Huntington Beach to place controversial charter reforms, including voter ID, on ballot

• October 6, 2023

Huntington Beach will ask voters in March if they want to implement voter identification requirements and local monitoring of ballot drop boxes in its elections, despite legal warnings from state officials that advised against placing the controversial proposals on ballots.

The election reforms have drawn the most scrutiny and uproar, but Huntington Beach voters will also weigh in on other proposals. The city is asking voters whether to update local flag laws, move to a two-year budget cycle and about several administrative changes.

The council approved moving ahead with the charter amendment proposals in a 4-3 vote Thursday night, Oct. 5, with the council’s conservative majority giving the OK.

Councilmember Casey McKeon said the election changes are about increasing faith and turnout in city elections and not about voter fraud.

Councilmember Natalie Moser countered, saying it’s disingenuous to say it would increase voter turnout, but is really voter disenfranchisement and would lead to Huntington Beach being sued.

“We’re not improving people’s vision of this safe election. We are not doing that. It’s the exact opposite; we are sowing chaos in our elections,” Moser said. “I trust the elections right now. I will not trust them under these circumstances.”

The election changes and other amendments to the city’s charter will appear on the March 2024 California Primary ballot.

The election reforms include voter ID, city monitoring of ballot drop boxes and a requirement to have at least 20 in-person voting locations. The election changes, if approved by voters, wouldn’t be implemented until 2026.

The city attorney will return at a council meeting later this month with the ballot language. Thursday’s meeting was the finale of a series focused on the proposed charter amendments.

The meeting became strained at one point when Councilmember Dan Kalmick asked Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark if she supported women’s suffrage. Van Der Mark asked to stay on topic and Mayor Tony Strickland called the question insulting.

Ahead of the meeting, the ACLU of Southern California and Disability Rights California wrote a letter to the City Council, saying, “The voter ID, drop box monitoring, and voting location provisions will likely result in voter suppression.

“We urge you to reject the proposed charter amendment to avoid voter disenfranchisement and to avoid the waste of taxpayer resources on an election, implementation, and unnecessary litigation,” the groups wrote.

Top state officials last week also said Huntington Beach’s election proposals would violate state law, and that they would take action if they are placed on the ballot.

The language for the election proposals was amended during the series of meetings from “shall” to “may,” which Councilmember Casey McKeon said would allow the city to test the changes and even not make them permanent if it became too expensive to implement.

Despite the wording change, the ACLU and Disability Rights California said the language would still conflict with state law.

Dozens of residents on Thursday gave their final pleas for the council to stop moving forward with the charter amendments, carrying signs asking for the council to vote no.

The city will also ask voters to change Huntington Beach’s flag laws. The proposal would limit the flags the city can fly to the American flag, the California flag, the Huntington Beach flag, the County of Orange flag, flags of military branches, the prisoner of war/missing in action flag, and the Olympic Games flag. The City Council would need to unanimously approve flying any other flags on city property.

The proposal comes months after Huntington Beach moved to no longer allow the Pride flag and others to fly on city property. The updated list includes the Olympic flag.

“This is what happens when you try to legislate exclusion; you constantly find yourself having to go back and put stuff in,” Councilmember Rhonda Bolton said. The city hopes to host games in the 2028 Olympics.

Half of the 10 largest cities in Orange County use a biennial budget, according to a staff report. The advantages, according to the report, include reduced staff time from not having to do a six-month budget process yearly, but the disadvantages include having to make more extensive budget adjustments and forecasting the city’s finances further into the future.

Chief Financial Officer Sunny Han supports the budget change. Huntington Beach wouldn’t move to a biennial budget until 2026.

The administrative changes, which will be bundled with the biennial budget proposal as one measure, include updating language and changing how the council fills vacancies. Council vacancy appointments would serve until the next general municipal election only, rather than the rest of the term.

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​ Orange County Register 

Day 3: Kaiser unions threaten another strike if demands aren’t met

• October 6, 2023

A three-day strike among 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers entered its final day Friday, Oct. 6 without a deal, and union officials say another walkout may be brewing if the healthcare giant continues to “commit unfair labor practices and bargain in bad faith.”

The workers are fighting for increased staffing, higher wages and limits on outsourcing of jobs, among other concerns.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions says it’s prepared to issue a 10-day strike notice if need be, which could lead to another work stoppage. Additional bargaining sessions are set for next week on Oct. 12-13.

