THE SOUTHLAND

L.A. City Council Wants to Cut 3,000 More Jobs

(AP) — The Los Angeles City Council voted on Feb. 18 to eliminate 3,000 additional city jobs in an attempt to balance a $212 million budget deficit.

The 9-3 vote came a day after Moody’s Investors Services, a major credit-rating agency, issued a gloomy outlook for Los Angeles’ financial situation. Moody’s downgraded its opinion of the city’s finances from “stable” to “negative,” potentially leading to a lower credit rating for the city and increasing its cost for borrowing money.

The eliminations come on top of the 1,000 job cuts ordered by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to help balance the budget by July 1 and to close a $484 million gap in next year’s budget. Recently, he warned a second round of cuts was necessary to replenish the reserve fund and maintain a good credit rating.

Villaraigosa has suggested that layoffs can be minimized if city workers and their unions agree to pay cuts.

Under the measure approved by the council, city departments must identify, within 45 days, positions that can be eliminated. Police officers and firefighters would not be exempt from possible job cuts.

The measure calls for eliminating a total of 4,000 jobs, but that doesn’t mean 4,000 people will be laid off.

City officials said some workers may lose their current positions, but be transferred to other departments that do not draw salaries from the depleted general fund.

Andre Birotte Confirmed   by Senate as U.S. Atty.

(AP) — The Senate has confirmed Andre Birotte Jr. as the next U.S. attorney for the Central District of California.

Birotte, currently inspector general for the Los Angeles Police Commission, was confirmed by the Senate Feb. 11. He was nominated to the post by President Barack Obama.

The 43-year-old Birotte will oversee an office of about 275 prosecutors responsible for a seven-county jurisdiction covering Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The office is headquartered in Los Angeles.

Birotte replaces Thomas P. O’Brien, who announced in August that he was stepping down.

Negrohead Mountain Renamed for Pioneer

(AP) — A peak previously known as Negrohead Mountain in Southern California’s Santa Monica range was officially renamed in honor of a black pioneer who settled the area in the 19th Century.

The 2,031-foot mountain near Malibu, the highest peak in the area, was renamed Ballard Mountain after John Ballard, a blacksmith and former slave who bought land on the mountain in 1880.

The name originally contained a vulgar racial slur that even appeared on federal maps, but it was changed to “negro” in the 1960s.

About 90 people, including some two dozen Ballard descendants, attended the renaming ceremony Feb. 20 at the site where Ballard owned a 320-acre homestead near what is now the community of Seminole Hot Springs.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Board on Geographic Names approved the change last year after a request from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

A permanent plaque with Ballard’s name and story is being placed near the top of the peak.

Ballard was part of a small group that founded Los Angeles’ African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1869 but left Los Angeles for the mountains 50 miles away a decade later.

Historians believe that Ballard and his family were fleeing growing segregationist polices in the city.

Court Reverses $6.2M Firefighter Judgment

(AP) — A California appellate court on Feb. 18 reversed a $6.2 million verdict against the city of Los Angeles in a discrimination lawsuit filed by a black lesbian firefighter.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal issued its decision in the case brought by Brenda Lee of Mission Hills, who sued the city alleging the fire department discriminated against her based on her race, gender and sexual orientation and refused to transfer her after she complained of harassment.

An investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concluded that the city fire department engaged in a pattern of discrimination, harassment and retaliation against black and female firefighters.

The appeals court found that Lee failed to pursue all administrative remedies following her termination in 2005.

The city also argued in its appeal that some evidence didn’t support the conclusion that Lee’s termination was discriminatory, and some evidence supporting the city’s case was excluded.

Police: Ex-LAPD Chief Daryl Gates Seriously Ill

(AP) — Former Los Angeles police Chief Daryl Gates, a controversial figure whose career ended after the Rodney King beating, is hospitalized and seriously ill, current police Chief Charlie Beck said Feb. 16.

Beck told the city Police Commission that Gates, 83, has a “very serious malady.”

