Four new legless lizard species discovered in California

Scientists have discovered four new species of legless lizards in California, including one species that lives beneath the sand dunes near Los Angeles International Airport.

But before we go on, let's get one thing straight: Yes, a snake is a legless lizard, but not all legless lizards are snakes.

Throughout the history of lizard evolution, several lizard lineages have lost their legs, James Parham of Cal State Fullerton said. Snakes are the best-known and most diverse of these lineages, but more than 200 other types of limbless lizards exist throughout the world.

In California, five legless lizard species have been identified, all of them part of a group called Anniella. Four of these legless lizards are new to science and were recently described in Breviora, a publication of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.

And how do they differ from snakes?

"Anniella can blink at you, but snakes can't because they don't have eyelids," said Parham, one of the authors of the paper.

They also don't shed their skin in one piece like snakes do, and they move differently.

"Snakes can coil up a lot more, and they are more slithery," Parham said. "Anniella tend to be more rigid."

Anniella are pretty small animals, about as thick as a pencil and rarely more than 8 inches long. They spend their lives wiggling beneath loose, sandy soil, snacking on bugs and larvae.

They don't move fast or far, and the researchers say they may spend their whole lives in an area about the size of your dining room table.

Aside from that, scientists still don't know much about them.

"They are one of the most poorly studied reptiles in California," Parham said. "Because they live under the sand, you can't see what they are doing, and you can't even do a mark-and-recapture because you can't reliably capture these things."

Parham and his coauthor, Theodore Papenfuss, a herpetologist with the UC Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, have been scouring the state for legless lizards for 15 years. When they began their research, only one type of legless lizard was known to live in California.

One of the four newly identified species of Anniella, the Southern California legless lizard, was found under some dead leaves in dunes at the west end of LAX.

The Bakersfield legless lizard was found in three vacant lots in that city's downtown.

The southern Sierra legless lizard was spotted in three dry canyons on the edge of the Mojave Desert, and the Temblor legless lizard was found in the oil fields around Taft, a city on the southwestern edge of the San Joaquin Valley.

To find these lizards, the scientists scattered 2,000 pieces of cardboard and plywood throughout the state to create moist, cool areas, which appeal to the lizards. Then they returned months later to see if any of the lizards had shown up.

Parham says he and Papenfuss still have 1,000 boards around the state that they plan to check come spring, when the legless lizards are most likely to surface. And who knows — they may uncover even more species.

"This is very much an evolving study," he said.

deborah.netburn@latimes.com

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Napolitano choice fuels criticism over UC system's selection process

The high-profile and surprising choice of former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to head the UC system has fueled criticism over the secret selection process, echoing debates around the country about how higher-education leaders are chosen.

Supporters of a more open method say that better decisions are made when three or four finalists for a university presidency or chancellorship are formally identified to the public. At that point, faculty and students could have a chance to meet them before a final selection.

Some public universities in other states are required to do just that, but the UC and Cal State systems usually do not name more than one finalist and do not divulge the closed-door discussions that led to the nomination. Additionally, the final votes by the UC regents and Cal State trustees provide little information about the searches.

Though widely praised, the selection of Napolitano in July also came as a shock to many outside a relatively small circle of UC regents and other officials.

Some activists at California's public campuses and elsewhere hope to change California's higher-education hiring procedures.

"We want to see a transparent UC, where the people who are paid out of student tuition money are accountable," said Caroline McKusick, a leader of UAW 2865, which represents teaching assistants and other student employees in UC.

McKusick said that complaints about how Napolitano's federal agency handled deportations of immigrants who crossed the border illegally should have been publicly aired before she was named as the sole nominee.

However, UC regents, Cal State trustees and some experts in academic hiring insist that the best candidates — and certainly someone like Napolitano, who had a sensitive job — would be scared away if the searches are fully transparent. They say that state laws and university rules allow closed-door discussions of such hirings with good reason. And they insist that search committees include student, alumni and faculty representatives for a wide range of views.

Sherry Lansing, the UC regent who headed the search committee that nominated Napolitano, declined to discuss specifics about the hiring discussions, citing a pledge of confidentiality. But speaking in general, Lansing said that confidentiality in UC executive searches is "the only way that you can have the broadest pool" of talented candidates.

Napolitano, who is scheduled to start the UC job on Sept. 30, has not responded to requests for interviews.