Also see: Kaiser patients support striking workers but lament long wait times

Kaiser nurses, ER techs, respiratory therapists, x-ray technicians and scores of others have long complained of being underpaid, understaffed and burned out from doing the job of two, and sometimes three, people — a scenario that has resulted in high employee turnover.

Chronic understaffing, they say, can lead to dangerously long wait times, mistaken diagnoses and neglect.

Striking Kaiser workers say chronic understaffing can lead to dangerously long wait times, mistaken diagnosis and neglect. (File photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

Liza Jirakosyan, a certified nursing assistant at Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center, said her post-operative unit is severely understaffed.

“We’ll often have just one or two nursing assistants to take care of 32 patients coming in from OR,” the 40-year-old Westwood resident said. “We’re trying to take care of all of them and prevent falls, but we just don’t have time to get to everyone.”

Jirakosyan, who has been on the picket line for three days, said she’s prepared to strike again if need be.

“If that’s what is necessary for us to get safe staffing and safe patient care, I’m all in — 100%,” she said.

Also see: Voices from the picket line

Workers are also concerned about the healthcare provider’s practice of outsourcing jobs. Putting limits on that, they say, would help keep experienced employees on the job while providing “strong continuity of care” for patients.

Mounting frustrations over those factors fueled what has been called the largest healthcare strike in U.S. history. The walkout, which began early Wednesday, includes 23,000 Southern California workers and it has impacted operations at Kaiser hospitals and facilities throughout California, Colorado, Oregon, and southwest Washington state.

A one-day strike was also held Wednesday among 180 Kaiser employees in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Kaiser workers are asking for a $25 hourly minimum wage, as well as increases of 7% each year in the first two years and 6.25% each year in the two years afterward.

Kaiser, which turned a $2.1 billion profit for the quarter, has offered minimum wages of $23 an hour in California and $21 an hour elsewhere. The company said it also completed hiring 10,000 more people, adding to the 51,000 workers the hospital system has brought on board since 2022.

But union officials say they have yet to see increased staffing.

“Frontline healthcare workers will continue to take action until Kaiser executives agree to real lasting solutions to the Kaiser short-staffing crisis,” Renee Saldana, a spokeswoman for SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, said Friday. “Staffing levels simply cannot continue as they are.”

In a statement issued Friday, Kaiser said its contingency plans to minimize disruption during the three-day strike have largely worked.

“We are fortunate that most procedures were not delayed or deferred, most routine surgeries were not rescheduled and our ambulatory appointment access has been close to normal,” the company said.

Some patients say things have been far from “normal” for years.

Kaiser member Miguel Silva said he and his wife have faced increasingly long delays getting medical appointments over the past two years.

“It’s frustrating,” Silva said Thursday as he exited a Kaiser facility in Canyon Country. “Sometimes we end up going to the ER to be seen.”

Also see: What to know if you’re a Kaiser member

Kaiser, which has converted many appointments to phone or video during the strike, said it “remains committed to reaching an agreement that is good for our employees, our members and our organization, and we will continue to bargain in good faith with our coalition partners.”

The decision to walk off the job has been difficult, according to Josephine Rios, 55, a nurse attendant who takes in patients for surgery at another Kaiser hospital in Irvine.

“Unfortunately, it’s a financial burden for us that live paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “We can’t afford to strike a long time, but it’s a double-edged sword. We can’t afford not to strike.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

​ Orange County Register 

The Orange County train-station dining guide: Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo, Irvine, Tustin

• October 6, 2023

While the San Clemente Pier, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano train stops offer a host of restaurants and cafes steps from their respective platforms, without having to cross busy streets or trek too far, the same cannot be said for the Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo, Irvine and Tustin Stations.

The three stops are primarily used by regular commuters who either drive and park or take the bus to and from the station; not so much by passengers seeking destination-worthy dining. (Though many use it to reach nearby FivePoint Amphitheatre.) There’s just not a lot of commercial zoning, and even less residential zoning, surrounding the stations.

“When you don’t allow housing density, not just near transit but also commercial corridors, you’re really starving those areas of small businesses and customers,” explained Sen. Scott Wiener (D-11th District), who has authored bills to create more affordable and multi-use housing near California transit stations. “So small businesses don’t open up to support or they struggle. It’s in the interest of small businesses to have people living nearby.”

Compared to South County’s southern stations, these three offer few choices for hungry passengers.

