THE SOUTHLAND

L.A. County’s MTA Plans to Hike Bus, Train Fares

(AP) — A plan to hike Los Angeles County bus and train fares is under fire from critics who say it’s the wrong thing to do during an economic downturn.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to increase the one-way fare from $1.25 to $1.50 beginning July 1. A daily pass will go from $5 to $6, and a monthly pass will increase from $62 to $75.

The MTA says the increase — the first in two years — is needed to close a $204 million budget gap.

But the Bus Riders Union says even a quarter a ride — or $13 for the monthly pass — is too much of a hike for the poor, who comprise the majority of MTA riders.

LAPD to Install Video Cameras in Patrol Cars

(AP) — Los Angeles police officials say the department is finally ready to install video cameras in patrol cars.

Chief Technology Officer Maggie Goodrich told the police commission that officers in the Southeast Division started using the cameras April 25.

Police officials hope the windshield-mounted cameras will help them refute allegations of racial profiling and protect officers from false claims of abuse during police stops.

Goodrich says a technical glitch that made the cameras incompatible with the patrol cars’ dashboard computers has been worked out.

The pilot program costs about $5 million. Officials say they’ll need $15 million more to install cameras in all patrol cars.

L.A. Board Backs Plan to Speed Up Transit Projects

(AP) — Los Angeles County transportation officials agreed April 22 to support Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s ambitious plan to accelerate construction of a dozen transit projects by borrowing $8 billion from the federal government.

The show of support by the Metropolitan County Transportation Authority board allows the agency’s lobbyists to pursue federal loans in Washington.

In 2008, county voters approved a measure to increase the sales tax by a half-cent to raise about $40 billion for transportation improvements over the next 30 years.

Villaraigosa wants to build and open those projects, including the long-anticipated subway to the sea, in 10 years by borrowing $8 billion from the federal government and paying it back with the sales tax revenue.

Council Rejects L.A.’s Plea for Court Cash Infusion

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The California Judicial Council overwhelmingly rejected a plea from Los Angeles’ top judge April 23 for an emergency cash infusion, despite the prediction it could lead to hundreds of layoffs.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Presiding Judge Charles W. McCoy Jr. in February asked the court’s policymaking body to transfer $47 million from a construction fund to help close a $133 million budget deficit. McCoy said that without the transfer, L.A. courts would have to lay off 500 workers in October and probably more next year.

The criminal courts are immune from the cuts out of concern for public safety.

But on April 23, the council voted 15-2 against the request. Officials with the Administrative Office of the Courts, which the council oversees, told the voting members that Los Angeles appeared to be exaggerating its bleak financial outlook.

Los Angeles court officials said its $133 million budget deficit will be permanent each year unless there is an influx of funds from somewhere.

The L.A. system has already laid off 329 workers — about 6 percent of its 5,400-person work force.

THE STATE

BART Fires Second Officer in Station Shooting Death

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A second Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer involved in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man last year on an Oakland train station platform was fired April 22.

Officer Tony Pirone’s last day of employment was April 22, interim BART police chief Dash Butler said in a statement.

Pirone and former Officer Marysol Domenici were the first BART officers to respond to a report of a fight moments before Oscar Grant was fatally shot by then-Officer Johannes Mehserle on an Oakland train station platform on New Year’s Day 2009.

Pirone, 38, has been described by witnesses as being the most aggressive officer on the platform prior to the shooting. Domenici, 29, was fired March 25.

Mehserle, 28, who is white, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Grant, 22, who was black.

Pirone testified at a preliminary hearing last year that moments before the shooting he pulled out his Taser gun as he approached the men, who he said matched a description he was given of people fighting on the train. Video shown during last year’s hearing shows Pirone yelling a black racial epithet at Grant. Pirone then hit Grant.

Moments later, Mehserle shot Grant, who was lying facedown.

Mehserle eventually resigned. He is scheduled to appear in court May 7 for a pretrial hearing in Los Angeles. A trial has been scheduled for mid-June.

Calif. Lawmaker Wants Hurdle to Canal Around Delta

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Alarmed that a proposed canal to funnel water around the delta to Southern California is gaining momentum, a Northern California lawmaker wants to ensure the Legislature has the final say.

A bill by Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, D-Lodi, would prohibit the construction of a canal, tunnel or any other project that would send delta water south to cities and farms unless state lawmakers authorize it.

