Obama signals new focus on climate change

WASHINGTON — After President Obama finished his inaugural speech Monday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) thanked him for mentioning climate change, a topic environmentalists said Obama had avoided during much of his first term.

"I did more than mention climate change," the president told Waxman.

In discussing the urgency of climate change before a national audience, the president elevated the issue into the top tier of second-term priorities that include fiscal reform, gun control and immigration reform.

"We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations," he said Monday. "Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms."

Many environmentalists have come to believe that Obama's more frequent, detailed mentions of climate change since the election could signal a greater willingness to step up reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The president isn't ruling out the idea of a legislative package to combat climate change during his second term, senior officials say. But the political landscape is even less favorable to passage of legislative initiatives than during his first term.

In the near term, Obama will probably rely on his executive authority and Environmental Protection Agency rules to avoid fights with Congress as he works to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the main driver of climate change.

"I think the president isn't just about talk," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). The administration, she added, has "no choice but to act."

Despite Obama's public reticence on climate change during his first term, his administration moved aggressively on several fronts to cut emissions of carbon dioxide. The administration contends that its first-term rules to boost gas mileage and curtail greenhouse gases from new power plants will have a demonstrable effect on carbon emissions.

The auto standards alone "did more to reduce carbon pollution than any other action that has been taken, in our view," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday. "We need to continue to build on that, and the president intends to continue to build on that progress in the second term."

Supporters and opponents alike are looking for clues about Obama's posture in upcoming decisions. The final rules for greenhouse gas limits from new power plants are due by April. It remains unclear whether the EPA will then roll out new rules for existing power plants, most of which run on fossil fuels. The emissions from existing plants account for almost 40% of the greenhouse gases the country produces.

The administration has also said that it could make a decision by March about approving the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Environmentalists contend that extracting and processing the oil from Alberta's tar sands use so much energy, far more carbon would be pumped into the atmosphere if oil fields were developed to feed the pipeline.

If the Obama administration decides not to give the pipeline a permit, it would be in for a tough fight with those in Congress who would try to legislate approval for the project, said Trip Van Noppen, president of Earthjustice, an environmental law group.

The administration could chip away at carbon emissions through other administrative steps, including limiting greenhouse gases at refineries, curtailing the flaring of natural gas at oil wells, and pushing energy efficiency measures and investments in alternative energy. But over the long term, that might not be enough to cut emissions on the scale needed to show the country's commitment to fighting climate change.

"Those actions will bend the carbon curve in the short term, but that curve needs to be bent steeper than those steps will allow," Van Noppen said.

Rep. Edward Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the House energy and power subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, confirmed that administration-backed legislation to address climate change would meet stiff resistance.

"Cap-and-trade legislation already failed in the Democrat-controlled Senate and there is currently no appetite in Congress to go down that path again," Whitfield said of providing a system of credits for limiting greenhouse gases.

Whether it be cap-and-trade, a carbon tax or new greenhouse gas regulations, "House Republicans will continue to oppose any plan that drives up energy costs and puts American businesses at a competitive disadvantage," he said.

Right now, the White House is focused on rolling out a budget, legislative plans on gun control, and immigration. For the time being, aides talk about environmental measures as if they are part of an ongoing project the president already thinks is going well.

Asked about whether the president might push for a big legislative proposal like the failed cap-and-trade plan, Carney suggested the president was more interested in actual change than in proposals for their own sake.

"Deficit reduction, for example, is not a goal unto itself," he said. "We pursue it in a way that helps our economy grow and helps it create jobs. Otherwise, it's not worth the effort, in his mind."

With climate change, he went on, "you don't pursue action that helps deal with that problem just because of the problem itself, but because there are huge opportunities there in alternative energy."

neela.banerjee@latimes.com

christi.parsons@latimes.com

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Mahony's efforts to hide abuse are deplorable but unsurprising

Every time we learn something new about the molestation scandal in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, it becomes more obvious why Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and his minions have fought so tenaciously to keep things under wraps.

Not to protect the privacy of victims or the rights of suspected abusers, as the church hierarchy has contended. But to hide the unconscionable deception by church leaders, who repeatedly did more to protect their own image than to help the victims of horrific crimes.

This week's revelations of deliberate efforts by Mahony and others to shield abusers from law enforcement authorities are deplorable yet entirely unsurprising. It all fits the M.O. that's was in place at least through the 1980s.