Laguna Niguel / Mission Viejo

No dining options exist outside the platform without having to cross Camino Capistrano, a somewhat busy two-lane street with no nearby crosswalks for safe pedestrian travel. Since jaywalking is all but required to access one of the few dining options across the street from this South County stop — unless you travel more than half a mile down the road to the nearest intersection crosswalk — it’s hard to recommend hopping off the train here to find food.

However, if you must, passengers can dine at the following restaurant. Again, accessing food requires jaywalking, which is neither safe nor legal. Consider yourselves warned.

Escape Craft Brewery: Billed as Laguna Niguel’s first brewery, this suds spot offers more than 20 craft beers on tap. While technically not a restaurant, Escape Craft Brewery features pop-up trucks just outside its doors, like Big Rick’s BBQ 714, on Fridays and Saturdays and occasionally on Thursdays and Sundays. Guests can also bring their pooch as this place is a dog-friendly spot. Open Tuesday through Sunday.  28162 Camino Capistrano #109A, Laguna Niguel; escapecraftbrewery.com

Aside from Escape Craft Brewery, you can find several fast-food options across Camino Capistrano and down the road, like A’s Burgers, In-N-Out and Carl’s Jr., via an estimated 13- minute walk south of the train platform.

Irvine

The freeway impedes a lot of walkability at the Irvine Station. Even though some spots like the Hello Kitty Grand Cafe Sanrio are close as the crow flies, pedestrian access is inadvisable since you can’t cross the freeway sans automobile; pedestrians would have to walk two extra miles to go around it, which isn’t reasonable. Station Cafe, which used to operate at the train station’s building, closed in 2020.

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The nearest dining options accessible via public transit can be found at the Irvine Spectrum (670 Spectrum Center Drive). Passengers can take bus 403 from the station to the Irvine Spectrum Center. Bruegger’s Bagels (3991 Irvine Blvd.) and Maast Indian (15358 Alton Parkway) can be reached by taking the 86 bus from the Irvine train station.

Tustin

The Tustin Station is located in an industrial area, with no easily accessible dining options outside of fast food joints, like a nearby Subway Sandwich (3017 Edinger Ave.) and Jack In the Box (3089 Edinger Ave.).

​ Orange County Register 

115 decaying bodies found at Colorado ‘green’ funeral home after reports of putrid odor

• October 6, 2023

By JESSE BEDAYN

CAÑON CITY, Colo. — At least 115 decaying bodies were found at a storage facility for a “green” funeral operator, after neighbors reported abhorrent smells emanating from the location in rural southern Colorado, police said Friday, calling it a “disturbing discovery.”

The owner tried to conceal the improper storage of corpses and claimed he was doing taxidermy at the facility, according to a suspension letter sent to him by state regulators that was made public Friday. No one has been arrested or charged yet.

The Return to Nature Funeral Home facility in the small town of Penrose had been unregistered with the state for 10 months on Wednesday when owner Jon Hallford spoke by phone with a state regulator the day after the smells were reported and police launched an investigation

Hallford acknowledged that he had a “problem” at the property, though the Colorado Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration document obtained by The Associated Press didn’t explain what Hallford meant with his taxidermy claim or how he tried to conceal improper storage of human remains.

Text messages and phone calls were not answered at the funeral home, which had no working voice mail.

Officials declined to describe the scene inside the Return to Nature Funeral Home facility. A multi-agency effort recover and identify the remains was underway in Penrose, a town of about 3,000 people in the mountains west of Colorado Springs.

On Friday, a sour, rotten stench came from the back of the building, where windows were broken. Coroner’s officials from Fremont County and nearby El Paso County parked their trucks outside and discussed among themselves as they walked around the building.

The funeral home performed “green” burials without embalming chemicals or metal caskets. Local residents said they smelled foul odors around the building for months but thought little of it, assuming a dead animal or septic system was to blame

Funeral home officials were cooperating as investigators sought to determine any criminal wrongdoing, Fremont County Sheriff Allen Cooper said at a news conference.

“Without providing too much detail to avoid further victimizing these families there, the funeral home where the bodies were improperly stored was horrific,” Cooper said.

Some identifications would require taking fingerprints, finding medical or dental records and DNA, Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller said.

“This could take several months. As we identify each decedent, families will be notified as soon as absolutely possible,” Keller said.

Other Colorado county coroners had agreed to help while the FBI and state police and emergency management officials worked at the scene. Meanwhile, Fremont County declared an official disaster to possibly make state funds available for the effort, Keller said.

