MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2006
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Volume 5 Issue 302
Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
Survey: Despite ills, city thriving
DAILY LOTTERY 15 22 26 30 32 Meganumber: 31 Jackpot: $32M 7 14 27 35 40 Meganumber: 15 Jackpot: $11M 13 21 30 31 32 MIDDAY: 9 8 5 EVENING: 6 4 6 1st: 05 California Classic 2nd: 03 Hot Shot 3rd: 01 Gold Rush RACE TIME: 1.43.47 Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the winning number information, mistakes can occur. In the event of any discrepancies, California State laws and California Lottery regulations will prevail. Complete game information and prize claiming instructions are available at California Lottery retailers. Visit the California State Lottery web site at http://www.calottery.com
NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY
CHUCK
BY KEVIN HERRERA
SHEPARD
Daily Press Staff Writer
■ The grave of Pol Pot (one of the 20th century’s most prodigious mass murderers) near Anlong Veng, Cambodia, is revered by local villagers who believe his ghost protects them and also provides winning lottery numbers, according to an August International Herald Tribune report. In fact, the government is building a casino nearby to serve those who feel lucky. ■ Of the 25,000 children homeless in the streets of Kinshasa, Kenya, more than half are believed to be there because their parents have disowned them as suspected “witches,” according to an August Los Angeles Times dispatch. Said one 10-year-old: “They say I ate my father. But I didn’t.”
Blue man gruesome Fabian Lewkowicz fabianl@smdp.com A ‘zombie’ appears to be crawling out from under a grave, scaring guests at a Halloween party over the weekend in the Pacific Palisades. With Halloween falling on Tuesday this year, many revelers donned their costumes on Saturday.
That smarts: Renters learn their lessons BY MELODY HANATANI
TODAY IN HISTORY
Daily Press Staff Writer
Today is the 303rd day of 2006. There are 62 days left in the year.
CITYWIDE — Ah, it’s good to be smart and rich in Santa Monica! The city’s renters are a highly educated young bunch who have a high disposable income and are generally happy with where they live. That is, compared to renters who moved into the city before Jan. 1, 1999, when the vacancy decontrol law came into
The radio play “The War of the Worlds,” starring Orson 1938 Welles, aired on CBS. (The live drama, which employed fake news reports, panicked some listeners who thought its portrayal of a Martian invasion was real.)
QUOTE OF THE DAY “The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.”
DAVID BRINKLEY
AMERICAN BROADCAST JOURNALIST (1920-2003)
INDEX Horoscopes Do some reflecting, Pisces
2
Inside Scoop Shuttering at the thought
3
Opinion ‘Raging gorilla’ 2006
4
BY AMY KAUFMAN Special to the Daily Press
22-27
See PROFILES, page 13
5
Local Before you head out ...
7
State Angelides makes his move
9
MOVIETIMES Catch a flick!
19
Surf Report Water temperature: 65°
19
Comics & Stuff Classifieds Ad space odyssey VONS
RALPHS
See RENTERS, page 14
Keeping it reel for four decades
20-21
Don’t bogart that flier
the vacancy decontrol law. It measured the impact the law has had on tenant perceptions on renting, and explored their views on housingrelated issues such as relationship with landlords and quality of life. Godbe Research conducted the survey from May 7 through May 17 on a sample size of 750 out of more than 18,000 current renters
A W E E K LY S E R I E S T H AT A P P E A R S E A C H M O N D AY A N D D E LV E S I N T O T H E L I V E S O F P E O P L E W H O L I V E , W O R K A N D P L AY I N S A N TA M O N I C A .
MONTANA AVE. — Kevin Thomas is a wise guy. The longtime film critic is a veritable walking dictionary, with memorized release dates and rarefied Hollywood stories spilling out. Always the writer, Thomas speaks slowly and precisely, as if he is penning his words before they escape his mouth. Having served as one of the lead movie reviewers at the Los Angeles
Commentary
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry
COMMUNITYPROFILES
effect, allowing landlords to raise rents on vacant units to market level, according to a tenant survey. Godbe Research, a Half Moon Bay-based market and public research agency, presented its findings culled from a survey about renting in Santa Monica to the Rent Control Board last week. The purpose of the survey was to compare tenants who moved into a unit before and after the inception of
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DOWNTOWN — As Mark Twain might say, the rumors of downtown’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. While homelessness and the lack of parking once again top the list of complaints lobbed by visitors here, people continue to flock to the myriad of shops, restaurants and movie theaters regularly. That’s according to two surveys released recently by the Bayside District Corp., a public-private partnership that helps City Hall manage and promote the downtown district. The surveys come amid the Bayside board of directors’ consideration of a new downtown assessment district in which businesses, property owners, residents and City Hall may be called upon to pull more money together to make improvements to infrastructure and the delivery of services. Businesses in downtown are already subject to two business assessments, generating nearly $1 million annually. The Bayside board approved a $59,920 contract in June with Progressive Urban Management Associates (PUMA), which specializes in strategic planning for downtown organizations and the creation of business improvement districts to finance them. The firm has created and helped form business improvement districts in hundreds of revamped downtowns across America, including the French Quarter in New Orleans and Boulder, Colo. In California, PUMA has managed improvement districts in nearly 20 cities, such as Sacramento, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego. It has been nearly 20 years since the downtown management structure has been evaluated, and various
Fabian Lewkowicz fabianl@smdp.com Movie critic Kevin Thomas reflects amid his Santa Monica office memorabilia.
Gary Limjap (310) 586-0339
See DOWNTOWN, page 14
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