Conceal the church's dirty secrets at all costs. Don't notify the police when abuse is reported. Keep prosecutors at bay with legal challenges. Avoid reforms until public pressure mounts. And, when all else fails, have Mahony issue a carefully scripted "apology."

His latest was perhaps his most odious and offensive, with Mahony saying he didn't fully appreciate the hell victims had been put through until many years later.

You need years of reflection to realize that the rape, abuse, betrayal and psychological exploitation of children by their spiritual leaders is both devastating and unconscionable?

Now that he's seen the light, the cardinal prays that "God's grace will flood the heart and soul of each victim."

"It's worthless," retired Oxnard police officer Manuel Vega, a molestation victim, said of the Mahony apology. Vega spoke at a news conference Tuesday outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown L.A.

"A lot of people say they're sorry when they're caught," said Jim Robertson, another molestation victim. "And he's been caught. By his own writing."

Robertson was referring to a newly released document — which Mahony's lawyers fought to withhold. In it, the then-archbishop signed off on a proposal by Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, his chief on sex abuse cases, in the case of Father Michael Baker, who had admitted his molestation of boys to Mahony.

"I see a difficulty here," wrote Curry in a memo from around the time Baker was sent for treatment in 1986, "in that if he were to mention his problem with child abuse it would put the therapist in the position of having to report him … he cannot mention his past problem."

"Sounds good — please proceed!!" Mahony responded.

Excellent strategy, Cardinal!!

Curry and Mahony also corresponded about Father Michael Wempe, another admitted molester. Curry suggested they shuffle him to an out-of-state diocese, or get him "a lawyer who is also a psychiatrist," so that any files on their conversations would be "under the protection of privilege."

Father Peter Garcia, who admitted preying on undocumented children in Spanish-speaking communities, was sent not to the police, but to a New Mexico treatment facility. Mahony sent a letter to the center's director, saying he didn't want Garcia back in Los Angeles.

"I believe that if Monsignor Garcia were to reappear here within the archdiocese we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors," Mahony wrote.

Curry was equally concerned, writing to Mahony to say that as many as 20 adolescents or young adults Garcia had been with "in a felony first degree manner" might spot the priest in Los Angeles.

Curry, by the way, is today the archdiocese's auxiliary bishop for Santa Barbara. In a just world, he'd be relieved of his duties immediately or resign in shame. But if the church hierarchy didn't have the decency to do what was right back then, when parish children desperately needed their help, can they be expected do the right thing now?

So why, as readers often ask, aren't these men in jail?

Even if these misdeeds once met the standards for criminal prosecution, the statute of limitations has run out on most of them at this point.

Still, I was glad to hear that the D.A.'s office will review the new material and additional documents that will be released in the coming weeks, and I hope they'll consider them in light of Mahony's past statements. In one 2010 deposition, for example, Mahony said the possibility of scandal never influenced his decision not to call police. That may not meet the standard for perjury, which is difficult to prove, but it's hard to reconcile the statement with the documents released last week.

Legal consideration aside, the jury is already in when it comes to a judgment on morality. Plaintiff attorney Anthony DeMarco, for one, took issue with Mahony's awkward and self-serving apology, in which the cardinal claimed that even after getting wise to the scandal, he remained naive about the hell victims went through.

"Any right-thinking human being knows that children being masturbated and orally copulated is devastating to their lives," said DeMarco. "These are sophisticated, reasonably intelligent men who … understood how wrong this was and consciously, over and over, took the wrong path of sheltering and aiding pedophiles."

"Mahony has no conscience," said former priest Richard Sipe, who has testified in clergy abuse cases nationally. He calls the L.A. scandal the worst in the country and says he is still shocked by Mahony's commitment to putting the most self-serving spin on his misdeeds.

In his apology, Mahony said he met with about 90 of the more than 500 victims involved in the $600-million lawsuit settlement in 2007. He said he kept the names of those 90 victims on 3 by 5 index cards and prays for them.

"I would rather he lose the … card with my name on it," said Mark Gauer, who says he was molested as a child by Father Terrence Reilly while a student at Daniel Murphy High School. "When you have children being abused and take the position that you're going to protect yourself and the church, where does religion come into play? We were sacrificial lambs."

If Mahony wants to pray, Gauer said, he should pray for himself.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

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Israel elections deal a major setback to Netanyahu

JERUSALEM — Israeli voters dealt a stunning political rebuke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leaving parliamentary elections in a virtual tie between the right and center-left and denying him the mandate he sought to pursue hawkish policies toward Palestinian peace talks, Iran's nuclear program and construction of West Bank settlements.