Family members who have used the funeral home were asked to contact investigators.

The bodies were inside a 2,500-square foot (230-square meter) building with the appearance and dimensions of a standard one-story home.

Authorities declined to say if the building was equipped to properly story bodies. They also wouldn’t disclose in what state the bodies were found or how they were stored. Under Colorado law, green burials are legal but state code requires that any body not buried within 24 hours must be properly refrigerated.

Deputies were called in Tuesday night in reference to a suspicious incident officials haven’t yet described. Fremont County Sheriff’s Office investigators returned the next day with a search warrant and found the remains.

There was no health risk to the public, officials said, at the building with trash bags near the entrance and law enforcement vehicles parked in front. Yellow police tape cordoned off the area and a putrid odor was in the air.

A hearse was parked at the back of the building, in a parking lot overgrown with weeds. Nearby was a post office and a few homes on wide, grassy lots, some with parked semi-trucks.

The license for the facility expired in November of last year, according to a cease and desist order issued Thursday by Colorado state regulators. When reached by regulators, owner Jon Hallford acknowledged that he has a “problem” at the Penrose property and claimed he practiced taxidermy there.

Joyce Pavetti, 73, could see the funeral home from the stoop of her house and said she caught whiffs of a putrid smell in the last few weeks.

“We just assumed it was a dead animal,” she said. On Wednesday night, Pavetti said she could see lights from law enforcement swarming around the building and knew something was going on.

The building had been occupied by different businesses over the years, said Pavetti, who once took yoga classes there. She hasn’t seen anyone in the area recently and noticed the hearse behind the building only in recent months, she said.

Neighbor Ron Alexander thought the smell was coming from a septic tank, adding that Wednesday night’s blur of law enforcement lights “looked like the 4th of July.”

The father of a 25-year-old U.S. Navy serviceman who died last summer said Return to Nature handled his son’s body between the time of its arrival back in Colorado and an Aug. 25 funeral service at Pikes Peak National Cemetery east of Colorado Springs.

“I mean, there’s obviously questions after hearing that there is something going on but there’s not any information that I can go off of to really make any kind of judgement on it,” said Paul Saito Kahler, of Fountain, Colorado.

The Return to Nature Funeral Home provided burial of non-embalmed bodies in biodegradable caskets, shrouds or “nothing at all,” according to its website. The company also provided cremation services. Messages left for the Colorado Springs-based company were not returned.

The company charged $1,895 for a “natural burial.” That doesn’t include the cost of a casket and cemetery space, according to the website.

Return to Nature was established six years ago in Colorado Springs, according to public records.

Fremont County property records show that the funeral home building and lot are owned by Hallfordhomes, LLC, a business with a Colorado Springs address that the Colorado Secretary of State declared delinquent on Oct. 1 for failing to file a routine reporting form that was due at the end of July.

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The LLC changed addresses around Colorado Springs three times since its establishment in 2016 with a post office box. Hallfordhomes still owes about $5,000 in 2022 property taxes on its building in Penrose, according to Fremont County records.

Return to Nature Funeral Home was licensed in Colorado Springs in 2017. There were no disciplinary actions against the company listed on a state license database. There was not a separate license for the Penrose facility and it wasn’t known if one was needed. Messages left with licensing authorities were not immediately returned.

Associated Press writers Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana, Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, and news researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed.

​ Orange County Register 

Reseda woman who admitted drowning her 3 young children pleads not guilty due to insanity

• October 6, 2023

A woman accused of drowning her three young children in a Reseda apartment two years ago pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to three murder charges Friday, Oct. 6.

Liliana Carrillo, 32, entered dual pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity in the April 10, 2021, killings of her 5-month-old daughter Sierra, 2-year-old son Terry and 3-year-old daughter Joanna.

Carrillo, jailed since her April 2021 arrest in Tulare County, had been ordered on Aug. 23 to stand trial in connection with the killings.

The murder charge involving her youngest daughter includes an allegation that she used a knife during the commission of the crime.

The killings led to an outpouring of grief from family members and neighbors. The children’s grandmother discovered all three children drowned inside the Reseda apartment where they lived with Carillo. Sierra also suffered a stab wound to the chest that struck her left lung, according to the coroner’s office.

Prior to the killings, court records showed family members were worried that Carrillo was suffering from spiraling mental health issues, which led the father of the children to request a mental evaluation for her in March 2021.