Some states such as Wisconsin and Hawaii have routinely issued the names of several finalists for top jobs at public universities and invited them to campus forums before one is selected. Florida has gone further in revealing the identities of larger groups of nominees early on.

But legislation to restrict such information was recently adopted in several states, and there is a long history of court challenges from media organizations seeking access to meetings and information. Louisiana State University officials, for example, are appealing a court decision that slapped them with heavy fines for not publicly disclosing their final candidates before they chose new president F. King Alexander, who previously had been head of Cal State Long Beach.

"It's a big debate in my world," said James Ferrare, a senior vice president of the Assn. of Governing Boards, which represents college trustees and regents. He also is an executive at AGB Search, an executive search firm that specializes in higher education. Ferrare said public openness is more important than the potential loss of candidates fearing disclosure.

"Transparency is a much bigger word in higher education than it was in the past," said Ferrare, who has co-written a guidebook on college presidential searches. "I think students, faculty and staff are eager to be a more active participants and be more vocal about that."

Public forums can benefit the finalist candidates as well as the students and faculty, said Craig Smith, a professor of communication studies at Cal State Long Beach. He and other faculty members are pushing for a more open search for Alexander's replacement than the Cal State system conducted recently at other campuses.

"Serious candidates should be exposed to the campus. I think the give and take is important since they get a sense of the people and issues they may face," said Smith, who is director of the campus Center for First Amendment Studies.

Before a policy change in 2011, Cal State traditionally disclosed the names of three or so finalists for campus presidencies and held public visits, according to spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp. But after seeing good candidates drop out early, Cal State decided to leave disclosure to the discretion of the system chancellor and the trustee who heads the search.

None of the six searches since then, including recent ones at Cal State Los Angeles and Fresno, revealed finalists' names, Uhlenkamp said.

"We are choosing from a bigger pool to give us the best possible candidate," he said. No decision has been made on how to handle the Long Beach situation, he added.

That new policy was criticized in a Fresno Bee editorial in May that said a more open process breeds more committed candidates: "It weeds out the tire-kickers and job-seekers simply looking for a bigger paycheck or a change of scenery."

Similarly, after Napolitano's selection, UCLA's Daily Bruin student newspaper called on UC regents to explain "how they picked an individual with no experience in California politics and no familiarity with its public universities."

The differences among states is personified in Kim Wilcox, who was hired last month as UC Riverside chancellor in a process that did not reveal competitors. Over the last two years, he had been publicly identified as a finalist, and later lost bids, to head public universities in Wisconsin, Wyoming and Hawaii. Wilcox declined to comment.

Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, said her experience as a university executive in North Carolina, Arizona and in Cal State convinced her that confidentiality attracts the best leaders.

She said she has "a deep and abiding commitment to the 1st Amendment," but open searches have "a chilling effect" and often lead to the hiring of less experienced candidates than a more confidential process. Napolitano probably would not have come to UC if she had been publicly identified as one of several candidates, Broad said: "Look at the job she was in. What if the nation was in some kind of Homeland Security crisis?"

Such controversies probably will increase in the next few years as more top university executives in the baby boom generation retire, said Michael McLendon, a professor of higher-education policy and leadership at Southern Methodist University.

With more states pushing for confidentiality and other constituencies advocating for information, McLendon said, "the question will be where do we draw the line to balance those interests."

larry.gordon@latimes.com

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Buffaloes threaten pristine landscape

SACRAMENTO — The Brown administration and some water buffaloes want to muck up one of the most unique, mysterious and picturesque areas of California. Muck it up literally.

OK, they're really trying to update California's vital waterworks and prepare the state for the future.

But their solution would defile a bucolic region whose feel and lifestyle have changed little for more than a century. You just don't find many such places any more, at least near large metropolitan centers.

We're talking about the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of America, north or south. It's also California's main water hole, the source of drinking water for 24 million people and irrigation for 3 million acres.

Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to bore two gigantic 40-foot wide, 30-mile-long tunnels under the delta to carry fresh Sacramento River water into the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The water would be siphoned by three large intakes downriver from Sacramento and funneled into aqueducts in the southern delta.

It would be an engineering marvel — and also a major disrupter of farming, recreation and wildlife. The tunnel muck — a gazillion truck loads full — would be piled high on islands all over the delta. Some ultimately would be used to shore up levees.

