His white shirt pressed, the chef glides through the crowd like a ship in full sail, checking tables, nodding to waiters. His world is full of hurry but he is not rushed. He sits down in the shade, wiping his brow amid a lunchtime crowd of gunrunners, clan elders, beggars and bankers.

They drift down unnamed roads toward his tables, the air sweet with meat, crushed vegetables, sprigs of spearmint. Scores of diners at a time cram elbow to elbow slurping and scooping at the edge of town, where big trucks haul white stone down from the mountains.

They know Abdulkarim Harazi has three wives, 18 children, a worn dagger and the humor of a man not done in by adversity. When he speaks, his customers, sopping broth with soft bread, listen, knowing that no matter how circuitous or embellished the tale, there’ll be wisdom waiting at the end.

“You handle a big family with justice,” says Harazi, pausing the way he does, eyes bright with mischief. “Justice means sleeping with one wife one night and another wife the next. This brings balance. Justice can’t control some things, though, like the passion of the heart.”

Harazi’s fires spit blue flames and hum like storms, searing blackened bowls filled with a traditional meat dish called fasha and a stew known as saltah. Thick with chilies, herbs, onions, potatoes, coriander and maybe a speck of cilantro, the meals bubble and cool beneath conversations of impatient men.

“Quality and cleanliness are the keys” to a fine meal, Harazi says.

His waiters have blistered fingers and gold-trimmed caps. From sunrise to just before dusk, they serve 1,300 pounds of beef and 660 pounds of vegetables to 4,000 diners at the Fakhi restaurant. Nobody rests, not the ladle men, nor the dicers, knives chopping, oil hissing at the culinary crossroads of the capital, where, for a brief moment and a few dollars, businessmen sit with junkmen for a taste that’s the same to everyone.

The main floor is shaded and dim, the tables long. Finding a seat requires cunning and swiftness and dodging men with quick hands. Some have guns, most have daggers. Outside, down steps faded by sunlight, more tables are lined beneath narrow shelters and there’s a feeling of an army encamped beneath the hills circling the city. From the road, amid clatter and the glow of fires, the word is that eating lunch anywhere else would be a pitiful miscalculation.

The men — not a woman in sight — speak of private misfortunes and national troubles. A land of deserts, rock ridges and sea coves, Yemen is both beautiful and tormented. Rebellions rattle north and south, Al Qaeda fighters roam the outlands and the Americans are talking about missile strikes and the cost of terror. Poorest country in Arab world, that’s what they keep saying, a place of thin wallets and drought. Here, though, you polish your spoon, stay away from the flame and eat.

“It’s simple,” says Harazi. “The cost of living is too high and the country is too unstable. It’s all about food and worry these days. There’s no hope because you can’t see anyone improving around you. I try to do the best for my children. Education, they must have that.”

He’s a solid man with thick hands and black stubble, settling into his chair like a priest hearing confessions. He knows that life needs places like this restaurant, reliable and intimate as home but without home’s predictability. You never know who might pull up on a motorcycle or amble in from the fringes. Harazi’s eyes gather them all, watching, ever watching.

By midafternoon the men are restless, waiting to dip into crinkly bags of shiny narcotic khat leaves that will mellow them out until way past sunset. It’s a ritual as common as sleeping or waking. Nearly everyone at the restaurant finishes lunch and chews khat, cheeks bulging, eyes calm, the world suddenly fixable.

“Khat makes you forget about things,” says Harazi. “Khat gives you many ideas, but behind them is no planning.”

He laughs.

Wheels spin through gravel; a tribal leader in an SUV arrives in the parking lot, draped by dust and a well-armed entourage. Diners pause. No shots fired. Spoons resume. The leader, kissing cheeks, slapping backs, finds a seat.

“Look at that,” Harazi says, “Barack Obama doesn’t have as many bodyguards.”

“How many employees do you have?” someone asks.

Harazi looks around and whispers.

“One hundred, but if the taxman comes, only 20.”

Food for thought at one culinary crossroads in Yemen

As evidence of the ongoing problem, Justice officials pointed to two LAPD officers who were unknowingly recorded during a conversation with a supervisor being dismissive of racial profiling complaints.

“So, what?” one said, when told that other officers had been accused of stopping a motorist because of his race. The second officer is heard twice saying that he “couldn’t do [his] job without racially profiling.”

The officers’ comments, Justice officials found, spoke to a “perception and attitude of some LAPD officers on the street” and suggested “a culture that is inimical to race-neutral policing.”

The Justice Department’s concerns, which were conveyed in a recent letter obtained by The Times, are a setback for the LAPD, which remains under federal oversight on the issue. In order to rid itself of the federal scrutiny — which police officials have increasingly come to resent — the LAPD must assuage the Justice Department’s concerns.

