FR EE
MONDAY, APRIL 12, 2004
Volume 3, Issue 130
Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
L O T T O SUPER LOTTO PLUS
13-22-23-29-47 Meganumber: 11 Jackpot: $10 million FANTASY 5 5, 13, 22, 33, 34 DAILY 3 Afternoon picks: 0, 2, 4 Evening picks: 7, 2, 0 DAILY DERBY
Sign permission: Compliance or consequences
SM man ‘Tiny Hawk’ withholds nation’s allowance
(This is the third installment of an ongoing series about City Hall’s sign ordinance).
1st Place: 03, Hot Shots 2nd Place: 05, California Classic 3rd Place: 08, Gorgeous George
BY CAROLYN SACKARIASON Daily Press Staff Writer
Race Time: 1:41.75
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepard
QUOTE OF THE DAY “Injured a stone, murdered a brick, I’m so mean I make medicine sick” – Muhammad Ali
INDEX Horoscopes Taurus, quit worrying . . . . . . . . . . .2
Local Students “write off” thousands . . . .3
Opinion America, stop appeasing Iraq . . . .4
State Remembering a ski pioneer . . . . .8
National Hanford workers fear fumes . . . . . .9
International Militants hold U.S. captive . . . . . . .11
People
Alejandro Cesar Cantarero II/Daily Press
BY LAUREN BONIFACIO Special to the Daily Press
Some people light candles, and some people carry signs. Some might even write their congressman. But one Santa Monica resident is showing his disgust with the Bush administration in a different way: He’s not paying his taxes. As the income tax deadline approaches, Chris Toussaint has it easy. Unlike the rest of Americans, the 50-year-old producer and director isn’t rushing to put together his yearly donation to the Internal Revenue Service because his 1040 will not be including a check. Higher-ups in Washington, Toussaint said, “don’t get the message through the vote ... letters or protests. It’s time for patriotic Americans to withhold the money until they get the message.” Estimating that he will owe the IRS about $1,000 this year, Toussaint said he is not willing to fund a country with international and domestic policies with which he does not agree.
Chubby twists again . . . . . . . . . . .16
Lin Siv of South Los Angeles shows off a skateboard stunt to his friends. The boys spent part of their sunny Easter afternoon practicing tricks on their boards in front of this office building on Broadway between Ocean and Second.
BY BETH FOUHY AP Political Writer
SAN FRANCISCO — California’s enormous K12 public school system is mired in the worst funding crisis in its history, forcing districts throughout the state to impose cuts so deep that academic achievement
likely will suffer. Practically every state faces daunting school funding challenges, but the situation is particularly severe in California, which has the nation’s largest public school system, educating one of every eight students in the country. Educators point to a
BY JOHN WOOD Daily Press Staff Writer
After building Gold’s Gym into an international empire with more than 2 million members, Paul Grymkowski retired to a life of community service. The 55-year-old native of New York can be found each week in Palisades Park, where he feeds more
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than 100 homeless people meals of pasta, shredded chicken, chili, muffins and other protein-rich foods. To Grymkowski, who lives in Topanga Canyon, it’s not just about hunger. It’s about joining together what he calls his “friends and family” in a community setting, where
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economy and state budget deficit, projected to be $14 billion next year; declining student enrollment in some places and explosive growth in others; spiraling health care and workers’ compensation costs; and intractable state and feder-
Community profiles is a weekly series that appears each Monday and delves into the people who live, work and play in Santa Monica.
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confluence of economic and political constraints at the federal and state level that have forced schools from tiny rural communities to the sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District to slash school programs, lay off staff and increase class size. These include a struggling state
Paul Grymkowski: From the board room to the soup line
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Several factors put state schools in crisis
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■ As the Romanian government hurries to improve law-enforcement sophistication in its campaign for European Union membership, villagers in the Transylvania region are resisting police crackdowns on their traditional practice of vampire killings, according to a March Knight Ridder News Service report. Vampires (unlike Hollywood conventions using crosses and garlic) are just people who go bad upon death and cause continuing grief to family members unless they are rekilled. The body is dug up; the heart is removed with a curved sickle and burned (but it will likely squeak like a mouse and try to escape unless held down); and the ashes are mixed with water and drunk. Villagers are outraged that some may face criminal charges for disturbing the dead, which carries a three-year prison sentence.
With City Hall now heavily scrutinizing signs that hang in front of area businesses, merchants who don’t have a permit for them better get one. If a business owner fails to apply for a permit, he or she should take them down, or face fines as much as $25,000 a day, said Tim McCormick, the head of City Hall’s building and planning department. “Every sign requires a
permit,” he said. “The goal is to get people to understand the process, and if they are entitled to a sign, we are going to give them a chance to comply.” Applying for a permit requires a business owner to submit drawings, a site and elevation plan, as well as the dimensions of the sign, which should all conform to City Hall’s code, which is available on the city’s Web site, pen.ci.santa-monica.ca.us. “If they have an illegal sign, they should take a picture of it so it’s really clear what we are talking about,” McCormick said, adding the fee for a permit application is less than
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