The tunnels are conservatively estimated to cost $16 billion, to be paid for by the water users through higher monthly rates. That includes you, SoCal homeowners.

The big promoters of the project are Brown and the buffaloes — so named because, like the beast, they reputedly can smell water from hundreds of miles away. Essentially, they're the heads of the major irrigation districts and water agencies south of the delta.

The total tab for the project is pegged at $25 billion. The non-tunnel costs would be paid for by all taxpayers through a bond issue. This would fund mitigation for damage caused by the tunnels and restoration of the delta and its fishery harmed by the old waterworks.

So why shouldn't the water users who messed up the delta in the first place pay for its repair? They should. But that's for another column.

The worst culprits in the current system are giant pumps in the southern delta that chomp up fish — including the tiny, endangered smelt — and reverse river flows that fatally confuse migrating salmon. That has resulted in courts tightening the spigot and reducing water transfers south, angering San Joaquin farmers and frightening buffaloes.

The tunnel project is designed to make delta water deliveries more reliable — and to replace a Peripheral Canal scheme that voters rejected 31 years ago.

But the tunnels would be built right through the heart of the delta's most pristine area, a region of meandering rivers and sloughs, cottonwoods and oaks, vines and reeds, salmon and bass, great blue herons and bullfrogs. It's a Huck Finn paradise frequented by boaters piloting everything from fishing skiffs to luxurious houseboats.

Yes, I'm biased. This place is one of California's best-kept secrets. I'll bet it's a secret from Brown — or would like to think that anyway.

One popular, isolated area is called the Meadows. "On-water access to the marina at Delta Meadows State Park would not be affected," the tunnel planners assure us in a description of the project.

But there is no marina at the Meadows. It's not even a developed park, raising questions about the credibility of other assurances and information provided by state officials.

The tunnel alignment recently was shifted east to avoid tearing up hundreds of acres of valuable pear orchards that date to the 1850s. "That [tunnel] line keeps flapping around like a garden hose," one official told me, insisting on anonymity to avoid being fired.

But a big red flag for many environmentalists is that the tunnels would be dug smack down the middle of Staten Island, a winter sanctuary for migratory birds. They include thousands of threatened sandhill cranes, thought to be the oldest bird species. They'd have to share the island with two humongous muck mounds, two construction shafts and some ear-splitting pile drivers.

Twelve years ago, the Nature Conservancy bought the island with $30 million in voter-approved state bond money to protect the cranes. You'd think someone would sue on behalf of the cranes.

One rationale for this super-expensive, land-scarring project is that it's needed to guard against a catastrophic earthquake. A severe quake, it's said, could collapse delta levies, sucking in salt water and shutting down fresh water deliveries for several months. A tunnel system would bypass the levees.

I've bought into that argument previously. And so have voters, based on polls.

"It's just propaganda," says Bob Pyke, a Bay Area consulting engineer who specializes in earthquake protection. "The delta is fairly quiet seismically." The 1906 San Francisco earthquake on the San Andreas Fault didn't topple any delta levees "and they were really crappy then," he says, adding that they're much sturdier today.

"I call it the earthquake boogie man," Pyke says. "It's deliberately overblown because it's something that sells well to the public."

We're looking at chasing farmers off their lands, driving people out of their homes, hacking down wilderness and screwing up recreational boating with construction barges.

Maybe that's all inevitable in the name of progress. But we need more serious thought — a lot more — given to conservation, recycling, groundwater cleanup and desalination.

Brown hungers to complete the historic water project begun by his late father, Gov. Pat Brown. But a half century later, he should be more innovative — and preservationist. That would be a richer legacy.

george.skelton@latimes.com

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Who will pay for Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta tunnel project?

Of the many issues hanging over the proposal to burrow enormous tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and replumb the hub of California's water system, the one most likely to make or break the $25-billion project is money.

Just who, exactly, is going to pay for it?

The San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts and urban water agencies in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area that get water supplies from the delta have promised to pick up most of the tab, with federal and state taxpayers paying the rest.

But the key question of precisely how the costs are divvied up between urban and agricultural users is unanswered. And hints have been dropped in recent months that to keep the project alive, urban ratepayers in the Southland may wind up paying more than their share, in effect subsidizing San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests.

Water officials say that is not their intention, but they will not rule out the possibility.

"I'm not saying that we'll end up there," said Roger Patterson, assistant general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a major project participant. "But I don't guarantee anything. It's a pretty fluid process, obviously."

