:: Two interesting L.A. geography stories in today's LATimes. First up, meet John Trichak, the Riverside County engineering technician whose job is to name all of the county's new streets. Riverside is one of the nation's fastest-growing counties, so it's a much more time-consuming job than you think. Especially when developers keep trying to run past long street names, or ones that already sound like pre-existing streets, or ones that are just plain goofy.
To show a visitor what slipped through before he took the job, Trichak pulled out a copy of a yellowed Riverside Press-Enterprise article. He pointed to a photo of street signs reading Thata Way and Whicha Way — an intersection in Hemet named before the city was incorporated.
"Just imagine the confusion," he said with a quick laugh.
Planners back then probably didn't think Riverside County would become home to so many people, Trichak said, or they wouldn't have approved those too-cute-by-half names, which could cause deadly mix-ups for police and firefighters — plus headaches for postal workers and pizza deliverers.
"We have to think about now but also about the future," he said.
(Photo: Ifran Kahn, Los Angeles Times)
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:: Also, the weirdly-drawn border between West Hollywood and Los Angeles has caused countless headaches, this interesting piece notes. Several apartment buildings, homes and businesses are sliced right down the center.
Once upon a time, that meant receiving two tax bills. Luckily, that has changed... but it's still an odd existence, having one foot in each city:
For individual homeowners whose properties are split, the necessity of paying two property tax bills was obviated by state legislation that allowed parcels of less than 25,000 square feet to be assigned to one tax rate area.
Morris and Evelyn Fromer for four decades have lived in a small house on North Flores Street that the border cleaves nearly in half. Cooking in one city and watching television in another, all without leaving the house, hasn't created much difficulty for them, Morris said, although having to deal with two property tax bills used to be an annoyance.
Nowadays, the Fromers' property is wholly in a tax rate area that benefits the city of Los Angeles. "I used to figure I lived in Los Angeles County. Right now, I'm mixed up, but I don't care," Fromer said. "My wife's glad at least that she doesn't have to do two bills."
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:: Speaking of the L.A. Times, the paper's website has quietly switched to trumpet its "Most-Viewed Stories," rather than its "Most E-Mailed Stories."
It's a subtle switch... but probably was necessary, since the same quirky stories (think the Mini-KISS tribute band smackdown) would dominate the "Most-Emailed" list for days at a time. (The LAT website still provides a list of its "Most-Emailed" stories, but you have to click to find it.)
The "Most-Viewed" list, on the other hand, would seemingly change almost hourly, depending on the top news story of the moment. (The one above is from a few days ago.)
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:: Tip of the hat to LA Voice for finding this story: According to Edmunds.com, SUV arson is on the rise, as over-their-heads lease owners opt to hire goons to "steal" the car and set them on fire (releasing them of those insanely expensive car payments).
One problem, as you may have guessed: Insurance fraud is, um, illegal. And the companies aren't as dumb as you might think:
Investigators found the arson-for-hire ring involved a new-car dealership in Cerritos, California. Debt-weary SUV owners contacted the finance manager, hoping to trade in their gas-guzzler for something cheaper. They were then put in touch with an arsonist who told them to leave the keys in the ignition and $300 cash in the glovebox. An arsonist would then take the car to a remote location and set it afire. After the car was torched, the owners would then contact their insurance company and report their vehicle stolen, expecting their debt to be cancelled. Instead, they were investigated for insurance fraud.
A sting operation was arranged and an undercover officer posed as an "upside-down" SUV owner who wanted his vehicle burned. "Upside-down" refers to a loan where more money is owed than the car is worth. The vehicle was left at a predetermined location with cash in the glovebox. However, the would-be arsonist didn't know there was a "dash cam" installed in the car to videotape his actions. When the arsonist removed the money and started to drive away, investigators hit a kill switch and triggered the door locks, trapping him inside. Simultaneously, warrants were served on seven other people involved in the arson ring.
(Photo via Edmunds.com)
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:: Martini Republic congratulates its contributor Tod Mesirow on the series finale of "Monster Garage," which wraps tonight with a series finale on the Discovery Channel. Mesirow is the show’s exective producer.
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:: The Downtown News has more detail on the disappearance of Kent Twitchell's famed "Ed Ruscha Monument" mural in downtown L.A. It's sounding increasingly like a pure bonehead move that no one wants to now 'fess up to.
The building's owner, the Department of Labor, and the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles, which runs the Labor Dept.'s Job Corps program, are blaming eachother for the result. According to the paper, the building was undergoing a renovation, which left some scars on the mural. The marks were patched up... but rather than go through the hassle of repairing the mural, someone at the building ordered it painted over:
From mid-April through the end of May, contractors had been restoring the building's façade in anticipation of the Job Corps' new Urban Campus at 1016 S. Olive St., adjacent to the structure. During the course of the work, two- and three-foot chunks of concrete had been removed from the north and south sides of the six-story building...
The removal of the concrete chunks was evidently part of an effort to strengthen the poured-concrete walls, which had been weakened as water migrated through hairline cracks to rust rebar underneath, said Nathan Zakheim, a mural conservator who has worked with Twitchell on a handful of other projects.
By the week before the paint job, the holes - many of which had gone right down to the reinforcing rebar - had been patched, with only those limited portions of the mural destroyed.
Even that destruction was avoidable, Zakheim said. By applying a special blend of resin - roughly the same substance that protects the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - Zakheim could have selectively removed the sections in question to allow the rust abatement to go forward. After replacing the sections, all that the job would have required was a quick painting touch-up.
"You would not be able to tell the holes had ever been cut or the patches had ever been placed," Zakheim said.
But because Twitchell was never contacted regarding any of the work - and state law requires the notification of an artist before the destruction or alteration of any work - Zakheim never got the chance.
Over the course of a few hours on the morning of June 2, painters in the basket of a cherry picker worked from west to east to cover the mural. They started with the part that held the nearly six-story tall Rushca, rather than the blank eastern stretch.
(Photo: Gary Leonard/Downtown News)
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