The harsh assessment has also fed into internal tensions as members of the Police Commission, the civilian panel that oversees the LAPD, grow impatient with the pace of department efforts to more aggressively address the politically and socially explosive issue that has long dogged the city’s police.

Police Chief Charlie Beck disputed the Justice Department findings, saying they were based on cases that predated strict investigative guidelines put into place last year. He also rejected the suggestion that the candid comments of the two officers caught on the recording reflected a pervasive problem.

“It is a huge leap to paint the entire department with that brush,” Beck said. “And it is just not true. It’s not that type of department. We have a tough history that we must overcome and that takes time, but … the vast, vast majority of Los Angeles police officers today police in the right ways for the right reasons.”

Nonetheless, accusations of racial profiling — “biased policing” in modern LAPD lingo — have continued to hamper the department as it has worked to leave behind a reputation for racism and excessive force.

Profiling complaints typically occur after a traffic or pedestrian stop, when the officer is accused of targeting a person solely because of his or her race, ethnicity, religious garb or some other form of outward appearance. About 250 such cases arise each year, but more damaging is the widely held belief, especially among black and Latino men, that the practice is commonplace.

In the letter to city and police officials, the Justice Department expressed “continuing concerns about the overall quality of … investigations of biased policing.” Federal officials criticized investigators for “going through the motions” and found they “simply take ordered statements from officers and then run down a checklist of required questions without following up on key points or asking fundamental questions one would expect.”

In one case the Justice Department reviewed, patrol officers passed a Latino man driving in the opposite direction and did a U-turn to pull him over for a broken brake light. After asking the driver if he was in a gang and checking to see if he had any outstanding warrants, the officers let him go with a warning.

“The investigating officer never asked the officers involved what prompted them to look behind them to actually observe a non-working brake light,” the Justice officials wrote. “The investigator accepted the officers’ single-word answers of ‘No’ to the question whether race was a factor in the stop.”

“They are criticizing us for the way we used to do things,” Beck said in an interview.

He said significant progress has been made, not only in the investigations but also with regard to officers’ attitudes. Still, he said he was concerned about the tape-recorded comments of the two officers, adding that a misconduct investigation has been opened. In that case, the officers were taped by a supervisor who neglected to turn off a recording device after interviewing two other officers accused of racial profiling.

The Justice Department did not respond to calls for comment.

Until last year, the LAPD was under a federal consent decree that the Justice Department imposed in 2001 after the Rampart corruption scandal. It required the Police Department to complete sweeping reforms on many issues and to submit to near-constant audits and monitoring.

The U.S. District Court judge who lifted the decree found that the department had completed most, but not all, of the required reforms. On racial profiling, the judge called on federal authorities to remain in an oversight role for a time to assess the quality of the LAPD’s investigations and the Police Commission’s ability to monitor the issue.

Justice officials sounded an alarm after a report in May from the inspector general, the commission’s watchdog, concluded that the LAPD generally was doing an adequate job. Justice officials criticized the inspector general’s office for “not asking more substantive and probing questions.”

In an effort to satisfy the Justice Department, Nicole Bershon, who took over as inspector general in May, is expected to release a detailed report at the end of the month that reviews 10 recent racial profiling investigations. The cases were handled by a special team of investigators the LAPD formed this year to look at complaints accusing police of searching or detaining a person because of race or ethnicity.

Police commissioners have grown frustrated with the department’s work on racial profiling. At a meeting earlier this month, the commission’s president, John Mack, and Commissioner Rob Saltzman questioned whether police officials were doing enough. They noted that no officer has been found guilty of racial profiling by an LAPD investigation for years, despite numerous complaints each year.

Police leaders have long argued that because racial profiling hinges on what an officer was thinking in the moment, it is all but impossible to determine if he or she racially profiled someone unless there is a confession. When the commanding officer of the Internal Affairs Division offered that explanation to the commission, Mack dismissed it.

“I’ve heard many times that we can’t get inside an officer’s head, but somehow, some way, we need to figure out a way to get to the facts,” Mack said. “I’m not talking about a witch hunt, but I am talking about reaching a point where we can say with confidence that these claims have been very fairly and very thoroughly investigated.”

joel.rubin@latimes.com

Justice Department warns LAPD to take a stronger stance against racial profiling

Roxanne Brummell has thrived in what many consider the toughest new testing ground for teachers in the nation.

The fifth-grade teacher in Washington, D.C., earned a “highly effective” rating under the district’s controversial system that rewards — and sometimes fires — teachers based in part on their students’ progress on standardized tests. In just seven months, she helped boost her students’ reading scores by an average of 24%.

Brummell’s reward: a $20,000 bonus and recognition at district award ceremonies.

Brummell, a Guyana native, likes the acknowledgment and the data-driven feedback. But she frets that the district is relying too heavily on standardized tests and isn’t doing enough to help teachers who are struggling.