Years in the making, the proposal would partially reconfigure the way the big state and federal water systems convey Northern California supplies through the environmentally distressed delta east of San Francisco. A new diversion point on the Sacramento River in the north delta would feed two 30-mile tunnels leading to southbound aqueducts.

The new facilities would reduce use of the existing, ecologically damaging export pumps in the south delta. Water contractors hope that change — combined with the restoration of more than 100,000 acres of fish and wildlife habitat in the delta — will loosen endangered species restrictions that have reduced deliveries.

Under the "beneficiary pays" principle that has guided the project since its inception, water users will pay for construction, operation and maintenance of the project, estimated at more than $19 billion over 50 years. State and federal funds would cover the habitat work.

Backers have said that user costs would be apportioned according to the size of water contracts with the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project. Under that formula, the biggest bill for the tunnels would go to San Joaquin Valley agriculture, because most water exported from the delta is used by irrigation districts

But that may not be the way it works out.

A recent economic analysis commissioned by the state concluded that from a financial standpoint, urban users would reap the lion's share of project benefits because urban water is far more valuable than irrigation supplies.

That is raising questions. "Is the economic cost-benefit study … stage setting for coming out with, at some point, a bombshell that urban will pick up 70, 80 or 90% of the project costs?," asked Dennis Cushman, assistant general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, one of MWD's biggest customers.

Mark Cowin, director of the state Department of Water Resources, which is shepherding the proposal, said participants continue to assume that they will pay based on their share of the project.

"But we have to have a project that's affordable and we have to have enough participants to make it work," Cowin said. "And ultimately if agricultural water contractors that are questioning the value of the project don't want to participate, there may be some further negotiation.

"There are lots of different ways to allocate costs. If you looked at the value of the project to urban agencies, they could still pay less than they would if they were trying to build the project on their own by providing some reduction in unit costs to the agricultural agencies.

"But I want to be clear that that hasn't been agreed to by any urban agency at this point."

Jim Beck, general manager of the Kern County Water Agency, which supplies southern San Joaquin Valley agriculture, said that the cost distribution would mirror project benefits. But he couldn't say how benefits would be determined.

Westlands Water District, the valley's biggest irrigation district, did not respond to requests for comment.

Project backers are also broaching the possibility that federal and state taxpayers may be asked to buy water from irrigation districts upstream of the delta in the San Joaquin and Sacramento River basins to increase flows through the delta and out to San Francisco Bay.

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O.C. city likely to drop Halloween law aimed at sex offenders

An Orange County city will probably toss out a law requiring registered sex offenders to post a sign in front of their homes on Halloween to discourage trick-or-treaters after it was hit with a federal lawsuit alleging the practice is unconstitutional.

Registered sex offenders in the city of Orange are legally required to post a sign on Halloween, no smaller than 12 by 24 inches, that reads, "No candy or treats at this residence." Violators face a $1,000 fine or up to a year in jail.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday on behalf of an individual identified only as "John Doe," alleges the law violates the 1st Amendment rights of registered sex offenders and puts them, and anyone living with them, at risk of physical and emotional harm.

"If you think about it, a lot of older kids go out to trick rather than treat," said Janice Bellucci, an attorney and president of the California Reform Sex Offender Laws group. "All you have to do is look for the house with the sign."

"Instead of protecting the residents of the city of Orange, this ordinance harms hundreds of citizens in that city," said Frank Lindsay, a board member for the group.

Bellucci filed a similar lawsuit last year to strike down a Simi Valley ordinance that also required people convicted of sex crimes to post a sign. That law also banned them from putting up Halloween displays and outside lighting on Oct. 31.

But the day before the Simi Valley law went into effect, federal court Judge Perry Anderson issued a temporary restraining order barring the city from enforcing the sign provision.

The judge let stand provisions of the ordinance that keep sex offenders from turning on outside lights, decorating their homes and answering their doors to trick-or-treaters.

Bellucci estimates there are about 100 registered sex offenders in Orange. The Megan's Law online directory lists 84.

In Orange, no registered sex offenders have been cited since the ordinance was adopted, said City Atty. Wayne Winthers. When the city passed the law in February 2010 officials counted 81 registered sex offenders, with 81% of them having convictions involving minors, according to city records.

