Sweet German shepherd Jade is a cuddler

• April 1, 2023

Breed: German shepherd

Age: 1-2 years

Sex: Female

Jade’s story: Jade was in a shelter and pregnant. She had her puppies and was such a good mom. But now it’s her turn for a home of her own. She loves to play and go for walks. She is very sweet and is a cuddler. She gets along with other dogs, so could be an additional pup for an adopter.

Adoption fee: $200

Adoption procedure: Contact Liz with OC Shelter Partners, 714-576-6413.

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​ Orange County Register 

Looking for 2 sweet, affectionate cats? Check out Pixie and Dustie

• April 1, 2023

Breed: Tortoiseshell, Pixie; tabby, Dustie

Age: 14 weeks old

Sex: Female, Pixie; male, Dustie

Pixie and Dustie’s story: These bonded siblings were rescued just before one of Southern California’s recent rainstorms. They were found living in an alley in Long Beach with little warmth or shelter. Now they are living indoors, clean and safe. These two are purr machines – their motors are constantly running! They adore affection and human company and are oh, so sweet. They have so much love to give. They’re sure to add tremendously to your life as they are super affectionate and playful.

Adoption donation: $250 for both to cover flea and worm treatments, vaccinations, microchips and spays

Adoption procedure: Contact Joanne with Long Beach Spay & Neuter Foundation at 562-241-1521 or [email protected] to arrange a meeting.

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​ Orange County Register 

WWE WrestleMania 39 live updates: lineup, start time, reaction

• April 1, 2023

WWE’s signature show, WrestleMania, returns to California for the first time since 2015.

WrestleMania 39 will be a two-day event (April 1 and 2) at So-Fi Stadium in Inglewood and headlined by Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes, who will compete in the main event for the Undisputed WWE Universal championship on Night 2.

Night 1 Lineup (April 1):

WWE United States Championship: John Cena vs. Austin Theory
Smackdown Women’s Championship: Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley
Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship: The Usos vs. Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens
Becky Lynch & Lita & Trish Stratus vs. Damage CNTRL
Seth Rollins vs. Logan Paul
Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio
Fatal Four-Way Showcase: The Street Profits vs. Alpha Academy vs. Viking Raiders vs. Ricochet & Braun Strowman

Night 2 Lineup (April 2):

WWE Undisputed Universal Championship: Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes
Raw Women’s Championship: Bianca Belair vs. Asuka
WWE Intercontinental Championship: Gunther vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus
Hell in a Cell: Edge vs. Finn Balor
Brock Lesnar vs. Omos
Fatal Four-Way Showcase: Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez vs. Natalya and Shotzi vs. Ronda Rousey and Shayna Bazler vs. Sonya Deville and Chelsea Green

Previous WrestleMania events in California:

WrestleMania 2: Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena (1986)WrestleMania VII: Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena (1991)WrestleMania: XII: Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim (1996)WrestleMania 2000: Arrowhead Pond (2000)WrestleMania 21: Staples Center (2005)WrestleMania 31: Santa Clara (2015)

Pre-match reading:

Bianca Belair prepares for title defense against Asuka
WWE’s WrestleMania 39 takes center stage in Southern California
Cody Rhodes views WrestleMania 39 as ‘biggest chapter’ of his career
WWE just made the dreams of 20 Make-A-Wish kids come true
Ontario’s Sol Ruca is the NXT woman up in WWE
Photos: WWE stars enjoy day with veterans, kids in advance of Wrestlemania in Inglewood

Live updates:

A Twitter List by JHWreporter

​ Orange County Register 

Recalling the Passover Seders of my youth as I struggled to host my own

• April 1, 2023

If you are Jewish and only celebrate one religious holiday a year, it’s likely to be Passover. Even if you are not observant and have never understood the holiday or if your third cousin twice removed was Jewish, or perhaps your next-door neighbor, it’s a reason to show up at a Seder table.

Whether it’s a sense of belonging or a connection to ancestors, or because you don’t want to disappoint your mother, you show up, compliment the matzoh ball soup and keep refilling your wine glass. Maybe someday you’ll host a Seder of your own. (This year, Passover begins the evening of April 5.)