As for the bonus, she almost didn’t accept it. One condition was that she give up various rights if laid off in a budget crunch.

“I love it, but it has its flaws,” she said of the district’s evaluation system, as she recovered from a busy day of explaining improper fractions.

Her complex feelings reflect the nationwide ambivalence toward the growing movement to hold teachers more accountable for what their students actually learn. Until now, evaluations typically have involved a school administrator making a quick, pre-announced visit to a teacher’s classroom. But in major districts including Washington’s, New York’s and Houston’s — and perhaps soon, Los Angeles’ — officials are using a method called “value-added” to bring a measure of objectivity to the process.

Value-added assesses a teacher’s effectiveness at raising students’ performance on standardized tests compared with how they did in previous years. Virtually no one endorses the method as the sole measure of an instructor.

For states to qualify for certain federal grants, the Obama administration is requiring that they link teacher evaluations to student performance. At least 27 states have passed or are considering legislation to meet that requirement.

“There is an absolute laser focus on teacher evaluation in this country now — I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Rob Weil of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 2,200 school districts.

But the trend has stirred opposition. Some educational experts and union leaders say that value-added is not reliable enough for high-stakes decisions on firing, tenure or pay; that it is a narrow gauge of teaching; and that it pressures instructors to “teach to the test.”

Supporters say it is one important tool to be used in combination with others, perhaps including end-of-course tests or reviews of student work. How much weight to give it, what stakes to attach, how many years of data to consider and even how to calculate the scores are not settled questions, leaving much room for discussion and debate.

At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is studying many of these questions, senior program officer Steve Cantrell said concerns that the method may inaccurately assess some teachers must be balanced against the likelihood that it will improve the chances for children to have an effective instructor. “If you shift the perspective from what is best for adults to what is best for students, then it’s super clear that value-added can improve the system over time,” he said.

In Los Angeles, the teachers union has adamantly opposed using value-added in teacher evaluations — but a school district panel named by the superintendent has recommended that it go forward. The debate erupted in August, when The Times published a database of the value-added scores of about 6,000 elementary school teachers based on seven years of testing data, prompting union protests and vows by the district to raise the issue during contract negotiations. It was the first time in the nation such information had been made public.

In New York, the city school district’s recent announcement that it would release value-added scores to the media drew an immediate court challenge from the teachers union. Underscoring warring perspectives within the district, a Brooklyn public school on Friday sent a notice to parents urging them to protest the release, saying: “OUR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ARE NOT TEST SCORES!!”

Perhaps nowhere has the approach drawn more attention — and outrage — than in Washington, which has probably taken value-added further than any other district in the country.

Former Chancellor Michelle Rhee said she came to the nation’s capital three years ago knowing her changes would wreak political havoc. But she said she was willing to take on a system that was giving passing evaluations to 95% of teachers even as only 8% of students were performing at grade level in mathematics.

“How can you have a system where you’re that misaligned?” Rhee asked in a recent interview. “For me, it’s always about putting this in the lens of children and families … as opposed to making this a fight between groups of adults.”

She rolled out value-added analysis last year for a group of teachers in fourth through eighth grades. This year, administrators fired 75 of those teachers with poor appraisals and gave more than 700 others rated minimally effective one year to improve. The district also rewarded more than 630 “highly effective” educators with bonuses ranging from $3,000 to $25,000.

For L.A., possible lessons in D.C.’s controversial teacher evaluation system

At least 22 people were injured Sunday by an apparent suicide bombing in the heart of Turkey’s premier city, Istanbul, Turkish media reported.

The 10:30 a.m. explosion struck Taksim Square, a vast transportation and commercial hub that is the city’s busiest node. The apparent targets were police officers at a law enforcement substation at the square’s northern end. At least 10 of those injured were police, and two of the wounded face life-threatening injuries.

Istanbul police chief Huseyin Capkin said more bombs were found in the square, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anatolia news agency. Authorities barred all pedestrian and vehicular traffic to the square, popular with tourists, in case of more explosions.

In a statement broadcast on television, Capkın described the attacker as a male suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his torso who died in the blast. Turkish television showed the apparent body of the attacker covered with newspapers.

“We think the attacker attempted to enter a police bus and detonate the bomb inside, but the explosives went off earlier,” Capkin was quoted as saying.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the trademarks of Al Qaeda and associated Islamic militants. Turkey last week announced the detention of a dozen suspected Al Qaeda members in Istanbul and the eastern city of Van.

Al Qaeda-inspired militants killed dozens in 2003 attacks on the British consulate, two synagogues and a bank.