There was no need for the group to file the lawsuit, he said, since the city had been in contact with Bellucci and the City Council was expected to discuss the issue next week in closed session.

"I read the district court's [Simi Valley] ruling and I don't see any reason why the court would look at ours any differently," said Winthers, who said he intended to ask the council to remove the sign requirement from the Halloween ordinance.

"Our intent wasn't to bring any unnecessary harm or scrutiny to any particular individual," Winthers said. "We just wanted to protect children."

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

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For transgender homecoming queen, a crowning achievement

When Cassidy Lynn Campbell woke up on Saturday morning she ambled to her bedroom mirror and took a long, astonished look at herself.

"I was just thinking, what happened last night, what happened?" said the brown-haired 16-year-old. "It's so crazy that I actually won."

On Friday night Cassidy was named homecoming queen at Marina High in Huntington Beach, an event that wouldn't normally get much attention if not for a single fact: Cassidy was born a boy but now lives as a transgender girl.

The Marina High senior put herself up for the title because she hoped to make a statement and draw attention to the push for equality for transgender people. She also became part of a small but growing movement as transgender teens nationwide enter competitions for traditional honors such as homecoming and prom king and queen.

"It seemed like a dream," she said, recalling halftime of Marina's football game against San Juan Hills, the homecoming finalists on the field to hear who would be announced queen.

Cassidy said her legs shook with nervousness as she stood at a podium next to her mother. Then, when she was named winner, she dropped to her knees and broke into tears. Friends began hugging her. The crowd chanted her name.

"It was all very amazing," she said. She celebrated afterward by going to a Norm's diner with about 15 friends and ordering the Lumberjack breakfast: pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausages and hash browns.

Her revelry came to a halt, though, when she returned home and saw what she described as ignorant and hateful attacks on social media. For a while, she grew angry and tearful. "They were voicing their opinion about something they don't even know the full story about. I got really emotional. But when morning came, I was a lot better."

In a previous Times story, Cassidy said she has felt like a girl trapped in a boy's body for as long as she can recall. As a child she went by Lance and wanted to wear dresses and skirts. In high school she began to change her gender. She now takes hormone blockers along with estrogen injections prescribed by an endocrinologist. Her mother, Christine Campbell, is supportive. Her father hasn't discouraged her.

"I just think it is such a huge step for the transgender community," she said Saturday, when asked to put her achievement into perspective. "The majority at my school wanted me to win. So many people embraced me and accept me for who I am. I think that is pretty profound."

kurt.streeter@latimes.com

Times staff writer Adolfo Flores contributed to this report.

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Bob Hope's 1939 Toluca Lake 'dream house' is for sale

Richard Nixon's helicopter once landed on the back lawn so the president could play a round at the nearby Lakeside Golf Club. Lucille Ball and Jack Benny drank and gossiped at the holiday parties in the living room. And the homeowner, Bob Hope, tried out punch lines on his kids in the dining room.

For the first time since the long-lived entertainer built his home in a San Fernando Valley walnut grove in 1939, Hope's 5.16-acre Toluca Lake estate will go on the market Monday, at an asking price of $27.5 million.

The compound that Hope shared with his wife, Dolores, and their four children has a nearly 15,000-square-foot house, a golf hole, an indoor pool and a manicured rose garden. The flat, sprawling lot is unusual for the upscale neighborhood and others like it; in Toluca Lake and similar ZIP Codes in Sherman Oaks, Encino, Studio City, Bel-Air, Holmby Hills and Beverly Hills, there are only 22 properties of more than five acres that belong to a single owner, according to a property search conducted by the estate.

The comedian and movie star collected real estate and at one point was one of California's largest individual property owners, holding some 10,000 acres in the San Fernando Valley alone. But it was the house at 10346 Moorpark St. that he considered home, according to his daughter, Linda Hope, who still lives a few blocks away.

"The Moorpark house is a very special property in the Valley and something that meant a whole lot to my mother and dad," she said. "They built what for them was kind of a dream house."

The sale will mark a major change in the neighborhood that the Hopes helped to shape.

The home, which is listed with Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker and Drew Fenton of Hilton & Hyland, has grown and evolved over the years. Architect Robert Finkelhor designed the original English traditional-style main house, and in the 1950s, John Elgin Woolf renovated it in a more contemporary style, using glass to accommodate Dolores' desire to bring the expansive feeling of the grounds inside.