Netanyahu was still regarded as the most likely candidate to form a new government after Tuesday's voting because there are few other credible figures. But the disappointing performance will require him to reach out to the center in order to form a governing coalition.

With all but votes from prisoners, military voters and some government workers counted early Wednesday, Israel's conservative and religious parties had won 60 seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, the same number won by centrist and left-wing parties, who were led by a surprisingly strong performance from a political newcomer, Yair Lapid.

Though the final tally could change slightly, the close race all but ensures a period of turmoil before a new government emerges, and catapults Lapid and his recently formed centrist party, Yesh Atid ("There Is a Future"), into the forefront of Israeli politics. The party formed by the charismatic former TV broadcaster won 19 seats, the second-highest number of any party.

Amid a stronger-than-expected voter turnout of 67% — up from 65% in 2009 — the conservative bloc fell five seats short of the 65 seats it amassed four years ago, while the center-left parties picked up five.

The right was led by a joint slate between Netanyahu's Likud Party and former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu, which won 31 seats in the 120-member Knesset. That's far less than the combined 42 seats the two parties won four years ago when they ran separately. Based on the ratio determined in the shared slate, the results translate into about 20 seats for Likud and 11 for Yisrael Beiteinu.

Netanyahu held a slim lead as returns began to pour in Tuesday night. As the results were still being tallied, he declared victory early Wednesday and vowed to seek a broad coalition.

"I believe that the election results are an opportunity to make changes that the citizens are hoping for and that will serve all of Israel's citizens," he told supporters. "I intend to lead these changes, and to this end we must form as wide a coalition as possible."

That last part, at least, will prove true for whomever forms the next government.

Even before the tally slipped into a tie, however, Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich called the results a "no-confidence vote" for the prime minister, saying, "The public has said a clear 'no' to Netanyahu's policy." She also vowed to fight to replace Netanyahu in the coming days.

Her left-leaning party received 15 seats, but it was eclipsed by the surprise performance of Lapid's party, which won nearly twice as many seats as polls had predicted.

The results signal a slowdown in the rightward shift of the Israeli electorate in recent years. The conservatism has been attributed to growing pessimism by many Israelis about peace talks and by the belief that Palestinians will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. Such sentiments spread after the Palestinian uprising a decade ago, when hundreds of Israeli civilians were killed in suicide bombings.

Netanyahu's tough stance toward Palestinians and expansion of Jewish settlements on land claimed by Palestinians has tapped into such sentiments.

But critics, including centrist leaders like Lapid, say Netanyahu's policies have isolated Israel internationally and squandered a chance to reach a peace deal with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has been praised as a moderate Palestinian leader who disavows violence, but he has refused to resume peace talks as long as Israel continues to build settlements on land it seized during the 1967 Middle East War.

Lapid, 49, appealed to middle-class, secular moderates, focusing his campaign on a promise to end the draft exemption that allows ultra-Orthodox young people to avoid military service and to slash government subsidies to West Bank settlers.

He also supports resuming Palestinian peace talks and opposes attacking Iran's nuclear program without American cooperation.

Though center-left leaders were pressuring Lapid to boycott a new Netanyahu government, he signaled willingness — at least when it still appeared Netanyahu would win — to join if his programs are implemented.

"What is good for Israel is not in the possession of the right and nor is it in the possession of the left," he said. "It lies in the possibility of creating here a real and decent center that listens to the other side, that knows how to engage in dialogue, that remembers that we are here together."

Netanyahu had been expected to reach out to Lapid in an effort to ensure the stability of his coalition and reduce his dependency on far-right and religious parties, such as the ultra-Orthodox Shas. The nature of a governing coalition, however, was thrown into question by the election results.

In theory, adding additional partners would make it more difficult for any single party to threaten to bring down the coalition by withdrawing, although it increases the chances of internal ideological battles.

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Gay Californians take heart in Obama's call for equality

In San Francisco, George Roehm got the chills and reached for his smartphone to text an out-of-state friend. In Long Beach, Stan Mallard thought about how far this struggling country has come — and the great distance still ahead to achieve anything like progress.

And dance instructor Chaz Knight, an urban dweller if ever there was one, found himself wondering Monday how President Obama's words would sound to a teenage kid in the rural South. How freeing it would be, he figured, to hear the president declare that this country's work would not be done "until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law."

"I thought of a small family in Arkansas and their 13-year-old son who hasn't come out yet, and how great he's got to feel," Knight, a West Hollywood resident by way of New York, said as he strolled along Santa Monica Boulevard, headphones on, iced coffee in hand.