Turkey has long fought an on-and-off war against ethnic Kurdish miltants in its southeastern provinces but has been negotiating with representatives of the insurgents, the Kurdistan Workers Party. A unilateral ceasefire by the group, known by the abbreviation PKK, expired this weekend.

daragahi@latimes.com
Suicide bomber injures 22 in Turkey plaza

The massive storm muscled its way across an area that stretched from the Dakotas to the eastern Great Lakes. Severe thunderstorm warnings blanketed much of the Midwest, and tornado watches were issued from Arkansas to Ohio. Flights were canceled at O’Hare International Airport, a major hub for American and United airlines.

The National Weather Service said the storm is one of the strongest to hit the region in decades.

“We’re expecting sustained winds on the order of 35 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph throughout the afternoon,” said Edward Fenelon, a weather service meteorologist in Romeoville, Ill. He said the storm’s central pressure is equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.

“This is a very different type of event,” Fenelon said. “But that does give an indication of the magnitude of the winds. This isn’t something you see even every year.”

Weather Service Meteorologist Jim Allsopp said the storm could be among the worst to hit Illinois in more than 70 years.

Commuters in the Chicago area faced blustery, wind-driven rain as they waited for trains to take them downtown before dawn. Some huddled underneath train overpasses to stay out of the gusts, dashing to the platform at the last minute. In the city’s downtown Loop, construction workers wore heavy slickers and held onto their hard-hats, heavy metal streets signs rattled against their posts and umbrellas provided relief only for as long as they could last.

“The wind was almost blowing horizontally. The rain was slapping me in the face,” said Anthony Quit, a 24-year-old jewelry store worker in Chicago. “My umbrella shot off … It was pretty dangerous.”

He said the wind was so strong that his car “was starting to veer off the road.”

Another commuter described a frightening pre-dawn drive to the train station.

“It was raining really, really hard. Coming down the street I was kind of getting really nervous; even with the bright lights you couldn’t see in front of you,” said Delphine Thompson, 53, a telecom manager in Chicago.

The weather service said gusts that topped 50 miles per hour slammed into the Chicago suburb of Lombard early Tuesday.

High winds forced authorities to stop flights at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

A spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation said officials issued a temporary “ground stop” at O’Hare, meaning no flights are departing. Aviation Department spokeswoman Karen Pride said more than 125 flights were canceled at O’Hare. No cancelations are being reported at Midway International Airport on Chicago’s South Side.

The storm was also picking up speed on Twitter, where people were dubbing it “Chiclone” and “Windpocalypse.”

In St. Louis, pre-dawn strong winds were blamed for a partial building collapse that sent bricks, mortar, roofing and some window air-conditioning units raining down onto a sidewalk. No one was injured, and inspectors were inspecting the 1920s-era building.

In Ballwin, a St. Louis suburb, a woman escaped with minor injuries when a tree fell onto her home as she slept, covering her and her husband with dust and insulation. The family managed to get out of the house and call emergency responders.

In Milwaukee, some restaurants moved sidewalk furniture indoors as the storm approached and homeowners scrambled to batten down anything that might be swept away by the storm.

Meanwhile, much of North Dakota was under a blizzard warning. The National Weather Service said up to 10 inches of snow could fall in some areas into early Wednesday.

The snow is expected across North Dakota and into northern South Dakota. Forecasters said wind gusts of more than 50 mph in many areas would make travel treacherous.

Fenelon of the National Weather Service said the winds will subside Tuesday evening but could pick up again on Wednesday.

Eleven states are under a high wind warning. Those states are: Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Ohio and parts of Kentucky.

With a nod to the coming weekend, Jodi WhiteJones in Chicago said she hoped the storm wouldn’t lead to a Halloween-related disaster.

“Everyone in Chicago is used to foul weather but with this type of wind I just hope nobody gets hurt by things falling from buildings, flying pumpkins, debris,” said the 41-year-old assistant college dean at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

___

Associated Press writer Tamara Starks in Chicago, David Aguilar in Detroit and Jim Suhr in St. Louis contributed to this story.

Massive ‘Chiclone’ storm slams into Illinois; forecaster predicts strongest storm in 70 years

“We need all of you to fight on. We need all of you fired up,” the president told the roaring crowd of students and admirers — 37,500 of them, by USC officials’ estimates — who spilled out across the sun-soaked lawn of Alumni Park and the streets beyond. “We need all of you ready to go, because in just 11 days … you have the chance to set the direction of this state and of this country, not just for the next two years but for the next five years, the next 10 years, the next 20 years.”

“Just like you did in 2008,” the president said, “you can defy the conventional wisdom that says young people are apathetic, the conventional wisdom that says you can’t beat the cynicism in politics.”

In the combative tone that has defined his remarks in recent days, Obama offered a sharp rebuke of the Republican agenda, accusing the opposition party of embracing a strategy of “amnesia” after sitting on the sidelines saying “no to everything” while blaming him for the nation’s troubles.

