republican that's a bigger-tent Republican."

In that rare interview he granted the Wall Street Journal last year, Simmons said he wanted to make the U.S. tax and regulatory structure more friendly to business by electing Republicans at all levels of government. He said he hoped like-minded individuals would make political donations to help counter spending by labor unions.

In 2004, Simmons donated $3 million to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that ran ads accusing then-Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry of exaggerating his record in the Vietnam War. And during President Obama's first run, Simmons was the sole funder of the American Issues Project, which ran TV ads tying Obama to a founder of the Weather Underground, which planned a series of bombings to protest the Vietnam War.

In his interview with the Journal, Simmons described Obama as "a socialist" who "would eliminate free enterprise in this country."

At times, Simmons' political contributions have tracked closely with his business interests — a network of companies that include hazardous waste disposal and metal component manufacturers.

He was a generous backer of Texas Gov. Rick Perry at a time when one of those companies, Waste Control Specialists, needed the governor's backing to build a low-level radioactive waste disposal site, the nation's first such new facility in three decades.

After a fierce lobbying campaign, Perry signed a law opening the way for the proposal. Perry appointees later approved the license for the $500-million site in West Texas despite concerns of some state environmental experts about potential harm to aquifers near the site. Simmons' spokesman has said that Simmons' connections to Perry did not work to his company's advantage and in fact increased the state's scrutiny of the deal.

Krumholz said Simmons' companies span so many fields that it has been difficult to trace possible ties between his business interests and his giving even at the federal level.

"He's kind of like the AT&T of individual donors," said Krumholz, noting that the telecommunications giant has interests in defense contracting and other industries. "He might have reason to be involved at various levels of government and in specific races because his investments are so diverse."

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Molly Hennessy-Fiske contributed to this report.

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Hollywood directs its star power toward a campaign closer to home

A stylish crowd waited beneath a flashing marquee outside the Fonda Theatre. "Appearing tonight!" the sign read. "Eric Garcetti 4 Mayor."

In a city where political campaigns are typically waged at neighborhood meetings, not Hollywood concert halls, last week's star-studded fundraiser for Garcetti highlighted the entertainment industry's outsized role in this year's mayoral race. Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel started the show with a stand-up routine and musician Moby got the crowd of several hundred dancing. Actress Amy Smart urged everyone to tweet about the campaign, and actor Will Ferrell beamed in via video to pledge that if Garcetti is elected, every resident in the city will receive free waffles.

Hollywood is taking to City Hall politics like never before, veterans say, with power players such as Steven Spielberg leading a major fundraising effort and celebrities such as Salma Hayek weighing in via YouTube. A Times analysis of city Ethics Commission records found that actors, producers, directors and others in the industry have donated more than $746,000 directly to candidates, with some $462,000 going to Garcetti and $226,000 to City Controller Wendy Greuel.

Several of Greuel's big-name celebrity supporters, including Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson and Zooey Deschanel, recently hosted a fundraiser for her at an exclusive club on the Sunset Strip. She is getting extra help from Spielberg and his former partners at DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, who have given at least $150,000 and are raising more for an independent group funding a TV ad blitz on her behalf.

The burst of support is coming from an industry often maligned for paying little attention to local politics.

While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is often photographed at red carpet events and former Mayor Tom Bradley was famously close to actor Gregory Peck, serious Hollywood money and star power has tended to remain tantalizingly out of reach for local politicians. "It's no secret that the entertainment industry has never really focused on the city that houses it," said Steve Soboroff, who ran for mayor and lost in 2001.

Political consultant Garry South, who has worked on mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns, recalled having to pay celebrities to appear at fundraisers in the past. Hollywood has long embraced candidates in presidential and congressional elections, South said, in part because they have more influence over causes favored by celebrities.

"The mayor of L.A. is not going to get us out of Afghanistan. The mayor of L.A. is not going to determine whether or not gay marriage is legal," South said. "The local issues are just not as sexy."

But this year, if you're a part of the Hollywood establishment, chances are you've gotten invitations to fundraisers for Greuel, Garcetti or both.

The difference this time is that both candidates have worked to cultivate deep Hollywood connections, observers say. Garcetti has represented Hollywood for 12 years, overseeing a development boom and presiding over ceremonies to add stars — Kimmel recently got one — on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Greuel is a former executive at DreamWorks, where she worked with the moguls who founded the studio. She has also served for 10 years on the board of the California Film Commission.

City Councilwoman Jan Perry and entertainment attorney Kevin James have reaped far less financial support from the industry, records show, although each claims a share of celebrity endorsements. Dick Van Dyke sponsored a fundraiser for Perry and Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black has given to James.

Agent Feroz Taj, who attended Garcetti's Moby concert, said a flurry of activity around the race, involving friends and colleagues, piqued his interest. He said he's never been involved in a political campaign, but now when he receives invites to Greuel events, he says he is supporting Garcetti.

