Name game. First they were the California Angels. And then the Anaheim Angels. Now they are the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, but perhaps not for long. There’s another name change in the offing for the professional baseball team that plays in Orange County.
Arte Moreno – the Angel’s billionaire owner – took a lot of flak from local fans when he changed the team’s name to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim eight years ago. Today, Moreno is seeking another name change as part of a deal to enter long-term lease negotiations with the city of Anaheim.
His proposal is not likely to make Orange County fans any happier than the last time around…The new name would reportedly be the Los Angeles Angels.
The Anaheim City Council is scheduled to vote today on whether to start negotiations that could keep the team in Anaheim for more than 40 years. Under the proposed deal, the Angels would rent the stadium for $1 a year and Moreno would pay for major renovations. A yes vote by the council would give Moreno total control over the team’s name and presumably usher in the post-Anaheim era.
By the way, if the team does change its name to the Los Angeles Angels – it would translate into The Angels Angels. Orange County Register
LAPD lawsuit. A woman who claims she was seriously injured after falling out of moving patrol car is suing the LAPD. Twenty-eight-year-old Kim Nguyen was arrested in Koreatown on suspicion of public intoxication after a night out with friends in March. The officers say Nguyen – a Loyola Marymount graduate student – fell out of the car when they began accelerating after stopping at a red light. But her attorney, Arnoldo Casillas, says surveillance video indicates the light was green and that the officers never stopped. Nguyen says she’s had three surgeries on her shattered jaw. The LAPD says it will conduct an internal investigation. KNBC
Child prostitution. L.A. County Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Don Knabe are expected to introduce a motion today asking the state legislature to crack down on child prostitution. They want to amend a law so that paying for sex becomes a felony instead of a misdemeanor if the victim is a minor. The also want harsher financial penalties for those convicted of having sex with minors and to give law enforcement the ability to seize assets. In addition, the supervisors say “Johns” convicted of having sex with underage prostitutes should be required to register as sex offenders. L.A. Daily News
Tablets tab. By now you’ve probably heard about LAUSD’s ambitious plan to outfit every student in the district with an iPad. That effort is expected to cost about $1 billion. But it appears that district officials failed to take into account a major additional expense: keyboards. Providing wireless keyboards to all 650,000 students in the district would cost about $38 million at current retail prices. The keyboards are needed so students can use their tablet computers to take standardized tests. The district has committed $30 million to the iPad program so far, enough to cover students at 47 schools. L.A. Times
Standardized tests. Some education experts believe grade school students are tested too frequently, but California voters don’t buy into that. A new poll shows state voters strongly support the use of standardizes tests – both to measure student performance and as an important factor in teacher evaluations. The poll by USC’s Rossier School of Education and the non-partisan research center Policy Analysis for California Education finds that nearly two-thirds of voters say students should be tested at every grade level. Twenty-two percent of voters say California should cut back on testing. Just 10 percent of voters say student test results should not be used in teacher evaluations. Rossier School of Education.