“They figured that y’all would forget that they caused the mess in the first place,” he said. “…But Los Angeles, as I look out on this crowd, this tells me you haven’t forgotten.”

With a new Los Angeles-Times/USC poll showing a narrowing enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats, the president’s trip to California served the dual purpose of motivating his troops and raising money for endangered Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and attorney general candidate Kamala Harris. Boxer, Harris and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, all spoke briefly at the event, asking Democrats to match the fervor of Republicans.

Actor Jamie Foxx also underscored the Democrats’ precarious position by alluding to Obama’s encounter with a woman earlier this year who said she was exhausted by defending him — and then prompting the crowd to chant: “We’re not exhausted.”

Boxer, who has been hit with millions of dollars’ worth of attack ads from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other outside groups, said the other side has “giant, wealthy, unlimited-spending special interests with them.” But, she said, “We have our own army.”

Unlike on his last visit to Los Angeles, the President sought to avoid the wrath of the city’s commuters by flying from LAX to USC on Marine One for the event organized by the Democratic National Party. He also attended a luncheon fundraiser for Boxer and sat for an interview with Spanish-language radio host Piolin in Glendale. Then he jetted off to Nevada for another Democratic rally and a dinner to benefit Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is in an uncomfortably close race of his own.

While some Democratic candidates have kept Obama at arm’s length — distancing themselves from the administration’s controversial healthcare legislation and the $814-million stimulus package — Boxer has welcomed his help in California. In this state, 56% of likely voters said in a recent Times/USC poll that they wanted a senator who supports the president.

Boxer has been an unfailing defender of Obama’s policies, even in the face of relentless criticism of Obama’s policies from her challenger, Republican Carly Fiorina. The White House has rewarded Boxer’s loyalty with multiple trips to California on behalf of the three-term senator, who is clinging to a slim lead over Fiorina.

The president’s visit will be followed next week by a fundraising event for Boxer featuring First Lady Michelle Obama. The efforts will provide a much-needed boost to Boxer’s coffers in the final stretch.

New fundraising reports covering the period from Oct. 1 to Oct. 13 showed Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, raising slightly more than Boxer, though Boxer still had twice as much cash on hand as her opponent. But Fiorina announced a new $1-million loan to her campaign Friday for the final push, in addition to the $5.5 million she gave herself for the primary.

At Friday’s rally, the candidates took care to avoid mentioning the names of their rivals but drew distinctions between themselves and their opponents.

Brown signaled that he would reject what he has criticized as the divisive tactics of his opponent: “We don’t scapegoat anybody, not public workers, not immigrants, not anybody because we’re all Californians together.”

And Obama argued that if Republicans were to regain control, they would cut “middle-class families loose to fend for themselves.”

“Their basic philosophy is — you’re on your own,” he said.

Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund called Obama’s visit “another rescue mission for Boxer” and said the fact that Boxer did not mention Friday’s new unemployment figures or her specific plans to address them in her short speech proved “just how out of touch she is with the reality that 1 in 8 Californians is without a job.”

Brown’s Republican rival, Meg Whitman, meanwhile, campaigned in San Jose on Friday with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He had held the all-time record for self-funding a campaign until Whitman, who has put $141.5 million into her gubernatorial bid, surpassed him.

The former EBay chief executive said the Obama administration’s efforts to revive the economy had been a failure.

“The progress has been terrible,” Whitman said. “Look at the unemployment rates we face in California and we face in the country.”

maeve.reston@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Times staff writer Michael J. Mishak in San Jose contributed to this report.
In USC speech, Obama urges 37,500 Democratic voters to ‘fight on’

The action comes two days after L.A. prosecutors filed charges of conflict of interest and misappropriation of public funds against Vernon’s former city administrator and Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley suggested the scandal-plagued city be disbanded.

In addition to the Vernon action, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown’s office Thursday unveiled plans to seek a court-ordered monitor to watch over neighboring Bell, which has been hit by a corruption scandal that has resulted in criminal charges against eight current and former officials. All eight pleaded not guilty on Thursday.

In an interview, Brown said the compensation received by top Vernon officials — which in one case topped $1.6 million — was excessive and that attorneys in his department were trying to determine whether a lawsuit should be filed.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s so egregious,” said Brown, who is running for governor. “It’s clear to me that we need a state authority to set some standards and curb these excesses.”

So far, the Los Angeles district attorney’s investigation appears to have focused primarily on Donal O’Callaghan, the former city administrator who was indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury on charges regarding two contracts the city established with his wife.

The attorney general is now demanding that Vernon make officials available for testimony regarding the compensation and perks received by former city attorney and city administrator Eric T. Fresch, Finance Director Roirdan S. Burnett, former City Atty. Jeffrey Harrison, former City Administrator Bruce Malkenhorst Sr., and former City Clerk Bruce Malkenhorst Jr., as well as O’Callaghan.