It also would ban a canal that diminishes the supply, rights or quality of water currently used by residents of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the heart of California’s water-delivery system.

“I don’t think we should have an infrastructure project of this size without legislative oversight,” said Huber, who represents a district in the delta and opposes the canal. “I think the Legislature should do its job and give it an up-or-down vote.”

A region the size of about Rhode Island, the Northern California delta is a maze of rivers, islands and sloughs where mountain runoff collects before spilling into San Francisco Bay. The water that passes through the fragile ecosystem supplies drinking water to some 25 million Californians and irrigation water to thousands of acres.

Commission Considers Cutting Calif. Officials’ Pay

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Last year’s 18 percent pay cut for lawmakers and statewide officeholders wasn’t enough, according to dozens of suggestions submitted to a panel that sets the salaries for California’s top elected officials.

“We must have received 100-plus e-mails, letters, everything, saying anywhere from, ‘You should hold the line’ to ‘Cut their pay’ to ‘Throw them all out,’ ” said Charles Murray, chairman of the California Citizens Compensation Commission, which met April 22 in Burbank.

Proposals ranged from enacting another big pay cut, to switching elected officials to merit pay, to docking legislators’ salaries $1,000 for every $100,000 the state runs over its budget.

Murray, the president of a Los Angeles-area insurance company, said the seven-member commission is more likely to consider a total cut in the range of 8 percent to 12 percent. That could include reducing a range of benefits in addition to salaries, such as daily expense allowances, vehicle allowances and health insurance.

Commissioners are expected to take final action at their June meeting in Sacramento.

THE NATION

Black Conn. Firefighter’s Promotion Lawsuit Tossed

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a black firefighter against the city of New Haven, Conn., over a 2003 promotion exam that was the subject of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Firefighter Michael Briscoe alleged he was unfairly denied a chance for promotion to lieutenant because the city wrongly gave more weight to the test’s written part than the oral section. Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. dismissed Briscoe’s lawsuit April 21, saying he would issue his reasons in a subsequent opinion.

New Haven scrapped the exam after learning no black firefighters and only two Hispanics were likely to be promoted based on the results.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that the city should not have scrapped the list, saying white firefighters were denied promotions unfairly because of their race.

SCLC Member Seeks Probe of Group’s Finances

ATLANTA (AP) — A member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference appointed to the board by the group’s disputed chairman says he is asking state and county officials to investigate the group’s finances.

The Rev. Markel Hutchins met with reporters April 22 to detail what he described as financial mismanagement and possible insurance fraud by other board members and staff.

A faction of board members voted this month to oust Chairman Raleigh Trammell amid a federal investigation.

Opposing groups of board members each held board meetings this week hundreds of miles apart in Georgia and Alabama.

Hutchins also questioned the election of the Rev. Bernice King as president. King has yet to assume her post overseeing the organization co-founded by her father.

An attorney representing the group that met in Atlanta says the election was valid and that they will prevail on all the issues raised in court.

A.M. Secrest, Anti-Segregation Editor, Dies at 86

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — A.M. “Mac” Secrest, editor of a small weekly newspaper who crusaded against Southern resistance to desegregation in the 1950s, has died. He was 86.

David Secrest says his father died April 17 in Chapel Hill after complications from throat cancer surgery.

“Mac” Secrest also served as a federal mediator in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He was the owner and publisher of The Cheraw Chronicle in northeastern South Carolina. He criticized segregationists who followed the massive resistance strategy after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Secrest pressed his views despite threats of violence, attacks on his home, and menacing signs placed in his yard.

THE DIASPORA

Sudan: Scores Dead in Clashes in South Darfur

CAIRO (AP) — Clashes in Darfur between Arab nomads and south Sudan’s army along the country’s volatile north-south border have left dozens dead and more wounded, Sudanese officials said April 25.

The violence comes amid rising tensions between Arab nomads in the area and a growing contingent of soldiers from the neighboring southern province, officials said.

The area is particularly tense as much of Sudan’s north-south border has yet to be demarcated ahead of next year’s crucial referendum when southerners will vote on whether to secede from the Arab-dominated north.

Abdullah Massar, a presidential adviser from the Arab tribe involved in the clashes, said local tribal officials reported more than 50 Arab nomads were killed in the fighting with soldiers from the southern Sudan’s People Liberation Army. The fighting began April 22 and was still going on April 25, he said.