The president took the stage with the Supreme Court justices — who soon will consider the constitutionality of gay marriage — arrayed behind him. When he told the world that "if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," Obama brought the issue of gay marriage "into everyone's home, whether they like it or not," Knight said.

Monday wasn't the kind of day that sent thousands of gay Californians into the streets waving rainbow flags and weeping tears of joy. Demonstrations like that usually are reserved for milestones — court decisions, election results, legislative breakthroughs.

Actions, not words.

But words still matter. And on the occasion of Obama's second inauguration, his call for equality resonated from San Francisco's Castro District to West Hollywood.

"I never expected in my lifetime to hear our president talk like that," an emotional Roehm said as the inaugural parade tromped silently along on a muted television screen in Twin Peaks Tavern, known as the Castro's answer to "Cheers."

It is believed to be the first gay bar in the country that uncovered its windows, opened its doors and let the world look inside. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted to designate the bright and cozy saloon an official city landmark.

That heartened Roehm, who has co-owned the Twin Peaks for nearly a decade. But it was a different kind of history that overwhelmed him Monday. As Obama likened the gay rights movement to campaigns for civil rights and women's suffrage, Roehm texted a friend in Seattle before the president was even done talking.

Obama, Roehm thumbed, "makes me so proud to be an American!!"

A few blocks down Castro Street, Alan Pardini and Ken Noyes walked hand in hand, taking an afternoon break from home repair. The men have been together for nearly 35 years. Pardini, a San Francisco native, marched with gay rights activist Harvey Milk in the 1970s before Milk was assassinated.

"We're standing here near Harvey's camera store on Martin Luther King Day, and a historic president is including us in the definition of the civic family," Pardini said. "I'm just glad that he did."

Obama's words brought out more than immense feelings of personal pride. In dozens of interviews, many gay Californians commented on the president's pragmatism.

Obama announced his support for gay marriage last year, after his outspoken vice president, Joe Biden, did so. And he waited until he had no more elections ahead, many noted, to make Monday's bold comments about gay rights.

George Balsana, who was strolling the Castro with an out-of-town guest, said he was touched when he heard the president talk about "Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall" in the same breath. It took "bravery," the tech worker said.

"But … 20 years ago, it would have surprised me more," Balsana added. "It's his second term. He can do what he wants."

Mallard, a Republican who said he supported Obama, was touched by the symbolism of the president's speech but wanted to see more. Mallard is a retired biochemist turned chef. His partner, Scott McDonald, is a retired Army officer. On Monday they were hanging out in Long Beach's Sweetwater Saloon.

The two men have been together for 23 years, but Mallard said he would not have access to McDonald's pension should something happen to his partner. And they can't get married in California.

"In the next four years, do I think I can walk down the street holding the hand of my gay husband?" Mallard asked. "I don't know."

maria.laganga@latimes.com

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

rick.rojas@latimes.com

La Ganga reported from San Francisco and Flores and Rojas from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Anh Do in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Sheriff's gun buyback collects 386 weapons in Compton

As cars snaked through a series of orange cones in a Compton parking lot, five shopping carts slowly filled with rifles and assault weapons. Nearby, plastic produce crates overflowed with handguns, spare gun parts and ammunition magazines.

The weapons and accessories came from a gun buyback program held Monday by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the agency's first such effort since 2009. Deputies sweated under unseasonably warm temperatures as they lifted weapons out of car trunks and truck beds and chalked the weapons' value on each windshield. Volunteers emptied magazines and threaded zip ties through barrels.

More than an hour before the buyback was scheduled to start, 15 cars waited. By 5 p.m., deputies had collected 386 weapons, including 193 rifles, 144 handguns and 22 assault rifles. Those who turned in the weapons left with $50 in gift cards in exchange for gun parts and non-working guns; $100 for handguns, shotguns and rifles; and up to $200 for assault weapons.

"You just never know what you're going to get," Det. Fernando Gonzales said, lifting a shotgun out of a car trunk and examining a sawed-off barrel. "No good has ever come from this one."

The buyback was the second in as many months in L.A. County. In late December, the Los Angeles Police Department collected 2,037 firearms at a similar buyback, including 75 assault weapons and two rocket launchers. Both buybacks follow increased concern about gun safety in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 27 dead, including the gunman.