Those six constitute the last decade of leadership in Vernon, a small, well-heeled industrial city just south of downtown Los Angeles. Vernon has been dogged for decades by claims that it is run by a small fiefdom of well-connected people who use the city of 90 residents to generate large incomes.

The Times reported this summer that those six officials all earned more than $500,000 in at least one of the last five years, with Fresch, a former city administrator who now works as a legal consultant, making $1.65 million in 2008.

The Times also reported on luxurious travel expenses billed to the city by Fresch, O’Callaghan and other Vernon officials. In one February 2007 trip, the two former city administrators flew first class with a financial advisor to New York, at a combined cost of $12,700. They stayed at the Ritz-Carlton and dined at the Four Seasons. Fresch alone spent $7,600 over four nights at the upscale hotel.

Fresch often commuted to work from the San Francisco Bay Area and billed the city for first-class flights. O’Callaghan was reimbursed for trips to Ireland and Sweden.

Brown’s subpoena also seeks testimony on “pension or other retirement benefits” for the Vernon officials. The exact focus of this part of the investigation is unknown. But The Times reported in September that Fresch, Harrison and other Vernon attorneys would receive an enhanced pension package typically reserved for police, firefighters and other safety workers.

Vernon reclassified its attorney positions as “safety employees” in 2004, which entitles them to more lucrative pensions and earlier retirement. In a letter signed by then-City Administrator Malkenhorst Sr., the city told CalPERS that its attorneys were “primarily engaged in the active enforcement of criminal laws.” But a former Vernon police chief told The Times that he could not recall a single instance when Vernon’s city attorneys prosecuted a case in criminal court.

Vernon City Manager Mark C. Whitworth released a statement Thursday saying the city “has fully cooperated with the attorney general’s investigation, and we will continue to do so.”

Neither Fresch nor O’Callaghan could be reached for comment.

Brown did not give a time frame for his office’s investigation into Vernon beyond the start of testimony Nov. 10. He said that the subpoena was meant to get information “on the record.” Although it requires only one designee to testify, Brown said it is possible several Vernon officials would be deposed.

“They know who knows, and they’re supposed to tell us and then we will go from there,” he said. “We want to hear who knows, and we’ll keep digging.”

Brown also said his office is pushing ahead with creating a monitor who would have wide-ranging access to city affairs in Bell, where four of the five council members were charged with public corruption.

A court hearing on the proposal was scheduled for Nov. 17.

State widens inquiry into Vernon

Pope Benedict XVI gave Australia its first saint Sunday, canonizing a 19th-century nun and also declaring five other saints in a Mass attended by tens of thousands of people.

Chants of “Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi” echoed throughout St. Peter’s Square as a raucous crowd of flag-and-balloon-bearing Australians cheered their native Mary MacKillop. In Sydney, huge images of the nun were projected onto the sandstone pylons of the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Speaking in Latin on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, Benedict solemnly read out the names of each of the six new saints, declaring each one worthy of veneration in all the Catholic Church. Also among them was Brother Andre Bessette, a Canadian brother known as a “miracle worker” and revered by millions of Canadians and Americans for healing thousands of sick who came to him.

“Let us be drawn by these shining examples, let us be guided by their teachings,” Benedict said in his homily, delivered in English, French, Italian, Polish and Spanish to reflect the languages spoken by the church’s newest saints.

A cheer had broken out in the crowd when MacKillop’s name was announced earlier in the Mass, evidence of the significant turnout of Australians celebrating the humble nun who was briefly excommunicated in part because her religious order exposed a pedophile priest.

Even more MacKillop admirers– an estimated 10,000 — converged Sunday at the Sydney chapel where she is buried and at Sydney’s Catholic cathedral, where a wooden cross made from floorboards taken from the first school that MacKillop established was placed on the steps.

Thousands of others in Australia spent their Sunday evenings watching live broadcasts of the Vatican ceremony on television in homes and on large outdoor screens in Sydney; in Melbourne, where she was born; and in Penola, where she established her first school.

Born in 1842, MacKillop grew up in poverty as the first of eight children of Scottish immigrants. She moved to the sleepy farming town of Penola in southern Australia to become a teacher, inviting the poor and the Aborigines of the area to attend free classes in a six-room stable.

She co-founded her order, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, with the goal of serving the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged, particularly through education.

“She supported Aboriginal people because she believed in supporting people who were disadvantaged,” said Melissa Brickell, a pilgrim from Melbourne who was in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for the ceremony. “She is a friend of Aboriginal people from the early days.”

As a young nun in 1871, MacKillop and 47 other nuns from her order were briefly dismissed from the Roman Catholic Church in a clash with high clergy. In addition to bitter rivalries among priests, one of the catalysts for the move was that her order had exposed a pedophile priest.

