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Santa Monica Daily Press
May 8-9, 2004
A newspaper with issues
Let the healing begin: Beaches get $4.1 million
The May flower FANTASY 5 5, 16, 22, 24, 31 DAILY 3 Afternoon picks: 0, 5, 7 Evening picks: 0, 0, 9 DAILY DERBY
Cleanest summer in 13 years predicted for area shoreline
1st Place: 10, Solid Gold 2nd Place: 12, Lucky Charms 3rd Place: 08, Gorgeous George
BY JOHN WOOD
Race Time: 1:46.74
Daily Press Staff Writer
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by Chuck Shepard
PEOPLE WITH ISSUES ■ Serial thief Colin Sadd, 41, pleaded guilty in April in Sheffield, England, to his latest capers, including swiping five cars that he had gotten dealers to let him test drive. As with his previous car thefts, Sadd drove them around, cleaned them up inside, and washed and waxed them before abandoning them. Said his wife, “(H)e desperately needs help with his obsession.”And Debra Janan Goins was charged with theft in February in Mount Carmel, Tenn., after writing three checks taken from a purse she stole, but each time carefully filling in the check register with all the details of the illegal transactions.
INDEX Horoscopes
Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press
As part of a weekly contest, the Daily Press will give away a free prize to the first reader who can accurately describe where this photo was taken. E-mail answers to sack@smdp.com.
Catch a flick, Libra . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Local Sounds of Santa Monica . . . . . . . . .3
Opinion Handouts of a different color . . . . .4
People & Places A walk on the artful side . . . . . . . . .6
State Doing time without the crime . . . . .8
National Wolves packing it in . . . . . . . . . . .13
People in the News
Volume 3, Issue 153
Midnight relocation proved a short story BY JOHN WOOD Daily Press Staff Writer
DOWNTOWN — More than three decades after it opened and just a year after it was driven off the Third Street Promenade, the Midnight Special Bookstore will soon close for good, according to its embattled owner, Margie Ghiz. Ghiz’s left-leaning, independent bookstore — opened 34 years ago by activists in Venice — was forced off the Promenade last March by escalating rents. After an eight-month delay, Ghiz opened a new Midnight Special store on Second Street. On Friday, Ghiz blamed that wait and City Hall bureaucracy for the store’s seemingly imminent demise. See MIDNIGHT, page 7
Investing in Bond . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
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John Wood/Daily Press
Officials gathered at Will Rogers State Beach on Friday to announce $4.1 million in grants to help improve water quality at area beaches.
The LA County Flood Control District received a $1.1 million grant to be used for the construction of a low-flow diversion project, which will prevent contaminated runoff from reaching Dockweiler and Will Rogers State Beaches by redirecting the dirty water to the City of LA’s sanitary sewer. SCCWRP — pronounced “skwerp” — received $250,000 to conduct an in-depth evaluation of beach clean-up projects and See GRANTS, page 7
School funding compromise moves forward By Daily Press staff
DISTRICT HDQTRS. — Members of the school board voted unanimously on Thursday to support a last-minute funding compromise intended to deflate the drive for a controversial charter amendment. If the City Council also agrees to support the deal on Tuesday, leaders from the Community for Excellent Public Schools, which drafted the charter amendment, have agreed to abandon their campaign. The compromise — negotiated behind
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WILL ROGERS BEACH — The beaches in Santa Monica Bay will be cleaner this summer than they’ve been in more than a decade, a prominent local environmentalist predicted Friday. The sunny forecast is due in part to $4.1 million worth of grants recently awarded to area agencies to help treat urban runoff that winds up in the ocean, runoff from as far away as the San Fernando Valley. Leading politicians, environmental activists, and members of state and local water boards gathered at Will Rogers State Beach on Friday to hand over checks to the City and County of Los Angeles, as well as the Southern California Coastal Waters Research Project (SCCWRP), a public research agency. “The voters understand that this is our infrastructure — just as much as that highway, or our public schools, or police,” said Santa Monica resident Terry Tamminen, appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to head the California Environmental Protection Agency. “We must take care of this infrastructure. “We’ve come a long way, but this tells us we still have a long way to go,” Tamminen added. “The (Santa Monica) Bay and these beaches are the most valuable thing we’ll ever own.” Santa Monica Bay attracts about 50 million visitors each year and the coastal economy statewide is responsible for 700,000 jobs and $55 billion in revenue, said Cynthia Ruiz, commissioner of the LA board of public works. Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, a local environmental group, said he expects local beaches to be cleaner this summer than they’ve been in 13 years — when water quality first was graded. “These are the kinds of projects that we need to see,” Gold said, adding that dirty water leads to respiratory infections and stomach flu. “And these are the projects the public needs to learn about.”
2004 Santa Fe