I was a single working mom with a young daughter, the first time I hosted Passover. An East Coaster who was relatively new to California, I had no family here and few Jewish friends. And yet it was Passover and I needed to attend a Seder even if it was one of my own making.

What’s more important at a Seder than even matzoh? People. So I hunted up some. I had read that the Pasadena Jewish Temple was pairing Passover host families with Israeli college students so I volunteered to have two guests. Now there was no turning back.

On the big night, I was roasting chicken breasts when the phone rang. It was the temple looking for a place for one more student. “Sure,” I said throwing two more pieces of chicken into the oven. You don’t turn away strangers on Passover.

As I set the table I was picturing Seders of my youth at Aunt Helen’s where she served homemade gefilte fish from a steaming pot on the stove, rather than the fish from a jar sitting on my counter. And the matzoh balls in her chicken soup were light and fluffy, I remembered, wondering how the ones from my Manischewitz mix would turn out.

But when the guests started arriving, including a couple of my non-Jewish friends, the symbolism became more important than whether or not everything was made from scratch. I had my mother’s wedding crystal wine glasses on the table. My Grandma Sarah’s prayer shawl, one of the few things she brought with her when she immigrated from Russia, covered my head when I blessed the candles.

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Because there were no male Jewish family members to lead the Seder, and that was the only way I had ever experienced one, I turned the honor over to my student guests. They led a long evening of prayers, mostly in Hebrew, that I didn’t understand. It was strangely comfortable because it was the same way Uncle Ralph had conducted the Passovers of my growing-up years. At the same time it was uncomfortable because, just like when I was a child, I didn’t feel like a participant.

My daughter and I exchanged quizzical glances that would inspire me, many years later, to study for my adult Bat Mitzvah. That night led me to explore new paths to celebrating Passover. I also gave myself permission to stop feeling guilty about serving fish from a jar.

Email [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @patriciabunin and at patriciabunin.com.

​ Orange County Register 

This drought-tolerant plant is eye-catching and easy to grow

• April 1, 2023

My amole (Beschorneria yuccoides) is blooming and as it is adjacent to the sidewalk, passersby stop and stare. There really is no parallel to amole in the plant kingdom and it is seldom seen – although it is ridiculously easy to grow, being stoutly drought tolerant.

The flower is incredibly unique and evokes Audrey, the carnivorous plant in “Little Shop of Horrors.” Each flower stalk can grow up to six feet in length with small pendant flower clusters appearing every few inches as each section of the stalk opens up. Although related to yuccas and agaves, amole foliage is soft and smooth. And although it produces pups like agaves do, it is not monocarpic; that is, it does not die after flowering but persists for years.

In the language of the Aztecs, “amole” means detergent or soap and refers to the fact that this plant’s roots, in the manner of agave and yucca roots generally, have cleansing properties. San Marcos Growers has four types of Beschorneria in stock; to find a nursery near you that carries their plants, go to smgrowers.com and click on “Retail Locator” on the left margin of the home page.

A reader sent me a photo of a black calla lily (Arum palaestinum) requesting its identity. Black calla lily has the same scape (curvaceous bract) and spadix (vertical stalk that holds many minute flowers) of the familiar white calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica), except in black. It is native to Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. It grows from a tuber as does Italian arum (Arum italicum), a stunning plant where foliage venation is outlined in white on leaf surfaces with bright orange fruit clusters resembling small ears of corn appearing after leaves have withered in summer’s heat. Both of these plants are best grown in partial shade.

Forever in search of plants to grow in that parkway strip between sidewalk and street, I came upon an ornamental grass flowering heavily in just such a spot in Beverly Hills. I have since learned this attractive grass is known as feathertop (Pennisetum villosum), and it has been adorned with thick, white bottlebrush flowers. Although it won the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit, I am not sure if feathertop was planted where I saw it growing or if it blew in as a volunteer.

Interestingly enough, this species is classified as invasive by the California Invasive Plant Council although in more than four decades of plant watching in Southern California, I have never seen it until now, whether in cultivated gardens or wilderness settings. I should also point out that whereas feathertop normally grows to a height of one to two feet, it was completely flattened in the parkway strip where it grew, evidence that it was being regularly trampled but took such abuse in stride and just kept on flowering. Feathertop spreads by both seed and rhizomes and its flowers are prized for vase arrangements.