Five months later, the bishop revoked his ruling from his deathbed, restoring MacKillop to her order and paving the way for her decades of work educating the poor across Australia and New Zealand.

In his homily, Benedict praised MacKillop for her “courageous and saintly example of zeal, perseverance and prayer.”

“She dedicated herself as a young woman to the education of the poor in the difficult and demanding terrain of rural Australia, inspiring other women to join her in the first women’s community of religious sisters of that country,” Benedict said in English.

MacKillop became eligible for sainthood after the Vatican approved a second miracle attributed to her intercession, that of Kathleen Evans, who was cured of lung and brain cancer in 1993.

In a statement Sunday, Evans said she was humbled by MacKillop’s example, grateful for her healing and overjoyed that MacKillop’s example will now be known to others.

“I think she would be delighted to see so many people looking at their own lives and considering how they can live better and care more,” said Evans, who brought relics of MacKillop up to the altar during the canonization Mass.

Veronica Hopson, 72, was MacKillop’s first miracle, cured of leukemia in 1961. She broke half a century of silence about her case, telling Australia’s Channel Seven’s Sunday Night program: “How does a miracle feel? I feel very fortunate that I was given the opportunity to live my life, have a family, have grandchildren, so that’s a miracle.”

Hopson was 22 when she was diagnosed with leukemia and given only weeks to live. She said her mother contacted nuns at Saint Joseph’s convent in northern Sydney where Hopson was taught as a schoolgirl and where MacKillop once lived. The nuns brought cloth that MacKillop had worn and prayed for Hopson.

Hopson, who went on to have six children and now has four grandchildren, is recovering from recent bowel cancer. She said her miracle also carried a message for people who did not believe in God.

“I guess they must have some sort of hope, not just give in and just let the illness or sad things that happen in their life take over their life. Just keep hoping that it will get better,” she said.

Quebec’s flag was also out in force in St. Peter’s Square in support of Brother Andre, a Canadian brother who legend says healed thousands of sick who prayed with him at his Montreal oratory.

Born in 1845, Brother Andre was orphaned at the age of 12. After taking his religious vows, he devoted his life to helping others and gained a reputation as a healer. When he died in 1937 at the age of 91, an estimated 1 million people came to pay homage.

Benedict noted that Brother Andre was poorly educated but nevertheless understood what was essential to his faith.

“Doorman at the Notre Dame College in Montreal, he showed boundless charity and did everything possible to soothe the despair of those who confided in him,” Benedict said in French.

“I think all the people from Quebec are happy now,” said Alain Pilote, a 49-year-old pilgrim from Rougemont, near Montreal, who came to Rome for the Mass.

Australia’s foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, was in Rome for the canonization, as was Canada’s foreign minister, Lawrence Cannon. The Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski, joined thousands of Polish pilgrims to honor that country’s latest saint, Stanislaw Kazimiercyzk.

Also being canonized Sunday were Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano, and Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola of Spain.
Pope canonizes first Australian saint, 5 others

What bedeviled the process of approving the $125-billion spending plan was such matters as whether electronic highway billboards should have advertisements, whether a big political donor should be appointed to a state commission, whose name should adorn a disaster-relief bill, and whether the state needs a paid secretary of volunteerism.

The vote was supposed to be easy, a bipartisan election-year feint that pushed tough decisions into the future, papering over the deficit with clever accounting.

The budget lawmakers passed would keep state services at the status quo, with a freeze on school spending, modest trims to healthcare programs and some new money for universities.

It assumes billions of dollars in federal aid that most experts agree will never materialize and relies on loans and bookkeeping maneuvers such as transfers and funding shifts.

Yet the approval process became an all-night affair, with tens of millions of dollars in transportation spending lost because lawmakers had a spat over electronic billboards and DUI checkpoints.

Some Democrats disliked a provision to sell advertising space for soft drinks, automobiles or other products alongside the flashing alerts about abducted children and hazardous road conditions on the more than 700 state-owned electronic freeway billboards. The proposal was pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Who thinks it’s a good idea to give drivers one more reason to take their eyes off the road?” said Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto). He chairs a budget subcommittee that initially rejected the plan, which was later reinserted into the budget by legislative leaders.

Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) sought to make the multi-provision bill more palatable by adding a new measure. It addressed an element of alleged corruption in Bell, where the city was reported to be making money by towing the cars of sober immigrants from DUI checkpoints if they did not have proper ID.

Without a provision banning such a practice, Cedillo was refusing to vote for it and other parts of the budget, which was contained in 21 bills. Democrats added it. Some Republicans said the proposal could interfere with legitimate law-enforcement actions, and the bill failed to garner enough votes to pass. So the Senate killed the entire $112-million transportation bill.