The Hopes left many belongings for their heirs to sort and distribute, a process that has taken years: multiple auctions of items such as Bob's golf cart and Dolores' Chinese porcelain, a sale at St. Charles Borromeo Church and a garage sale at the home that had lines stretching down Moorpark.

Another Hope home, in Palm Springs, a modernist estate that architect John Lautner designed to resemble a volcano, went on the market in February with an asking price of $50 million and has yet to find a buyer.

"Putting the Moorpark house on the market, in a way it's a light at the end of the tunnel," Linda Hope said. "It's been an occupation for two years at least. Every time we'd open a closet, we'd go, 'Ahh!' "

One amusing find, particularly given the Hopes' vast wealth, was bags of quarters — Dolores' winnings from years of playing gin rummy with actor Telly Savalas.

The six-bedroom, seven-bathroom main house has been staged for sale with contemporary furnishings, but elements of the Hopes' lifestyle dot the property, including the giant "H" in the iron entry gates.

When Bob Hope traveled, often on one of his 57 tours to entertain the U.S. military, Dolores liked to add a room or two. "When Dad came back, Mother would joke that he'd need a road map to find the bedroom," Linda Hope said.

The estate was designed around the particular needs of the Hopes, including privacy, with large trees bordering the grounds, and a 4,000-square-foot front office building for the staff that managed the Hopes' very successful businesses in radio, television, film and real estate.

::

The Hopes, who had met at a nightclub in New York where Dolores was singing, arrived in Los Angeles in 1937 via the Super Chief passenger train. In town for Bob's first feature film, Paramount's "The Big Broadcast of 1938," they planned to stay for a few weeks. Instead, Bob would go on to make more than 50 more movies, and they would build the home where they remained until their deaths, his at age 100 in 2003, hers at 102 in 2011.

Both avid golfers, Bob and Dolores selected the location, Linda said, because it was "basically a long driver from Lakeside." At the time, many entertainers were moving west from New York, and silent-film stars such as Mary Pickford and Rudolph Valentino had built their homes in the Beverly Hills area.

Toluca Lake was transitioning from agricultural to residential. The unpretentious neighborhood was one of the Valley's first bedroom communities, convenient to the nearby Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal studios lots. Hope's friend and eventual co-star Bing Crosby lived nearby on Camarillo Street, and Amelia Earhart had just plotted her final voyage from under a carob tree in her yard on Valley Spring Lane. Frank Sinatra and Roy Disney also settled in the area.

The neighborhood, which is within the city of Los Angeles, retains some of the Mayberry-esque charm the Hopes enjoyed and helped to create. They used to hand out silver dollars at Halloween, forging Toluca Lake's reputation as a destination that attracts trick-or-treaters from other neighborhoods. There is also a tiny Fourth of July parade with a brass band. And the original Bob's Big Boy, where Bob went for burgers and malts, still stands.

With a population of about 8,500 people living in a mix of single-family homes on large lots and condos in a 1.22-square-mile area, Toluca Lake has one of the lowest population densities in the city, according to a 2008 planning department estimate. Nearly 14 percent of households had incomes of more than $125,000, a figure similar to those of such areas as Sherman Oaks and Marina del Rey but far less than those of Bel-Air and Pacific Palisades.

The Moorpark house has attracted early interest from show business personalities — both actors and executives, according to Mills. "A celebrity will draw people to look," she said. "But when it comes down to really buying, someone has to want the lifestyle."

The main attraction, Mills said, will be the land, which is rare to find within the city limits.

In accordance with Dolores' wishes, there will be an unusual title restriction on the home that prevents it from being subdivided for five years. "She wanted us to find somebody that was going to love it and live in it," Linda said.

Toluca Lake has changed somewhat since the Hopes first arrived. The Tick Tock eatery on Riverside Drive, where they dined on Thursdays, is now a chain restaurant called the Counter, and a neighbor for the new owners will be Miley Cyrus.

rebecca.keegan@latimes.com

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More people, earning more money, are flocking to downtown L.A.

More people are flocking to downtown Los Angeles — and they have more money to spend, downtown advocates declared as they unveiled the results of a new study.

"We have more people. They're making more money. They are more educated. And they are demanding more," said Carol Schatz, president and chief executive of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.