Carrillo fled the apartment after allegedly killing the children, leading to a manhunt that coursed through the Bakersfield area north of Los Angeles. She was eventually arrested in Tulare County after she crashed her car and attempted to carjack another person.

While she was in custody in Tulare County, Carrillo gave an interview to local television station KGET in which she admitted to killing the children.

“I drowned them,” she said.

Kim Lormans, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Juvenile Division, testified during the hearing in August that the children were found dead “in a row” on a bed inside the apartment.

“There was blood everywhere,” Lormans said.

Carrillo said in the interview that she attempted suicide after killing the children, but that “it didn’t work.”

“I know that I’m going to be in jail for the rest of my life,” she said. “It’s something I’ve come to terms with.”

The children’s father, Erik Denton, filed a civil lawsuit in April 2022 against the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, alleging negligence in handling reports of Carrillo’s serious mental health issues.

Staff writer Josh Cain and City News Service contributed to this report.

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​ Orange County Register 

UCLA looks to disrupt Cameron Ward, No. 13 Washington State

• October 6, 2023

UCLA will play Washington State for the first time since 2019 when the Bruins produced a memorable 32-point second-half comeback for a 67-61 victory in front of a sold-out crowd in Pullman.

UCLA coach Chip Kelly recalls the wild game but hasn’t had a reason to reflect on it much, even with the Cougars coming to Pasadena this week.

“I remember the game, but we were scheduled to play them for two more years and then (Coach Mike Leach) left and went to Mississippi State, so there’s no correlation to what we’re playing (this week) so I haven’t gone back and watched that game at all,” Kelly said.

The Pac-12 After Dark game served as a breakout for players like UCLA quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who threw for 507 yards and five touchdowns.

Linebacker Carl Jones Jr. and defensive back Alex Johnson are the only Bruins remaining on the roster that played in that game.

A lot has changed for both programs since, but this week’s installment of the series may be the last for some time following UCLA’s move to the Big Ten Conference next season. Washington State remains in limbo regarding its future, but it’s unlikely that it lands in the Big Ten with several of its current conference rivals.

For now, the undefeated Cougars enter the game ranked 13th in the country, averaging nearly 46 points game in its four victories, which include No. 19 Wisconsin and No. 13 Oregon State.

When UCLA has the ball

The Bruins (3-1, 0-1 Pac-12) must set the pace with a level of dominance behind the efforts of running backs TJ Harden and Carson Steele.

The Washington State defense has an “aggressive and attacking” 4-2-5 defense that has allowed 4.43 rushing yards per attempt and six touchdowns this season. The Cougars (4-0, 1-0) are also ranked 100th in the nation with 250.5 passing yards allowed per game.

An established rushing attack would open the Bruins’ passing attack and the opportunity for explosive plays.

True freshman quarterback Dante Moore and the Bruins had the bye week as an opportunity to regroup following its worst offensive showing of the season in a 14-7 loss at No. 11 Utah.

UCLA’s receivers had key drops against the Utes and the offensive line allowed Moore to be sacked seven times. Wide receiver Josiah Norwood spoke highly of Moore and the way he’s responded throughout practice as a “high-energy guy” in preparation for the Cougars.

“They’re aggressive in their secondary with their coverages and they’ve done a really nice job,” Kelly said of Washington State. “They can cause a lot of problems for you because of how they attack offensive schemes.”

When Washington State has the ball

Quarterback Cameron Ward and first-year offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle have the Cougars leading the country in third-down conversions (59.6%), second in passing (405.8 yards per game), fifth in scoring (45.8 points per game) and sixth in total offense (532.2 yards per game).

The Bruins’ defense will be tasked with trying to contain Ward. The junior has thrown for 1,389 yards and 13 touchdowns while completing 75% of his passes (106 of 142) without an interception

“We’ve seen plays (on film) where a lot of teams are trying to get after them and they just needed to execute,” Jones said about trying to disrupt Washington State’s offense. “We just have to get after them.”

First-year defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn has helped UCLA’s defense continue to improve and come into its own this season, allowing just 37 points through the first four games.

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“I have not seen a bigger and longer defense in a long time … I think they are playing with supreme confidence,”  Washington State coach Jake Dickert said of his initial impressions of the UCLA defense. “They are playing tremendously on that side of the ball and (Laiatu Latu) is a problem.”