Just after dawn, an impromptu hearing was needed to get a bill authorizing schools funding back on track. GOP senators were refusing to put up the votes for it, and the measure came up short. Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) abruptly announced there would be a 120-second hearing, stopped business on the budget and conducted a confirmation proceeding that took just slightly longer.

Senators approved a Schwarzenegger nominee to the California Transportation Commission whom they had refused to confirm through the normal committee process. Steinberg, with a hint of sarcasm, declared the nominee, Fresno developer and GOP donor Darius Assemi, “eminently qualified.”

Sen. Jeff Denham (R-Atwater) spoke in praise of Assemi and changed his vote. The education bill passed.

Over in the Assembly, meanwhile, lawmakers were annoyed by a demand they said came from the governor. It called for the state to create a “Secretary of Volunteerism,” a paid post. The idea was heavily mocked in side conversations and during floor debates.

“I would like to volunteer to be the Wizard of Adjournment,” Assemblyman Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks) said after 3:30 a.m., when the legislation finally passed the lower house

Ultimately, the full Legislature approved the post, with some lawmakers expressing worry that the governor might otherwise use his line-item veto authority to retaliate.

“This was the governor’s thing — or else his blue pencil came out,” said Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills).

Other last-minute side issues included a bid by Republicans to secure a tax break for online travel companies such as Orbitz and Expedia. It didn’t survive. A proposal to help San Diego use more redevelopment funds in a way that could help facilitate construction of a new NFL stadium made it to the governor’s desk.

Special tax breaks for a timber company, cable companies and software firms made it to the governor’s desk too. So did a provision that could help boost the bottom line of an ethanol company founded by former Secretary of State Bill Jones, an ally of and contributor to Schwarzenegger.

Not all of the bickering was partisan. Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco, a Democrat, refused to vote with most of his caucus on many elements of the budget. He paid a price: Disaster-relief legislation that he wrote for families affected by the San Bruno explosion and fire was killed, and Democrats later moved to Schwarzenegger an identical measure without Yee’s name on it.

Lawmakers sweat the small stuff

It’s all about hot sauce.

Huy Fong Foods, best known as the maker of Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce with a rooster depicted on the label, broke ground this week on a 655,000-square-foot, $40-million headquarters and factory in Irwindale.

The project will nearly triple the space occupied by Huy Fong, which now operates out of two buildings in Rosemead that it will give up when the new facility is finished.

Demand for the product has increased every year for the last 30 years, said David Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant who said he founded the company when he couldn’t find hot sauce he liked. In 1980, Tran rented 2,500 square feet in Chinatown and started making sauce from chilies he bought at Grand Central Market. He delivered the final product to Asian markets in a Chevy van.

The company currently makes more than 20 million bottles of the spicy concoction annually by working around the clock.

“We are at full capacity,” Tran said. “We need a bigger building to make the hot sauce.”

Huy Fong rolls out 100 tons of the red stuff a day now and will increase its volume “rapidly” in the new facility, Tran said. The company aims to increase its manufacturing capacity tenfold by 2016 to meet projected demand.

Employment at the company is expected to triple when the move is made to the new facility. Currently, Huy Fong has 70 workers during jalapeno season in the summer and fall when the peppers are pouring in, said operations manager Donna Lam.

Construction is being overseen by Seventh Street Development, a Long Beach real estate company selected by the city of Irwindale to develop the blighted 23-acre site at Azusa Canyon Road and Cypress Street that had been vacant for more than a decade.

The site was mentioned in a recent Times story about redevelopment properties that were earmarked by cities for affordable housing — in accordance with state law — but not used entirely for that purpose.

Irwindale will finance most of Huy Fong’s $15-million purchase of the property. Seventh Street expects to finish the Huy Fong building by next fall.

Like most companies that move to new quarters, Huy Fong won’t be moving far.

“With many of its employees living in the area, it was important to Huy Fong to stay in the San Gabriel Valley, which has been its home since 1987,” said Craig Furniss, a principal at Seventh Street Development. “Irwindale was one of the few areas able to accommodate Huy Fong’s space requirement and still make financial sense.”

The new building will have such environmentally friendly attributes as a white reflective roof, skylights and storm-water catch basins. The California Mission-style building will include 26,000 square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 480,000 square feet of warehouse space under one roof. Huy Fong needs lots of room to store sauce crushed during pepper season so it can keep bottling year-round.

Sriracha (sree-rah-chah) is a traditional Southeast Asian sauce named after a Thai seaside town. Tran’s garlicky interpretation uses whole chilies, seeds and all, and comes out thicker than typical Louisiana-style hot sauces. That’s the way he likes it.

“Almost any meal I eat with hot sauce,” he said.

roger.vincent@latimes.com
Sriracha chili-sauce factory to spice up a bleak lot in Irwindale