The Sheriff Department's buyback program began in 2005 and continued annually until 2009, when it was put on hold during a round of budget cuts. This year's program was planned in less than two weeks, and netted fewer weapons than in the past. The biggest year on record was 2008, when deputies collected 1,267 firearms during a two-day weekend event.

Although 27 of the 31 homicides in Compton in 2012 involved a firearm, holding the buyback in the city didn't mean the department was specifically calling on its residents to bring in guns, Sheriff Lee Baca said. Indeed, the community — which traditionally has had a reputation for violence and gang activity — has seen its overall violent crime rate fall 15% in the last five years.

John West, 64, traded in a rusted revolver and a Derringer pistol from his gun safe. West said he keeps at least 15 guns at home in Fullerton, including a semiautomatic that he keeps for self-defense. He shoots it regularly to stay in practice.

Some brought BB guns and toy pistols. Others, semiautomatic rifles engraved in Chinese and Russian. A few relatives brought inherited weapons, including a World War II-era Italian pistol, still in its case, and a replica of a black powder Civil War pistol.

"I had no idea what to do with it," said Wilmer Abram, 89, of San Pedro, who arrived with a 2-inch Smith & Wesson pistol that he inherited from his nephew. "I certainly don't want it."

Jose Ramirez dropped off a Russian-made semiautomatic rifle that he bought in the 1990s in exchange for a $200 Ralph's gift card. Since purchasing the rifle, he married and had five children.

"At this point in my life, I'd rather have groceries," Ramirez said, as two of his kids giggled in the back seat. "We don't need that risk."

The Sheriff's Department will destroy the guns in July at its annual weapons meltdown. The steel will be used for rebar, road construction and art installations called "peace angels."

laura.nelson@latimes.com

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County official calls car leasing contract procedure 'embarrassing'

Auditors reviewing a $1.75-million car leasing contract given to a company with a politically connected lobbying firm found that Los Angeles County officials had failed to create a "truly competitive" process, but that there was no evidence of improper influence.

Investigators with the county auditor-controller's office reviewed the Enterprise Rent-a-Car contract at the request of Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. A report by KCET-TV had raised questions about the way the business was awarded.

Enterprise was given a sole-source, five-year deal in March to provide 60 leased  vehicles to the county's Community Development Commission and to maintain the agency's existing fleet. Commission staff projected that outsourcing the fleet services would save about $300,000 a year.

The Nov. 28 report on KCET's "SoCal Connected" focused on the lobbying firm Englander Knabe & Allen and questioned whether its clients — including Enterprise — got an unfair advantage because partner Matt Knabe is the son of county Supervisor Don Knabe, who voted along with all the other supervisors to award the contract.

Both Knabes have said that their relationship has never posed a conflict, and a spokesman for the Englander firm has said Matt Knabe never lobbies his father directly.

The auditor-controller found no evidence of attempts to influence the rental car award. Matt Knabe told investigators that no one from his firm had lobbied on the contract, and the commission's executive director said he was "100% confident" the supervisor's son did not influence the process.

"The report shows that Matt acted professionally and used no undue influence in his dealings with the county," said Englander partner Eric Rose.

But the review did find that county staff did an "inadequate" job of trying to find other potential bidders.

Asked by KCET what vendors had been contacted and given a chance to compete for the business, a county analyst created a list to make it appear the department had reached out to 50 companies. In fact, only 16 firms had been contacted, auditors found. Enterprise was the only company that responded to the email request, and staff made no follow-up attempt to contact the other firms.

According to the auditor's report, the count of 50 vendors was originally used as a "place holder" in a template document and never corrected. By the time the contract was awarded, the contract analyst "felt he could not correct the number without embarrassment."

Investigators also found that the agency violated its own policy by not advertising the contract on the commission's or the county's websites, and that the contract should have gone through a full bidding process.

In addition, several vendors that contract officials emailed to invite interest had no "realistic potential" to provide a leased fleet to the county in the first place, the review concluded.

Investigators wrote that they couldn't determine whether the commission could have gotten a better deal but said "the potential for greater savings from a more competitive process appears to be plausible."

County auditor-controller Wendy Watanabe called the situation "embarrassing" but chalked up the issues to incompetence rather than intentional steering.

"I think they got lazy, they took a shortcut, and they didn't think it was that big of a deal," she said.

Watanabe said the investigation had focused on the Enterprise contract, so she could not say whether there was a broader issue with the agency's contracting process.