Industry insiders have been buzzing about a letter they say is being circulated by an advisor to Spielberg and Katzenberg, urging people to give $15,000 to an independent group supporting Greuel. The DreamWorks founders have made a difference for Greuel in previous elections. In 2002, financial support from the studio executives and their allies helped her squeak out a victory in one of the closest City Council races in history.

This time around, billionaire media mogul Haim Saban is getting involved, providing his Beverly Hills estate for a Greuel fundraiser featuring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Greuel has also received contributions from Tom Hanks and actresses Mariska Hargitay and Eva Longoria, neither of whom have given to a local political campaign before, according to records.

Garcetti, on the other hand, has picked up contributions from former Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner, as well as newcomers to local politics Jake Gyllenhaal and Hayek, who once traveled with Garcetti on a global warming awareness mission to the South Pole. The actress released a video endorsing Garcetti and thanking him for helping her find her wallet in the snow.

Campaign consultant Sean Clegg linked the industry's burgeoning interest in mayoral politics to President Obama's election, which he said had "a catalyzing effect on Hollywood." Indeed, many Greuel and Garcetti supporters were Obama backers. Hayek hosted a fundraiser for Obama and Longoria served as a co-chair of his reelection campaign.

Clegg is a consultant for Working Californians, an independent campaign committee that hopes to raise and spend at least $2 million supporting Greuel, with donations from Spielberg and others in Hollywood, as well as the union representing Department of Water and Power employees.

Generally, Clegg argued, Hollywood money is different than the special-interest funding campaigns collect. "Money is coming out of the entertainment industry more on belief and less on the transactional considerations," he said.

But Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said Hollywood's new interest in local elections may be tied to growing concerns about film production being lured elsewhere by tax incentives.

Garcetti and Greuel have both pledged to reverse job losses tied to runaway television and film production, with Garcetti touting a recent proposal to eliminate roughly $231,000 in annual city fees charged for pilot episodes of new TV shows. The number of pilots shot locally has dropped 30% in recent years, but city budget analysts say the tax break would have a minimal effect because city fees represent only a small portion of production costs.

On the council, both candidates voted to eliminate filming fees at most city facilities. Greuel tells audiences she has an insider's perspective on the industry's needs and says she will create an "entertainment cabinet" to help it thrive. "I have sat with studio heads," she said in a recent interview. "They want a city . . . that is a champion for film industry jobs in Los Angeles."

Greuel may have Garcetti beat on experience in the studio front office, but he is the only candidate with his own page on IMDb.com — a closely watched industry website that tracks individuals' film and television credits.

The councilman, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, has made several television appearances, including one for the cable police drama "The Closer." He played the mayor of Los Angeles.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

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Testimony in Bell corruption trial comes to a bickering end

Testimony in the corruption trial of six former Bell leaders came to a bickering end Friday with a former councilman defending the city's huge salaries as a way to attract Latinos and a prosecutor sarcastically asking him whether he also felt a need for a chauffeur to get around the small, working-class town.

Since the trial opened — nearly three years after the city began imploding under the weight of a corruption scandal — the defendants justified their nearly six-figure salaries as fair pay for long hours or as a payday forced upon them by a fearsome administrator. Besides, they argued, the city attorney never told them anything was illegal.

Next week the case goes to the jury, which will deliberate whether Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal broke the law by drawing salaries of up to nearly $100,000 a year by serving on boards and authorities that rarely met and did little work.

Three weeks of testimony has revealed a city government where salaries were falsified, unauthorized pension time was bought with city money, a councilman was banished from City Hall and the city clerk signed minutes for meetings she didn't attend.

Former City Manager Robert Rizzo was depicted as a vengeful strongman, beginning with the opening statements from defense attorneys — one of whom called the former administrator "the thief, the fraud, the destructor of the city."

On the witness stand, Jacobo, Mirabal and Cole insisted that they had been tireless public servants with full-time duties who were always on call and did most of their work in the community, not just during government meetings.

"I thought I was doing a very good job to be able to earn that, yes," Jacobo said when asked if she believed her salary was fair to the citizens of Bell.

However, an interview Mirabal gave prosecutors the day of his 2010 arrest appeared to contradict the self-laudatory testimony. Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller on Friday played a recording of the interview in which Mirabal said he did little work for authorities outside of meetings.

"What about other City Council members?" Miller asked. "Were you aware of any of them doing work for the Public Finance Authority outside of the meetings?"

"No," Mirabal replied.

One of the trial's biggest surprises was that neither side called former Bell City Atty. Edward Lee, who wrote the city's charter and was repeatedly blamed by defendants for not informing them their salaries could be illegal. Lee had initially been on the prosecution's witness list.

Mirabal testified that at $13,000 a month, the least Lee could have done was to protect council members.

At times it seemed as if Lee and Rizzo were on trial.

Despite that, council members praised Rizzo's work for most of his tenure. "From the time he started, he was able to accomplish things other managers previous to him said couldn't be done," Cole testified.

Cole, who spent 24 years as a Bell civic booster, said his relationship with Rizzo splintered when the former councilman insisted on giving up the final year of his pay. At the time, Cole also was earning $95,000 a year as executive director of the Steelworkers Oldtimers Foundation.

