“Air quality regulators, citing pollution and health risks, have proposed removing more than 800 fire pits that dot the coastline of Los Angeles and Orange Counties.” [Ian Lovett, New York Times]
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Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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“Air quality regulators, citing pollution and health risks, have proposed removing more than 800 fire pits that dot the coastline of Los Angeles and Orange Counties.” [Ian Lovett, New York Times]
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Los Angeles: “As LAUSD agrees to pay out 30 million dollars to the families victimized by the Miramonte Elementary School teacher molestation scandal, FOX 11 investigates why school districts seem to have such a difficult time firing teachers who’ve committed lewd acts.” Even the teacher charged with committing mass sex crimes in the Miramonte case managed to get a $40,000 payout from his district to quit. The powerful California Teachers Association (CTA) managed to scuttle a modest bill by Sen. Alex Padilla to streamline dismissals in extreme cases. Instead, it’s backing an alternative measure that reformer and former Sen. Gloria Romero describes as a joke that “wouldn’t really do anything.” [KTTV; CTA's side]
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“…so we can avoid negative coverage?” [NBC Los Angeles on LAPD enforcement of law against unauthorized animal selling]
Steven Greenhut at Reason summarizes an extraordinary story from Costa Mesa, Calif. broken by Orange County Register reporting here, here, and here. Long and the short of it: if you get on the wrong side of certain police unions politically, be on your guard against trumped-up DUI charges and a range of “gangster cop” behavior.
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A local woman says wi-fi emanations from new “smart” parking meters in Santa Monica, Calif., have caused her various health injuries including tightness in her neck and an ear infection that took antibiotics to heal. She wants $1.7 billion: “I know it seems a little big,” [Denise] Barton said, “but they can’t do things that affect people’s health without their consent. I think that’s wrong.” [Santa Monica Daily Press, LAist]
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A California attorney reached a $350,000 settlement just before a jury returned with its verdict on his client’s suit. Turned out the jury had been prepared to award $9 million. The plaintiffs attorney, C. Michael Alder, who is president of the Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles, then told a judge that his developmentally disabled and brain-damaged client (who had been severely injured after jumping out of an ambulance) had not properly authorized him to settle the case. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson granted a new trial. [The Recorder, ABA Journal, Judicial Hellholes and followup]
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The Lookout News of Santa Monica, Calif. reports on obstacles to the revitalization of the Pico Boulevard commercial district:
“Businesses on Pico have been very frustrated by code compliance regulations for years,” [Pico Improvement Organization chairman Robert] Kronovet said. “You have a business that might have a sign in the wrong place or a door that isn’t right and the city fines them to the point that they don’t want to stay.
“These are small businesses. They don’t have the money to fight it.”…
Proprietor Elvira Garcia [of Caribbean restaurant Cha Cha Chicken] says business has been terrific, but that the success has been hard-won.
“We wanted to renovate our bathroom areas to make it more handicap-accessible and it took us almost three years to get all the permits,” Garcia said.
“We kept giving all the paperwork they need, but it took forever. We needed the Pico Improvement Organization to plead our case.”
California has the nation’s most active entrepreneurial corps of ADA enforcers, roaming business districts to file mass complaints against small businesses over handicap accessibility which they then settle for cash.
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In southern California’s sprawling Orange County (population 3 million), 77 people have been placed on the courts’ vexatious litigant list, but it’s not an easy matter to get someone on. “A Huntington Beach woman recently filed 47 lawsuits in a matter of months against various agencies including the city, the District Attorney’s Office and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department…. She sued Huntington Beach saying she wants more plants near parking lots.” [Orange County Register]
Speaking as I was in the Times farm-bill symposium of what I call isometric government, in which different subsidies or regulations tend to cancel out each others’ effect, reminds me of this L.A. Times story recently blogged by Gideon Kanner: government has required that public beaches be carved out of prime Malibu coastline, but then keeps those beaches mostly inaccessible to the public: “In fact, officials discourage visitors from trying to reach the shore from the highway above out of concern that they will be injured scrambling down the 20-foot bluff,” in the words of reporter Tony Barboza.
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The U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles appears to be proceeding on the theory that city and redevelopment officers committed potential “fraud” by accepting federal money for housing projects but omitting to run the projects in compliance with laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requiring that accommodations be offered for disabled patrons. At Cato at Liberty, I wonder whether we’re in for another venture into criminalization of an area best left to civil law.
Members of an L.A. group devoted to darts, the bar sport, are among those plunged into litigation by a fellow enthusiast. “Says one well-known bar owner who did not wish to be identified for fear of retribution, ‘I’m weary of being involved with this guy because he’s just been firing off lawsuits. Some of us wanted to fight, but these things can be very expensive.’” [L.A. Weekly]
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Kids at a Long Beach preschool had enjoyed it for thirty years without incident, but a state inspector said no. Headline on the resulting article: “Obsession with safety is ruining our playgrounds.” [Gale Holland, L.A. Times]
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