Last month, I asked for locations of notable oak trees and was informed by John Spaulding of notable specimens in Woodland Hills, one at the corner of Fenwood Avenue and Dolorosa Street and another at the terminus of Venture Boulevard near Valley Circle Boulevard.

Lieu Au wrote me about the Pechanga oak, south of Temecula, whose age is estimated at between 1,000 and 2,000 years old. It is the oldest coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) in the western hemisphere and continues to produce a crop of acorns every two to three years. Finally, Mark Patterson’s property in Newbury Park is adjacent to a coastal live oak with a girth of 15 feet that appears to be two to three hundred years old. The oak is growing within the 12,700 acres of the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency.

“Botany Blitz,” a special event being sponsored by the Orange County chapter of the California Native Plant Society in conjunction with the UC Irvine Herbarium, will be held on Sunday, April 16th, in Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in Trabuco Canyon. Volunteer participants will be divided into teams, each surveying a different area of the park for the purpose of identifying the native plants in that area. Each team will be led by a botanist but anyone can participate, regardless of their level of native plant knowledge. You must register and sign a liability release by April 9th and can do this online at occnps.org.

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The 20th annual Native Plant Garden Tour, sponsored by the Theodore Payne Foundation, will be held on April 15th and 16th, featuring 37 gardens in the Los Angeles area. For details about the tour and ticket purchase, visit nativeplantgardentour.org.

The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) has removed mandatory emergency restrictions on water use for seven million customers. These restrictions applied to all of Los Angeles as well as to many other cities from Oxnard to Fontana. However, MWD advises that we check with our individual water agency to ascertain which water use restrictions may still be in place since each agency can determine its own policy regarding such restrictions.

California native of the week: Lemonade berry (Rhus integrifolia) and sugar bush (Rhus ovata) are so closely related that it makes sense to mention them together. Both are showing pinkish-white flowers now which, at peak bloom, may practically obscure the plants’ foliage. Both plants are adaptable to a wide variety or soil types, as long as drainage is adequate, and may grow in full sun to somewhat shady exposures. They make excellent screens and may be trimmed into formal hedges as well, although their ultimate height is unpredictable, as it ranges from three to ten feet. It is not always easy to tell these plants apart although sugar bush has leaves that are slightly folded or taco shaped. The fruit of lemonade berry is larger than that of sugar bush and makes a rejuvenating drink when seeped in water. These plants can both live for many decades and, should they begin to look piqued, a hard pruning almost down to the ground can bring about renewed and explosive growth. When pruning, wear gloves and long sleeves due to their dermatitic sap. After all, poison ivy and poison oak are relatives of these two natives.

​ Orange County Register 

Second lawsuit against Orange Unified filed alleging school board members broke state law

• April 1, 2023

For the second time in a month, a parent sued the Orange Unified School District and its school board over alleged violations of state law.

Parent Gregory Pleasants, who has one child in the district and another slated to attend in the coming school year, filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court on March 20, citing similar complaints to that of parents Alexander and Sarah Brewsaugh in a March 13 lawsuit against the district and board.

RELATED: Parents sue Orange Unified alleging transparency issues after superintendent firing

The new lawsuit alleges three separate violations of the Ralph M. Brown Act, California’s open meeting law.

According to the lawsuit, the board majority violated the Brown Act because it allegedly failed to give sufficient notice for its Jan. 5 meeting, it did not adequately describe on the agenda what was to be discussed during the closed session and members “engaged in serial meetings” and agreed on what actions they planned to take prior to that meeting — before the public had a chance to learn what was happening and offer input.

At that Jan. 5 special meeting, called by board President Rick Ledesma the day before, Ledesma and three other members of the board voted to fire the superintendent, Gunn Marie Hansen, and hire an interim superintendent who had worked in Southern California but was retired and living in another state. The board also placed another top administrator, Cathleen Corella, on paid leave and appointed a local high school principal, Craig Abercrombie, to fill in for her.

At the time the special meeting was called, students and teachers were off for the holidays; Hansen and Corella were reportedly out of the country.