Commission representatives could not be reached Monday. The commission was slated to respond to the report's findings within 30 days.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

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Mendocino County spars with feds over conflicting marijuana laws

Mendocino County is fighting efforts by federal prosecutors to get records on medical marijuana growers who signed up for a program intended to sanction their businesses under state law.

The county's resistance creates a rare legal clash between local and federal authorities over conflicting marijuana laws. The U.S. Justice Department has been targeting growers and purveyors of medical cannabis, and threatening local or state officials who try to regulate the trade, saying all marijuana use is illegal under federal law.

Last March, Mendocino County officials bowed to such threats and stopped issuing permits to grow up to 99 plants. Now county attorneys are urging a federal judge in San Francisco to quash a federal subpoena issued in October demanding a wide range of information about the cultivation program, including applications of growers seeking permits.

Two marijuana advocacy groups seeking clearer laws in California filed briefs arguing that compliance with the subpoena would reveal confidential medical information and bank records and "undermine the county's considered and thoughtful attempts to regulate marijuana pursuant to state law."

"The message this sends to people across the state trying to comply in good faith with medical marijuana regulations is that they should operate below ground," said Adam Wolf, a San Francisco attorney representing the two groups, the Emerald Growers Assn. and Americans for Safe Access. "That's the last thing the government should do."

A spokesman for Melinda Haag, the U.S. attorney for Northern California, declined to comment on the case. The subpoena does not make clear what or who is being investigated. A hearing is set for Jan. 29.

Mendocino County instituted County Code 9.31 in 2010 to try to control a surge of marijuana cultivation. Robberies jumped as newcomers flooded in. And with no regulation, many growers illegally graded, logged and diverted creeks to produce huge, multimillion-dollar crops.

Some local growers wanted to "reintegrate into the county and not feel like outlaws," said county Supervisor John McCowen. Those who registered with the sheriff had to install security fencing and cameras, pay permitting fees up to $6,450 a year and undergo inspections four times a year. Every plant was given a zip-tie with a sheriff's serial number on it.

Eighteen growers signed up the first year. Medical marijuana advocates hailed the zip-tie program as the first to create a clear, legal means for growers to supply the medical market.

George Unsworth, 60, was among those who participated. He loves to show photos from the day deputies first came to inspect his pot. "To be in a garden with them in a Mendocino forest, and not be in handcuffs facedown in the dirt, but to be shaking hands, it was beautiful," he said. "I take my hat off to Mendocino County."

The U.S. attorney was quick to show its disapproval. Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided the farm of the first person to register, Joy Greenfield. Still, 91 growers signed up the next year.

Agents then targeted Matt Cohen, the grower most vocal in advocating for the program and getting it set up.

Despite the raids, county officials planned to continue the program. It had paid for itself — generating an estimated $600,000 — over two years and allowed the sheriff to focus on growers causing more problems.

"The program drew a clear line between those who were doing everything to be compliant with local and state laws and people who were outlaws," McCowen said. "The marijuana industry was completely out of control, and the permit program was an effort to bring order out of chaos, and it was working."

But county officials stopped the permitting and inspections in March after the U.S. attorney threatened them with legal action. The federal subpoena landed in October, demanding records of inspections, applications, internal county emails, notes, memos and bank account numbers.

McCowen said he can't understand why prosecutors are focusing on the county's registered growers. "When you've eliminated all those outlaw, trespass growers, then come talk to us about our legally compliant 99-plant growers."

Lawyers for the county and the marijuana groups argue that the subpoena should be quashed because it seeks privileged information and would gut attempts to regulate medical marijuana. They say similar attempts by the federal government to undermine state and local marijuana laws were rejected in court.

Kristin Nevedal, chairwoman of the Emerald Growers Assn., said her members are very concerned about the subpoena. "All these folks who got involved in the zip-tie program really felt they were doing the right thing following state law."

Unsworth, who signed up for the program the first year, said he knew the demands by federal authorities were coming. An Air Force veteran with multiple sclerosis, he didn't care. He said he wanted to put his face on the medical marijuana movement and hopes the case goes to the Supreme Court.

"Until we change the federal law, we're breaking the law. Period. We're lawbreakers."

joe.mozingo@latimes.com

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Clara Jane Nixon dies at 93; sister-in-law of President Nixon

Her famous brother-in-law had not yet been elected president. But he already had been vice president, as well as a U.S. senator and a congressman from California, and Clara Jane Nixon wanted to preserve some of his family history.

So, beginning in 1967, the Newport Beach homemaker set out to track down and collect the furniture, books and other belongings that had filled the modest boyhood home of Richard M. Nixon. She hoped that one day the artifacts might be displayed in a museum.

