MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2006
Volume 5, Issue 73
Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY
CHUCK
SHEPARD
■ Denmark’s government ruled in 2001 that institutionalized citizens have the right to have sex and that caregivers must even take them to visit prostitutes. (Prostitution is legal in Denmark.) According to a January dispatch from Aarhus, Denmark, in London’s Observer, Mr. Torben Vegener Hansen, 59, who has cerebral palsy and lives at home on government assistance, is challenging the government also to pay for prostitutes to make house calls, claiming that he is unable to have sex manually because of his illness and must be accorded this “human right” by a service similar to the government’s meals-on-wheels program. ■ Researchers for Finland’s Helsinki University of Technology’s Air Guitar Project recently demonstrated software that allows a player’s finger movements along the imaginary instrument to be set to music from a library of guitar sounds. According to a November New Scientist report, the virtual guitar hero wears special gloves, allowing his gestures to be tracked by camera. Researcher Aki Kanerva expects players even to develop a distinct air guitar style.
TODAY IN HISTORY Today is the 37th day of 2006. There are 328 days left in the year. On Feb. 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, was born in Tampico, Ill. In 1756, America’s third vice president, Aaron Burr, was born in Newark, N.J. In 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. In 1895, baseball legend Babe Ruth was born in Baltimore. In 1899, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain was ratified by the U.S. Senate.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.”
Coffin closes on funeral director
Art meets nature
BY RYAN HYATT Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL — The final nail has been hammered into the coffin of the city’s former funeral director, who hoped to be reinstated after being fired for alleged ethical misconduct and financial boondoggling at Woodlawn Cemetery. Members of a five-person personnel board announced on Wednesday their decision to deny the appeal of Michael Steen, the former funeral director at Woodlawn, a municipal cemetery located between Pico Boulevard and Michigan Avenue, from 14th to 17th streets. City Hall fired Steen in July 2005 after an eight-month investigation concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing on his part regarding financial discrepancies discovered in the cemetery’s financial books. The personnel board serves as an advisory panel to the City Council and City Hall’s human resources director. It’s a quasijudicial review body for employee appeals of disciplinary actions. It consists of individuals who neither hold public office nor work for City Hall. In the 11-page notice of its ruling, the board reiterated evidence provided by Irma Rodriguez Moisa of Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romano, the attor-
BY CAROLYN SACKARIASON Daily Press Staff Writer
A Santa Monica military soldier has recently returned home from Kosovo, a region largely bypassed in the press since genocide occurred there in the late ’90s. Sgt. Jose Torres came home on Jan. 22 after a year-and-a-half tour of duty with the National Guard. Based in Camp Montieth, Torres’ unit was part of the United Nations
DOWNTOWN LA — The parent company that owns Honda of Santa Monica is expected to pay nearly $2 million in restitution, civil penalties and costs for allegedly ripping off customers. The settlement, which is expected to be announced today by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, is separate from the pending criminal cases of six former Honda of Santa Monica sales representatives who allegedly scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars from customers by tacking on charges of “theft etch” to their contracts without their customers’ knowledge. Theft etch marks a vehicle’s parts with traceable numbers in the event of a theft. A judgment signed by attorneys representing Kramer Motors Inc., the North Carolina-based company that owns Honda of Santa Monica, and the DA’s office was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court this past Friday. The judgment states that Kramer Motors will pay $548,000 in civil penalties and costs for violating provisions of the Business and Professions Code. Of that amount, $73,000 is for costs of the investigation, which began in July 2002, as well as the prosecution of the case, which began in October of 2005 and still continues. Kramer Motors also will reimburse customers who purchased or leased motor vehicles from Honda of Santa Monica between April 7, 2000, and Oct. 31, 2002, that included the theft etch aftermarket product. The judgment orders that Kramer Motors must within 45 days submit to the DA’s office a
See PROFILES, page 8
See HONDA OF SM, page 5
Fabian Lewkowicz/Daily Press Tourists on Venice Beach stroll past the public artwork, titled Voxal 2000, of sculptor Mark di Suvero.
See WOODLAWN, page 6
PRESIDENT REAGAN (1911-2004)
COMMUNITYPROFILES |
COMMUNITY PROFILES IS A WEEKLY SERIES THAT APPEARS EACH MONDAY AND DELVES INTO THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE, WORK AND PLAY IN SANTA MONICA.
INDEX 2
Sgt. Torres: Back on the home front
3
BY RYAN HYATT
Horoscopes You need energy, Cap
Snow & Surf Report Water temperature: 58°
Daily Press Staff Writer
Opinion Homeless advocates ungrateful
4
Local Know before you go
7
State Shooter had conspiracy theory
10
National Stealing history
12
Comics Strips tease
13
Honda of SM to pay millions
Classifieds Ad space odyssey
14-15
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