Ledesma declined to comment Friday, March 31, on the new lawsuit.

But he previously, in response to questions about the other lawsuit filed by the Brewsaughs, disputed that he and his colleagues violated the Brown Act.

Ledesma acknowledged having been in touch before the Jan. 5 meeting with fellow board members Angie Rumsey and John Ortega but not Madison Miner. Since he did not communicate with four of the seven members, which would constitute a majority, Ledesma said the board did not violate the Brown Act.

The four trustees, who surprised their three other colleagues when they voted to fire Hansen and place Corella on leave, form a conservative majority block on the board.

RELATED: Why did Orange Unified fire its superintendent?

The new lawsuit alleges that the board majority “orchestrated the events of the Board meeting privately, without public input,” prior to the Jan. 5 meeting. Replacements were lined up for Hansen’s and Corella’s jobs, and both had been contacted by Ledesma the day before.

It alleges that Rumsey “met and had a discussion” with the interim superintendent before he was named and that Miner had interviews with the people who were appointed to fill in for Hansen and Corella “before they were named.”

Rumsey could not be reached for comment. In a text message Friday, Miner said she spoke with the new interim superintendent, Edward Velasquez, and Abercrombie a week after their appointments on Jan. 5, and not before that special meeting.  Velasquez has since left the district and returned to his home in Idaho.

The board recently appointed an acting superintendent from within the district. Hansen, meanwhile, is the new superintendent at the Westminster School District.

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​ Orange County Register 

California’s housing bubble pops as Fed shuts the pump

• April 1, 2023

California’s latest homebuying debacle is a pumped-up storyline we’ve seen before – even if each housing bubble has its own shape and size.

California housing has never been cheap and buyers must heavily rely on generous financing. And if the market looked bubbly – when values exceed economic logic – there’s usually an aggressive monetary benefactor helping to overinflate it.

This tenuous relationship with mortgage money also creates volatility. When that monetary pump disappears, bubbles burst and the market takes an ugly reset.

The latest example comes courtesy of the Federal Reserve, which morphed from benefactor (the creator of historically cheap mortgages) to the villain (an economy-icing hiker of interest rates) in just two years.

The loss of that Fed pump chilled the pandemic era’s California homebuying binge. By November 2022, statewide home sales fell to their third-lowest level in Realtor data dating to 1990.

Housing’s bubble bursts — again! What did we learn?

The median price of an existing, single-family home in California in February 2023 was $735,000, 18% off May 2022’s $900,000 high. That’s the third-biggest drop on record over these 10 months.

This scenario is nothing new. Go back to the early 1990s, when the demise of mortgage-making savings and loans led to a slowly bursting California housing bubble. And who can forget the mid-2000s when the implosion of high-risk subprime lenders led to a rapid and sharp housing market crash?

You see, California’s housing history has a bad habit of repeating itself.

1990s: A wonderful life?

This bubble’s pop seemingly happened in slow motion. The statewide median price eventually fell 20% from its May 1991 peak.

This era’s price pump was the savings and loan industry, a modern spin on the quaint financial institution that had a starring role in the holiday movie classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

These mortgage specialists had essentially been bankrupted in the early by soaring interest rates of the early 1980s. S&L income from the old fixed-rate home loans they owned couldn’t cover the rapidly growing sums owed to depositors.

So the government’s kick-the-can-down-the-road solution was to let S&Ls try to recoup their losses by making more bets. Many of those gambles were tied to real estate and helped fuel a 1980s housing boom in California.

The S&L experiment flopped by 1989, eventually costing U.S. taxpayers more than $130 billion to insure the industry’s deposits. And California lost its housing pump.

At the same time, the end of the Cold War meant the federal defense budget could be drastically cut. California’s large aerospace industry suffered as a result.

That loss of middle-income generating jobs was another huge blow to the statewide economy and homebuying as well.

It took almost eight years for the statewide median home price to reach a new high.

2000s: Too easy to get

Somebody had to be the new king of home financing.

This bubble’s pump was the subprime lender, who made getting a mortgages far too easy. many of these firms were heavily financed by Wall Street brokerages that wanted to package mortgages and sell them as investments around the globe.