With the help of other family members, the wife of F. Donald Nixon, a brother of the future president, found and preserved hundreds of items from his childhood home in Yorba Linda, including the piano on which he took lessons, the table where his family ate its meals and the china and crystal his parents received as wedding gifts.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

She found the high chair he used as a toddler, the bed on which he was born and the quilt, dating from 1875, that had been used to cover it. The furnishings and other belongings of the Nixon family are displayed in the 900-square-foot farmhouse, a museum near the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda.

"Clara Jane was just essential to all those artifacts being saved," her brother-in-law Ed Nixon said in a phone interview Sunday. "We're very thankful she was there all these years and for everything she did to preserve the family history."

Clara Jane Nixon died Thursday at a convalescent facility in Irvine where she was receiving care after a recent fall at the home where she had moved after her husband's death in 1987, family members said. She was 93.

She was born Clara Jane Lemke on Nov. 16, 1919, in Westmoreland, a community in Imperial County where her parents were homesteading. She weighed in at less than five pounds, according to the scale — normally used for weighing chickens — that her father employed for the task, her daughter LawreneAnfinson said in a phone interview.

She grew up in Placentia, where her parents, Lawrence and Mae Lemke, were citrus farmers. After graduating from Fullerton High School, she attended Sawyer Business College in Westwood and later worked as a secretary at a law firm.

In 1940, when she was 20, she was introduced to F. Donald Nixon, who was her third cousin on her mother's side. They dated for just three weeks before he asked for her hand, and they were married on Aug. 9, 1942. They had three children: daughter Lawrene, who was named for her grandfather Lawrence, and sons Donald and Richard.

Their son Richard Calvert Nixon died in 2002. In addition to her daughter and her son Donald, Clara Nixon's survivors include six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

In later years, after President Nixon resigned in disgrace on Aug. 9, 1974, his youngest brother was often asked about the significance of the date.

"Whenever anyone asked me, I would say, 'Well, it was Don's and Clara Jane's 32nd anniversary,'" Ed Nixon said.

rebecca.trounson@latimes.com

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Gun control draws vigorous debate across California

From shooting ranges to churches, gun control was the subject of vigorous debate over the weekend at various venues across California.

In Sacramento, hundreds rallied in front of the Capitol on Saturday to protest efforts to restrict gun ownership. President Obama has called for an assault weapons ban, a universal background check system for every gun sale and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

At the Los Angeles Gun Club, range master Joseph Im said the downtown facility had seen an uptick in its ammunition sales since the Sandy Hook shooting and the renewed debate over gun control.

Thomas Brambila, 38, and Tamara Vravis, 43, had come to the range on a first date. Brambila said he had grown up target shooting, although he does not own a gun now because he has young children at home. He called Obama's gun control proposal "misguided."

Vravis said she grew up on a ranch in Minnesota, where guns were common. She agreed with Brambila.

"I think if you really want to get a gun, you can get a gun. It's going to hurt the law-abiding citizens," she said of the move to tighten gun laws.

While some people were celebrating their love of guns, others held events to draw attention to gun violence. A network of churches around the country planned a Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath in response to the Sandy Hook shooting, with services centering on community members who have lost family members to gun violence.

The City of Refuge Church in Gardena held special services Sunday to call for efforts to crack down on gun violence. Hollywood Adventist Church held a smaller gathering of a few dozen Saturday.

Carmen Taylor Jones and Darryl Jones spoke about their 15-year-old daughter, Breon Taylor, who was killed five years ago Saturday when two young men shot through a window into the Lakewood Masonic Lodge, where Breon was one of several hundred young people attending a birthday party. Breon and a 17-year-old boy were killed.

It was the day before Taylor Jones' 45th birthday.

"At that moment, in the twinkling of an eye, everyone's lives, some of their destinies were interrupted," Taylor Jones said.

The gunmen who shot into the party, 16 and 19 at the time, were eventually sentenced to a combined 400 years in prison.

Taylor Jones, who grew up in Watts, said she sees memorials for other young people who were gunned down and worries about the safety of her 15-year-old son.

"When he's with me in South Los Angeles, I almost feel like he's a target, like he has a mark on him," she said.

Taylor Jones said she believes the Sandy Hook massacre got people's attention in a way that individual tragedies like her daughter's death couldn't. She called Obama's gun control proposal "a step in the right direction."

"It's just time for us to have some very serious conversations," she said.