Schatz based her comments on an online survey promoted through community newspaper ads, postcards and door hangers. It drew responses from more than 8,800 people, including more than 3,700 residents. The group cautioned the study was not a "census," but a sampling of "likely consumers."

It found that the median household income of downtown residents had risen by 10% since its last survey two years ago, and that downtowners were also increasingly educated.

The Downtown Center Business Investment District, funded by special taxes in the downtown area, hopes the results spur more investment in the urban core. People who live, work or visit downtown said they were especially interested in a Trader Joe's or new department stores such as Nordstrom in the area, the survey found. A Whole Foods is already on the way.

But the changes reshaping the city center have also raised worries about whether poorer residents will be served by a gentrified downtown.

"Low-income and middle-income people are also consumers," said Becky Dennison, co-director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, an advocacy group for people in poverty. "Everybody needs to be taken into account when looking at the future."

The survey was released to reporters in a bright 9th Street loft owned by architect Simon Ha and his wife, Nikki Olson-Ha.

When the Has moved downtown six years ago, friends and family asked whether it was safe and where they would get groceries, Ha said. Now, people who hear they live downtown ask about new restaurants and how the neighborhood has changed, he said.

emily.alpert@latimes.com

Times researcher Sandra Poindexter contributed to this report.

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O.C. prosecutors drop case against Saudi princess

The story was shocking when it broke: A Saudi princess living in luxury in Irvine suspected of keeping a Kenyan woman as a modern-day slave.

When Meshael Alayban, 42, was accused in July of forcing an employee to work long hours for little pay, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas cited the Emancipation Proclamation and said he was shocked to see such a case in California.

On Friday, he conceded "the evidence does not support the charges."

The district attorney asked an Orange County judge to toss out the felony count of human trafficking against Alayban, who had been free on $5-million bail but was tracked by a GPS monitor and not allowed to leave the county.

During a brief hearing, Orange County Superior Court Judge Gerald G. Johnston agreed to the request and gave Alayban her passport, which had been held by the court.

The princess smiled faintly and nodded. She left the court without comment.

Alayban's attorneys said Irvine police jumped the gun on the case and failed to do a thorough investigation. Attorney Jennifer L. Keller said it would have been easy to quickly disprove at least one of the allegations — that the Kenyan employee had only been allowed to leave Alayban's posh Irvine home on family outings in order to carry her employer's bags.

"If they had interviewed even one neighbor, the neighbor would have said, 'We've seen them coming and going all the time,'" Keller said.

The attorneys said they were convinced of their client's innocence from the start and sent 22 investigators to collect evidence in Kenya, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines. They concluded the allegations were based on lies and were part of a scam by the employee to gain legal status in the U.S., Keller said.

"This has been a nightmare for this family," said Paul S. Meyer, another attorney representing the princess.

Steve Baric, an attorney who represents the employee, denied that his client contrived the allegations. The 30-year-old woman was disappointed by the decision not to pursue the case, Baric said.

Irvine Police Chief David Maggard declined, through a spokesman, to be interviewed.

In a written statement, Maggard said, "We investigated this case thoroughly and stand by the work of our detectives. We followed the law and adhered to our high ethical standards, as we always do. We support and respect the decision made by the district attorney to dismiss these charges."

When the case first emerged, Rackauckas touted it as an example of his office's efforts to crack down on modern-day slavery cases under an anti-trafficking law approved by voters last year. But as the investigation proceeded, they apparently realized the case was falling apart.

In fact, several key details in the case turned out to be inaccurate, including the original terms of the woman's employment and an allegation that she did not receive medical care, according to the D.A.'s office.

Rackauckas said he did not believe the employee had intentionally lied. Prosecutors are not looking to press charges against her, said Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff for the district attorney.

"She didn't test the idea that she couldn't leave," Rackauckas said. "We had a lot of allegations and reason to believe they were true."

Police moved quickly to arrest Alayban because they feared she would leave the country, he said.

Keller and Meyer said they have surveillance video showing the employee coming and going freely from the Alayban home. They also have records showing she was provided with medical exams and follow-ups, all of which were paid for by the family.

"No one was overworked or held against her will," the defense attorneys said in a statement.

The household employees were given access to pools, parks, a spa and gym. They had drivers who took them shopping and for entertainment, they said.

Keller declined to say exactly how much the woman from Kenya was paid but said that her compensation, along with that of three employees from the Philippines, included free room and board in luxury accommodations, medical care, money for entertainment and paid vacations.