Latu has 13 tackles, including 7.5 for a loss, along with four sacks, a forced fumble and an interception. The senior defensive end hasn’t recorded a sack in the past two games but will have a huge impact on how the game plays out if he can provide pressure on Ward and help create opportunities for others.

No. 13 Washington State (4-0 overall, 1-0 Pac-12) at UCLA (3-1, 0-1)

When: Noon Saturday

Where: Rose Bowl

TV/radio: Pac-12 Networks / 570 AM

​ Orange County Register 

‘It’s personal’: No. 9 USC and familiar faces host Arizona

• October 6, 2023

LOS ANGELES — In the NFL, this is common. Have a guy. Coach him up. Watch him pack his bags and stand on the opposing sideline the next year.

From almost two decades bouncing around the league, Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch knows this, and is plenty prepared for it; if you carry too much emotion as a pro, he said, you’re going to get cut.

And still, even with the boom of the transfer portal in collegiate football, the situation USC and Arizona find themselves in on Saturday is strange. Uncommon, certainly, in the FBS. Wide receiver Dorian Singer, cornerback Christian Roland-Wallace and defensive lineman Kyon Barrs – three players who were bedrock in Arizona’s program – are now at USC.

An interesting undercurrent, then, lies within USC vs. Arizona on Saturday, exploring program reactions to player movement in this era of college football.

Head coach Lincoln Riley gave an easygoing answer Tuesday, when asked about his guys from Tucson. Roland-Wallace, Barrs and Singer all provided little more than dismissive comments about facing their former team in pre-week media availability. Arizona running back Jonah Coleman gave a simple “we ain’t got friends this week” in a presser. Singer amended that “we just gon’ treat it like such.”

Yet Fisch’s comments this week on his three former players – all of whom were in his program multiple years – were less than congenial.

“Decisions were made at the end of the season by certain players,” Fisch told media Thursday, as captured by the Tuscon Star’s Justin Spears. “Decisions were made by the staff, decisions were made by the program, and we don’t get into why people transferred and whether people were encouraged or discouraged to transfer … we don’t need to get caught up in the emotions of playing former players.”

“But, there is certainly – it’s personal,” Fisch continued later. “And the team understands that.”

All three transfers will likely play a significant role when Arizona comes to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But Singer and Roland-Wallace, in particular, will be vital to the most intriguing matchups in a game that has a major spread but feels dangerous for USC – Arizona just having challenged Washington and the Trojans nearly falling to Colorado.

When Arizona has the ball

Ironically, after weeks of cycling in and out behind Ceyair Wright and Domani Jackson, it’s Roland-Wallace’s years of experience at Arizona that have seemingly earned him a starting corner job at USC.

“There’s just a maturity and a confidence about him,” Riley said Tuesday, “that’s been really good for that room.”

With Jackson questionable after exiting the Colorado game last week, Roland-Wallace will shoulder a major burden Saturday. The Trojans’ most consistent corner is likely to match up frequently with former teammate Tetairoa McMillan, a tough-as-nails 6-foot-5 receiver from Servite High who’s established himself as one of the best pass-catchers in the Pac-12 with 27 catches for 386 yards and 5 touchdowns. Expect redshirt junior Jacobe Covington, who’s played sparingly in 2023, to get more time in the secondary as well.

USC had had to game-plan, meanwhile, against a fluid situation at quarterback, as starter Jayden De Laura is questionable with an ankle injury. Backup Noah Fifita proved more than capable, though, in Arizona’s 31-24 loss last week to Washington, and has a built-in connection with McMillan from their time at Servite.

When USC has the ball

Arizona defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen said this week that the Wildcats ran a dollar formation – eight defensive backs on the field – 40 times against Washington. From a layman’s view, it made sense: Throw packages with more fortified secondaries at one of the most dynamic offenses in the country. And it mostly worked, as Heisman hopeful Michael Penix Jr. threw for 363 yards but no touchdowns against the Wildcats’ defense.

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The same defensive logic, one would think, applies to USC’s Air Raid attack, and Riley certainly anticipated the Trojans might see some of the same concepts Saturday.

“They played a little bit more of a conservative style defensively,” Riley said, “and tried to really keep everything in front of them.”

ARIZONA AT No. 9 USC

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

TV/radio: ESPN/790 AM

​ Orange County Register 

The Book Pages: What it was like as the ‘Finnegans Wake’ group read the final page

• October 6, 2023

They’d worked for 28 years to get to this moment. I didn’t want to screw it up.