The Sacramento protest was one of dozens held at state capitals nationwide as politicians push new gun laws.

They keep adding more and more laws," said Wes Holst, who hosts a radio show about guns in Santa Cruz. "More laws don't prevent crime."

Some people waved flags or hoisted signs saying "Hands off my guns" and "Gun laws don't stop criminals, bullets do," and many spoke fearfully of restrictions they say would leave them defenseless against criminals or even a government they view with suspicion.

California has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and there were no firearms to be seen at Saturday's rally. A few people wore empty holsters.

Daniel Silverman, an information technology consultant who lives in Tracy, Calif., said he organized the Sacramento event as part of a grass-roots campaign called Guns Across America. He said the rally was not connected to Gun Appreciation Day, which was started by a Republican consulting firm in Washington.

He said politicians have unfairly singled out firearms as the cause of violence. A gun, he said, is only "a piece of plastic, aluminum and steel that does no harm in the hands of good men and women."

abby.sewell@latimes.com

chris.megerian@latimes.com

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L.A. teachers union members OK new evaluation method

A landmark agreement to use student test scores for the first time in evaluating Los Angeles Unified teachers was approved by union members Saturday.

United Teachers Los Angeles reported that 66% of 16,892 members who voted approved the agreement with the nation's second-largest school district. L.A. Unified now joins Chicago, New York and many other cities in using testing data as one measure of a teacher's effect on student academic progress. About half the union's 34,000 members voted.

In a victory for the union, however, the pact limits the use of a controversial method of analyzing a teacher's impact on student learning known as value-added. Instead, the two sides agreed to evaluate teachers with such data as raw state test scores, district assessments, high school exit exams and rates of attendance, graduation, suspensions and course completion.

The agreement will force the district to alter its new evaluation system, which was to use a teacher's individual value-added score along with a rigorous new observation process, student and parent feedback and an educator's contribution to the school community. Parts of the new performance reviews are currently being tested in the district's 1,300 schools.

UTLA President Warren Fletcher hailed the vote as an endorsement of union efforts to prevent the use of individual value-added scores in evaluations. Schoolwide value-added scores will be used, however.

"We worked hard at the bargaining table to craft a system that intelligently uses student data in the evaluation of teachers," he said.

L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy said he was gratified by what he called a larger-than-expected margin of victory.

"It's a sign that members really want us to begin moving forward with a more improved way around evaluations," he said.

Deasy said he planned to unveil details of how testing data will be incorporated into teacher evaluations in the next week. The guidelines will include recommendations for how much weight to give test scores; he has said in the past that it should count for about 30%.

The agreement was prompted by a court order last year by Los Angeles County Superior Judge James C. Chalfant, who ruled that L.A. Unified's failure to use student test scores to help measure a teacher's performance violated state law.

At least some of those who voted for the agreement did so reluctantly.

Cheryl Ortega, the union's director of bilingual education, said she remained troubled by the inclusion of an even limited use of the value-added method, which L.A. Unified calls Academic Growth Over Time. That method uses a complex statistical formula to attempt to isolate a teacher's effect on student performance by controlling for such factors as poverty and English language ability.

Ortega called the method "unreliable and unscientific," reflecting a common view among teachers unions and some educators and researchers. But she ultimately voted for the pact because she feared the courts could impose an even worse system on teachers, she said.

"Everything in my being wanted to vote no," Ortega said. "But it was the best deal that could be gotten."

Monica Ratliff, a fifth-grade teacher at San Pedro Elementary, has similar concerns about value-added and voted no. Ratliff, a Los Angeles school board candidate who was recently elected to the union's House of Representatives, said she frequently reviews raw test scores for concrete information about specific skills her students are struggling with, such as grammar or reading comprehension. But she said value-added scores were useless in telling her where to improve and that she feared the agreement would open the door to wider use of them.

Ratliff said she was also concerned about using schoolwide test scores to judge her individual performance.

"I didn't necessarily think what was negotiated was beneficial for an individual teacher," she said.

Fletcher said the union chose to delay the ratification vote until after winter break to give members more than a month to study, discuss and debate the proposed agreement.

"We felt the agreement was the best route to comply with the court order," he said. "But some members had principled disagreement, and we wanted to get that out too."

Across the country, school districts are changing the way they review teachers using test scores as one measure of their effectiveness. The Obama administration has promoted the system, setting up a competitive grant program that encouraged the move. Unions, however, have only reluctantly obliged; they mostly have opposed weighting evaluations heavily on test scores.

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

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