"They are very kind people," Keller said of the princess and her husband.

Alayban and her husband, Prince Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al Saud, who have three children — had five household workers and nurses and three drivers, the defense lawyers said.

At the high-end condominium complex where Alayban lives, a neighbor described her as "a good woman."

"I don't think she would ever keep someone against their will, that's just not her," said Mohammad Alsuwaidi, a 24-year-old student at Cal State San Bernardino.

The Kenyan employee was granted one-year temporary immigration status based on being an alleged victim of human trafficking, a spokesman for the Irvine Police Department said. Her attorney did not say whether she hopes to remain in the country.

paloma.esquivel@latimes.com

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

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On 'parking day,' Mayor Garcetti hits his spots in Boyle Heights

Arcelia Gonzalez complained to the city months ago about sidewalk tree roots that ruptured the drain pipe outside her family's Boyle Heights restaurant — to no avail.

So when Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti showed up across the street with a makeshift outdoor office to hear citizen gripes on Friday, she seized the occasion and told him her restaurant flooded when heavy rains hit.

"I just think it's sort of unfair," she said.

Garcetti promised action by Wednesday and said the city would soon replace the street's ficus trees. "Their roots are so invasive," he said. "Whoever planted them way back, I don't know what they were thinking."

The new mayor can't take calls from every one of the city's 3.8 million residents. But his appearance on East 1st Street, choreographed to avoid any rude surprises, was the most colorful manifestation yet of what he describes as his back-to-basics push to make City Hall more transparent, efficient and customer-friendly.

Twice before, Garcetti had opened his doors for what he pledges will be monthly "office hours" to hear from city residents — once at City Hall and once in Van Nuys. But his encounters with the ones who showed up Friday offered Garcetti a more elaborate made-for-TV-news stage to showcase his agenda for reshaping Los Angeles to his liking.

The occasion was "parking day," when people around the world put money in curbside meters and occupy parking spots with anything other than cars. In Garcetti's two spaces near Mariachi Plaza, aides laid green sod on the pavement. They placed a black leather chair for the mayor at a red metal desk. Facing him were two white leather chairs for his revolving cast of visitors. In his waiting area were a sofa and coffee tables.

"How can I help you?" Garcetti asked Armando Gonzalez, who runs a Boyle Heights skateboard shop.

Gonzalez wanted the city's assistance in securing space for a skating academy.

"Have you hooked up with will.i.am at all?" Garcetti asked, referring to the Black Eyed Peas entertainer.

"No, not yet," Gonzalez said.

"He'd be interested, I think, in some of what you're doing," Garcetti said. "He just came in and met with me last week. He grew up in Boyle Heights."

After Garcetti praised the area's abundance of "creative ferment," conversation turned to the rebuilding of the iconic 6th Street Viaduct across the L.A. River. Garcetti offered to put Gonzalez on a project advisory committee. If Los Angeles hosts the 2024 Summer Olympics, he said, an Olympic Village could be built in industrial warehouses on the river's banks.

"You could even dam up the river there, create a lake-like space on the river," Garcetti said. "I mean there's some really cool stuff going on, and I want to make sure local voices, not just top-down stuff, is happening. So we'll loop you into that."

Gonzalez gave Garcetti a skateboard. "Oh, dude, that is awesome," Garcetti said.

Like Garcetti's previous "office hours" events, this one was not as organic as it seemed. Mayoral aides handpicked the groups, such as local business owners, who got advance word. Then they vetted those granted an audience with Garcetti.

Last time, in Van Nuys, mayoral face time was offered to Susan E. Dilkes, who had co-hosted a campaign house party for Garcetti last year at her Hollywood Hills home. She handed him a list of recommendations for city commissions.

This time, those invited to the mayor's desk included Guillermo Uribe, co-host of an April campaign fundraiser for Garcetti at his Boyle Heights wine bar, Eastside Luv.

"It was probably the event I did at your place that was the good-luck charm," Garcetti joked after some back-and-forth with Uribe about the resurgence of Silver Lake when he was the area's councilman.

Still, there were flashes of candor. Leon Ahdoot, a Brentwood resident who owns property near Mariachi Plaza, grumbled about a neglected city lot in the neighborhood, saying he'd told Councilman Jose Huizar — who campaigned for Garcetti's rival in the May election — that East 1st Street needs sprucing up.

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