Earlier this week, I interviewed Gerry Fialka about the Venice-Wake Book Group, which he founded in 1995 and has led for nearly three decades. Its goal has been to read a single book, James Joyce’s ridiculously challenging “Finnegans Wake” (and Fialka also brings in discussion of theorist Marshall McLuhan, too).

On this past Tuesday, the group was going to be reading the final page and I’d been graciously invited by Fialka and book club member Peter Coogan, who’d first informed me about the long-running meeting.

For context, in 1995, the top songs on the Billboard charts were Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” and TLC’s “Waterfalls”; the top-grossing movies were “Batman Forever” and “Apollo 13” (with “Toy Story” in third place!); and the No. 1 and 2 TV shows were “ER” and “Seinfeld.” The biggest-selling books? John Grisham’s “The Rainmaker” and Michael Crichton’s “The Lost World” (and another from that year, Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass,” is mentioned below in the Q&A by author Elana K. Arnold).

Gerry Fialka has run a book club devoted to reading James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake.” (Photo credit (L-R) David Healey / Penguin /Associated Press)

Now, after 28 years, the members were finally finishing “The Wake,” as they call it. Fialka asked if I’d participate in the group reading of its final page – a big moment to share, I thought. (Fialka delightfully deflected attempts to bring too much attention to the occasion.)

I’d joined the event a few minutes early, so I’d been treated to a bit of pre-meeting small talk – an unpretentious conversation about the various early examples of the novel around the world (in case you thought they compared Netflix queues or Fitbit tips) – before Fialka gently wrangled the meeting to order.

After taking a deep breath and reciting a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem to warm up, we started reading the last page. We each took two lines apiece, and then because the last sentence of the book circles back to begin the opening line – “It’s a cyclical book,” says Fialka. “It never ends.” – we continued to the first page where it was soon my turn again to read a few lines.

That’s when I saw it – an etymological eruption of one of Joyce’s thundering 100-letter words: “Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!”

I was going to have to read that. How, I wondered as my turn got closer, was I supposed to pronounce such a thing? Moreover, how would I pronounce it to a Zoomful of dedicated readers who had been studying this book since Val Kilmer was Batman and Y2K was still a thing?

Well, I figured, I could just try. So I did.

With all the grace of someone walking barefoot across a scalding-hot parking lot, I stumbled over letters, my mouth making sounds like a defective didgeridoo. But I didgeridid it.

Gerry Fialka has run a book club devoted to reading James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake.” (Photo by Erik Pedersen / Courtesy of Duncan Echelson)

And nobody complained or rolled their eyes or grumbled that I had cheated by joining the Joyce marathon 10 steps from the finish line. The 18 participants on this momentous evening – who Zoomed in from as far away as Brazil – were as welcoming and supportive as anyone could hope for. They didn’t even mind that I started cooking dinner during the discussion.

Then as the talk wore down, one of the group, William Kennedy, I believe, surprised everyone as he broke into song, performing the Irish-American composition, “Finnegan’s Wake,” that inspired the title of Joyce’s book. It was a lovely and moving way to mark the occasion.

As goodbyes were said and Zoom windows began to close – with the expectation they’d be getting together again the next month to begin anew – I thought about a question someone had asked Fialka: Would he consider changing the book club’s format – generally, a single page per meeting followed by an hour or two of discussion – so it wouldn’t take another 28 years to get through the book again?

“I’m open for changing, and that’s simply because this group doesn’t exist because of me,” said Fialka. “It exists because of all of us.”

For more information, go to laughtears.com/McLuhanWake.html

What books have you been enjoying? Please email me at [email protected] with “ERIK’S BOOK PAGES” in the subject line and I may include your comments in an upcoming newsletter.

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Thanks, as always, for reading.

Elana K. Arnold found a book treasure in a thrift shop

Elana K. Arnold is the author of a number of books, including “The Blood Years.” (Photo by Arielle Gray / Courtesy of Harper Collins)

Long Beach resident and National Book Award finalist Elana K. Arnold is the author of a number of books for kids and young adults, including “A Boy Called Bat,” “Red Hood,” “What Girls Are Made of” and “The Blood Years,” which she’s launching with a free event on Oct. 9. She’s also the second most-banned author on PEN America’s most recent list, which she discussed in last week’s newsletter. Here, she answers questions about books, reading and something that nobody knows about her book.

Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?

