Westly Concedes; Brown Wins and Preschool Plan Fails
California’s general election season starts today, after state Treasurer Phil Angelides claimed the Democratic nomination to oppose Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Los Angeles Times reports. At 1:15 a.m., rival Steve Westly borrowed an aide’s cell phone and called Angelides from Los Angeles to concede the contest and congratulate his erstwhile foe. With 99 percent of Tuesday’s voted counted, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi won the Democratic nomination to run for lieutenant governor. He received 43.5 percent of the vote, eclipsing his closest competitor, state Sen. Jackie Speier with 38.5 percent. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown won the party nomination for attorney general, taking an early lead over Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, who made his first run for statewide office. Voters also rejected two ballot measures, a $600 million bond issue for libraries and a universal preschool initiative that lost 61 percent to 39 percent. The bond issue failed 53.1 percent to 46.9 percent.
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Tribune Buyback Draws Opposition From Chandlers
A rift on the board of Tribune Co. is setting the stage for a possible showdown between executives at the media company and its second-largest shareholder, the Chandler family trusts, the Wall Street Journal reports. In a securities filing Tuesday, Tribune disclosed that all three directors appointed by the Chandler Trusts to the company’s 11-member board had voted against the company’s sweeping buyback program. The Chandlers gained a 12 percent stake in Tribune through its $8.3 billion acquisition in 2000 of Times Mirror Co., which includes the Los Angeles Times. That plan, announced last week, entails taking on about $2 billion of new debt to buy back up to 25 percent of the company’s outstanding shares. By laying bare the board disagreement, the unusual filing raises new questions about the challenges facing Tribune. The Chicago-based company, one of the nation’s largest newspaper and broadcasting concerns, already has faced shareholder pressure for its poor stock performance at a time when newspapers are seeing readership decline and new competition from the Internet. Some investors saw the buyback as an effort to discourage hostile buyers or the kind of investor pressure that pushed Knight-Ridder Inc. into a sale, since taking on substantial new debt would make Tribune less appealing to suitors.
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Erin Brockovich Takes Role as Plaintiff in Medicare Suits
Erin Brockovich has a famous name, Hollywood good looks, an agent and a new cause: Medicare, the Los Angeles Times reports. The onetime legal assistant, whose environmental crusade against a utility company inspired a hit movie starring Julia Roberts, has lent her name as plaintiff in lawsuits against several California hospitals and convalescent homes. The suits allege the facilities pocketed millions of taxpayer dollars while covering up their own mistakes. Since the 2000 movie that earned Roberts an Oscar, Brockovich has made her rounds in the lecture circuit, book circuit, television show circuit and the legal circuit. Her seven lawsuits, filed Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, allege that healthcare companies are charging Medicare, the federally funded health plan for seniors, to treat illnesses they helped cause by medical error or neglect. The lawsuits do not involve specific allegations of wrongdoing but seek instead to find evidence of such treatments, arguing that Medicare should be reimbursed. One defendant called the lawsuits a publicity stunt by a “celebrity plaintiff.”
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L.A. Tax Relief Company Sued
American Tax Relief, a Los Angeles company whose nationwide advertising offered tax delinquents a chance to settle with the Internal Revenue Service for “pennies on the dollar” collected hefty fees but often couldn’t deliver on its promises, according to two lawsuits, the Associated Press reports in the Los Angeles Times. New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs filed a lawsuit Monday accusing American Tax Relief of bombarding households with junk mail that exaggerated what it could do for clients with big tax debts. Separately, a Brooklyn woman filed a lawsuit Thursday that claimed she paid thousands of dollars to the firm and wound up with the same debts with which she started. An attorney for American Tax Relief, Charles L. Kreindler, defended the company’s advertising. He said the firm had saved “millions of dollars for thousands of taxpayers since 1998” but never claimed that it could save money for everyone.
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OSI Wins Security Scanners Contract
Hawthorne-based OSI Systems won a federal government contract to help make airport security technology more efficient and reliable, the Daily Breeze reports. The program by the Transportation Security Administration will involve 450 airports nationwide. In the first phase of the program, which lasts through September, OSI’s Rapiscan Systems division will develop software and hardware to upgrade its TIP Ready X-ray baggage scanners at U.S. airports. The upgrades would be designed to allow the TSA to collect such real-time information as system performance, operator performance, the number of bags checked and peak periods of operation. The practical result would be to allow the TSA to better manage and maintain airport scanner systems.
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Salmon Industry To Get Crisis Aid
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Tuesday in 10 counties to help the salmon-fishing industry cope with severe new catch limits, the Sacramento Bee reports. The declaration makes $9.6 million in low-interest loans available to fishermen and the businesses that support them as they struggle to survive a lean year. Salmon season began May 1 after federal officials restricted this year’s catch to just 40 percent of a typical season. The rules affect 700 coastal miles along California and Oregon, where fishermen are already suffering from a reduced season last year. The shortened season is the result of severe chinook salmon declines in the Klamath River, which has been devastated by water diversions and other ills.
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