Cole said he later voted for an annual 12% increase in council pay because he feared Rizzo would retaliate by harming educational and health programs he had established.

On Friday, Miller tried to dispel Cole's claim that high salaries were needed to bring more Latinos onto the council of the low-income, largely immigrant city. The prosecutor pointed out that fellow defendants Bello, Jacobo and Mirabal already were on the panel when he voted for a 2002 salary increase.

When Miller presented a document that ensured no employee hired or elected after June 30, 2005, would be eligible for the city's supplemental retirement plan, he asked Cole: "Wouldn't taking away that benefit adversely affect Latino representation on the City Council?"

Cole replied that it would.

"Did you vote for this because your friends on the City Council and yourself would be covered?" Miller asked.

"It looks like I did."

When Miller asked about the potential for a Bell council member to earn $100,000 — the salary of the other defendants — Cole appeared flustered. After being prodded several times, Cole admitted the resolutions made the salary possible.

Cole then pointed out that Los Angeles City Council members had a driver, car and staff. "I never had any of those," he said.

"Did you feel you needed a driver and a chauffeur to get around a 2½-square-mile city?" Miller asked.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

corina.knoll@latimes.com

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Deputy killed in Dorner standoff was 'fun,' 'boisterous' new dad

Jeremiah MacKay was a regular at Liam's Irish Pub in Colton.

He always had a pint of Guinness and a smile, said Yara Alves, the bar's owner. He had Irish roots, and he'd show up, guaranteed, every St. Patrick's Day wearing a kilt and bringing his bagpipe.

"He never had anything sad or negative to say," Alves said. "It was as if he never had a bad day."

Alves choked up as she spoke about MacKay, 35, a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy who was killed in a firefight Tuesday in an isolated area near Big Bear. Police said the gunman was Christopher Dorner, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer bent on revenge over his dismissal from the agency in 2009.

A second deputy, Alex Collins, was wounded in the gunfight, San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said. Collins has undergone multiple surgeries and is expected to make a full recovery.

McMahon said the deputies who responded to the cabin where Dorner barricaded himself are "absolutely true heroes."

"The rounds kept coming" from the cabin, he said, "but the deputies didn't give up."

Dorner also is believed to have killed three other people, including Riverside Police Officer Michael Crain, who was shot in his marked patrol vehicle. Crain was buried Wednesday. On Feb. 3, Monica Quan, daughter of a retired LAPD captain, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, were found shot to death in an Irvine parking garage in what police believe were the first of Dorner's crimes.

On Thursday, authorities confirmed that the charred remains found in the burned-out cabin were Dorner's.

For days, MacKay, a 14-year veteran of the department, was involved in the massive manhunt for Dorner in the mountains around Big Bear.

"We knew he was up there," MacKay's cousin Jennifer Goehring said. "We were praying for his safety, but never in a million years would we have thought this would happen."

MacKay posted photos from the mountains on his Facebook page, joking about how he — who grew up in the San Bernardino Mountains — was one of the only officers wearing short-sleeved shirts in the snow.

On Saturday he told an Associated Press reporter that he knew the danger as he scoured the mountains for Dorner: "This one, you just never know if the guy's going to pop out or where he's going to pop out. We're hoping this comes to a close without any more casualties."

On Sunday he was pictured on the front page of The Times, his eyes squinted as he put on a hat. He posted a photo of the newspaper on Facebook, making fun of his facial expression, Alves said.

San Bernardino County Sheriff's Capt. Lee Hamblin said he was responding to the call of a gun battle when he heard "Officer down." He said his worst fear was soon confirmed when he learned MacKay had been killed.

"Although we're glad it's over," Hamblin said of the manhunt, "the price we paid was way too high."

MacKay joined the department in July 1998, Hamblin said. He worked in the jails, as a detective at the department's Big Bear station and most recently as a deputy in the department's Yucaipa station.

He was married to Lynette Quinata MacKay and had a 7-year-old stepdaughter and a 4-month-old son, Goehring said. He was thrilled to be a new father. His family, she said, made him the happiest man in the world.

On Thursday, a steady stream of people stopped by a makeshift memorial outside the Yucaipa station.

Janet Lopez, 55, placed flowers and a note at the memorial. MacKay, she said, had taken a liking to her father, who suffered from renal failure. MacKay would "go over and cheer him up, get him to walk," she said.

Family, friends and co-workers described the deputy as having a big personality, a big heart and a big, loud laugh. It was difficult to be sad around him, they said.

It was MacKay's laugh that first caught Edward Knuff's attention years ago in Liam's Irish Pub.

"He was a little boisterous, always fun," Knuff said.

Knuff, a commercial photographer, said he met MacKay at the pub for a meeting of the Inland Empire Emerald Society, a nonprofit that raises money for the families of fallen law enforcement officers.

Now the organization is raising money for MacKay's family.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

Times staff writer Joseph Serna contributed to this report.

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