The police department would not specify Gates’ ailment. However, a blog posting attributed to his brother Steve Gates said the former chief had been hospitalized for weeks with bladder cancer.

Gates headed the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992.

There were repeated accusations in the 1970s and 1980s that the LAPD was a department that targeted minority communities.

Gates came under pressure in 1991 after the videotaped beating of Rodney King by officers.

THE STATE

Bail Will Stand in Oakland Transit Murder Case

(AP) — A former San Francisco Bay Area transit police officer charged with murdering an unarmed man at an Oakland train station lost his bid Feb. 19 for reduced bail.

Johannes Mehserle, 28, who is white, is charged with the murder of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was black, on a commuter train platform on New Year’s Day 2009.

Defense attorney Michael Rains said his client’s $3 million bail should be reduced because he is not a flight risk.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry countered that he saw no changes in Mehserle’s circumstances that would merit a bail reduction.

Mehserle has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer has said Mehserle mistakenly pulled out his handgun instead of his Taser stun gun before the shooting.

Footage of the incident has been shown across the Internet.

Perry also rejected a motion to remove Alameda County prosecutors from the case. Rains had argued that prosecutors and detectives acted inappropriately when they interviewed Mehserle earlier in the case after his lawyer at the time had told them not to speak with him.

Another hearing was set for March 26. Trial is scheduled for June 7.

THE NATION

NAACP Elects Health Care Exec as Youngest Board Chairman

NEW YORK (AP) — The NAACP elected a health care executive as its youngest board chairman Feb. 20.

Roslyn M. Brock, 44, was chosen to succeed Julian Bond. She had been vice chairman since 2001 and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for 25 years.

Brock works for Bon Secours Health Systems in Maryland as vice president for advocacy and government relations, and spent 10 years working on health issues for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She joins Benjamin Todd Jealous, the 37-year-old CEO of the NAACP, as leader of the 500,000-member organization.

Brock said she plans to focus on pushing for policy changes to eliminate inequality, strengthening the relationship between the national and local NAACP branches and holding people accountable.

Brock was selected in a vote by the 64-person NAACP board.

Brock graduated from Virginia Union University and has an MBA from Northwestern.

USDA Reaches New Settlement With Black Farmers

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration Feb. 18 announced a $1.25 billion deal with black farmers that could end a years-long stalemate over alleged racial discrimination by the Agriculture Department.

If approved by Congress, it would be the second round of damages stemming from a class-action lawsuit the government originally settled in 1999. The new money is intended for people who were denied earlier payments because they missed deadlines for filing.

The amount of money each would get depends on how many claims are successfully filed.

President Barack Obama initially called for the $1.25 billion in his budget last year, but the request stalled in Congress as disagreements persisted over the amount of funding and the structure of the settlement.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Feb. 18 agreement should pave the way for congressional approval.

Vilsack said the deal should close a “sordid chapter” in USDA history in which blacks often lost land or went deeply into debt after being denied loans and other aid.

John Boyd, a key plaintiff organizer and head of the National Black Farmers Association, initially balked at the $1.25 billion last year, saying it would take more money to satisfy all the claims. But he said Feb. 18 that he and others agreed to the total because the case has dragged on for so long.

THE DIASPORA

Top Niger Junta Leader Defends Coup

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — A top leader of Niger’s new military junta defended a recent coup, saying on Feb. 21 that the army overthrew the uranium-rich nation’s dictatorial president to restore democracy after he refused to step down when his mandate expired.

Col. Djibrilla Hima Hamidou spoke after talks with a delegation of senior diplomats from the United Nations, the African Union and a West African regional bloc.

The diplomats told reporters they were encouraged by junta assurances that it would restore civilian rule through elections “as soon as possible” and establish a new constitution after a dialogue with political and civil groups.

Mutinous troops turned against President Mamadou Tandja on Feb. 18, attacking the presidential palace in daylight while a Cabinet meeting was under way. The surprise assault allowed the putschists to disable the entire government, which was immediately dissolved, in one fell swoop.