I absolutely love “What It Is” by Lynda Barry. I recommend it to other creative people—writers, artists, musicians—all the time. “The Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman made me want to write again after a series of dry years; its central conceit (which I won’t spoil here) struck me, an animal lover, as so right that I never wanted to leave that world. I recently read “The Idiot” and “Either/Or,” and I can’t stop telling people about them; Elif Batuman’s character, Selin, felt like a smarter, better-educated version of myself. And I recommend “Craft in the Real World” by Matthew Salesses to everyone I know who teaches writing, and every student who plans to take a creative writing workshop.

Q. How do you decide what to read next?

So many different ways! Sometimes, it’s a recommendation from a friend, or a mention in a podcast. Other, times, it’s a book I read a review of. My favorite way to discover a book is to stumble upon it, as I recently did with “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” which somehow, I’ve never read and just found in a thrift store. I ate it up in three days.

Q. Is there a genre or type of book you read the most – and what would you like to read more of?

Really, I love so many types of books. What I’m drawn to can depend on my mood, what I’m working on, if I’m stressed or relaxed, the season, the weather. Mysteries, in my opinion, are best read in the winter, pulled up close to a fireplace, a cup of tea in hand and a cat on my lap.  Nonfiction seems most accessible to me in the mornings when my brain feels freshest. Late-night reads tend to be pulled from my bedside stack of new releases or just-found thrift store finds, a hodgepodge of genres that leans toward realistic/literary. I read very little science fiction and keep meaning to delve more deeply into this space.

Q. Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?

My grandmother, upon whose early life “The Blood Years” is based, was central to my conception of myself as a reader and as a writer. She saw the time I spent reading in her home library— just a spare bedroom full of bookshelves — as sacred work, and she would bring me little gilded bowls full of grapes or berries to nourish me as I read. There were no limits placed on what I was allowed to read, no judgment about what I reached for or how many times I might return to the same book. And Nana filled our time together with stories: made-up nonsense stories about Illa the Gorilla, a character she invented to explain what had happened to her car when she ran into a pole or bruised her leg; real-life stories about her experiences as a child and a teen, many of which became the backbone of “The Blood Years.” Nana modeled for me that storytelling and story sharing is a way to live a life.

Q. What do you find the most appealing in a book: the plot, the language, the cover, a recommendation? Do you have any examples?

I think more than anything, what appeals to me in a book is the sensation of being surprised: when I’ve expected one thing from a book and found that I’ve gotten something else. You never know when you’re going to encounter this experience, and I think it’s evoked differently for different readers. I remember being deeply surprised—shocked—when, as a pre-teen, I stumbled upon “The Neverending Story” on a library shelf; when I opened it, I found the story was printed in red ink, and as I progressed into the book, when Bastian falls into the story, the ink color switched to green. Oh, I remember the thrill of that! Another totally different book that delighted me with surprise was Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower”; when King appears as a character, I gasped.

Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows?

When I first conceived of “The Blood Years,” which is a historical novel set in Czernowitz, Romania, before and during the Holocaust and is based on my grandmother’s young life, I planned to set it in the future, in an eco-ravaged world in which the Holocaust comes again. As Opa, one of the characters in “The Blood Years,” often says, “Everything is cyclical.” And setting the story in the future felt like a really fantastic way to underline the cyclicality of persecution. But this was before Donald Trump was elected president, before the Tiki-torch-carrying mob of White nationalists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. In the light of so much loud, violent hate, setting this story in an imagined future felt less like a thought experiment and more like a premonition. And it seemed more vital than ever to write down our history, to reflect on the past in a way that informs the present and the future.

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Nicola Griffith is the author most recently of “Menewood.” (Photo credit Jennifer Durham / Courtesy of MCD)

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Gerry Fialka has run a book club devoted to reading James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake.” (Photo credit (L-R) David Healey / Penguin /Associated Press)

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“Enough,” a new memoir by former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson, is among the top-selling nonfiction releases at Southern California’s independent bookstores. (Courtesy of Simon & Schuster)

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Bookish (SCNG)

What’s next on ‘Bookish’

On the next installment Oct. 20 at 5 p.m., Amy Ferris and Chuck Palahniuk join host Sandra Tsing Loh and my colleague Samantha Dunn to talk about their new books. Sign up for free now.

And if you missed it (or just want to relive it), watch the previous Bookish with Lee and Tod Goldberg and Jesus Trejo.

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