These unorthodox loans – plus a resurgent California economy – combined for a feeding frenzy for housing. Prices surged 132% in six years. When too many of subprime borrowers failed to make house payments, however, their lenders failed, too.

Foreclosures soared. Housing prices tanked. Mortgage bonds cratered. Unemployment skyrocketed. Banks teetered. A Wall Street giant, Lehman Bros., collapsed. And the Great Recession ensued.

California home prices would plummet 59% from their May 2007 top. It took 11 years to recoup the losses.

2022: Too much good stuff

Oddly, the nation’s central bank that’s also a bank regulator was the pump for this bubble.

As the pandemic throttled the nation’s economy in early 2020, the Fed did what it often does in dicey times: helped to prop up the business climate with lowered interest rates.

However, the Fed gave housing an additional nudge by doubling its ownership of mortgage bonds to $2.8 trillion – as it clearly feared another housing crash.

These actions pushed mortgage rates to a historic low of 2.6% by early 2021 – and the Fed kept rates below 3% for roughly a year. That stimulus, plus federal aid for the broad economy, was too much good stuff. Home prices, for example, jumped 53% in two years.

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Meanwhile, all this stimulus ballooned to inflation rates to highs not seen in four decades. You know, back in the early 1980s when the S&Ls sunk.

This bubble’s pop came in early 2022 when the Fed’s pump ended. The central bank sharply reversed its interest rate policies hoping to chill an overheated economy. Mortgage rates swiftly doubled, icing homebuying.

Oh, and a collection of banks collapsed – notably California’s Silicon Valley Bank – as their wrong-way bets on interest rates blew up.

Bottom line

Bubbles are partly human nature, partly economic cycle.

California’s housing market is prone to bubble conditions because of its dependence on bountiful financing required to keep its high-priced housing market in high gear.

When lenders are generous or mortgage rates low, the housing market often thrives – and occasionally it gets too giddy.

And when those pumps are turned off, prices dip and house hunting slows – and often swiftly. You know, the bubble pops.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

Turn the California Legislature into a part-time profession

• April 1, 2023

After reading my column last week touting historic preservation of the existing California Capitol Annex rather than the current billion-dollar raze-and-rebuild vanity scheme, a reader challenged me to champion something he probably thought I never would.

“Mr. Wilson, Here’s an old idea that needs new life,” wrote Arnold Gregg.

“How about returning California to a part-time Legislature? The return would be fewer frivolous laws, less office space and a savings to taxpayers. You could champion this in your columns.”

“totally agree good idea cheers lw” I replied, in that no-doubt overly casual style I affect on Monday mornings when replying to reader mail. Probably could have knocked Mr. Gregg over with a feather.

But I’ve been for a part-time California Legislature ever since I began writing newspaper columns — which I find by counting on my fingers is 35 years.

I just haven’t touted the idea lately. Because here it’s akin to tilting at windmills. But it doesn’t hurt to take another joust at it. ‘Cause miracles do happen, babe.

In making the ridiculously-easy-to-make argument for having citizens with real jobs rather than professional politicians representing us in Sacramento, it’s best to first point to what may be for Californians a startling fact: Our state is among a tiny minority of states that do elect full-timers to serve in the state Capitol.

Depending on how you count what “full-time” means, at most 10 American states have full-time legislatures, which means that 40 do not.

One of the slightly different counts comes from Indivisible, the liberal activist group: “Believe it or not, only nine states have full-time legislatures — California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The rest of the states meet part-time with some states like Montana, Nevada, Texas, North Dakota only meeting in odd-numbered years.”

You’ll note right off that it’s an interesting mix. Sure, some of the largest and most progressive states like our own are among the full-timers. But Ohio, Wisconsin and Alaska often trend red — and while the odd-numbered ones are all Western and greatly rural, Nevada often trends blue.

The National Conference of State Legislatures analyzes the national mix as having only four truly always-there bodies — “Full-time, well paid, large staff”  — with six others being “Full-time Lite,” with members being paid an average of about $42,000 annually rather than an average of $82,000 annually. California Assembly and state Senate members make $120,000 a year — before their per diems.

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The truly part-time pols get an average of $18,500 a year, which means they have to have, well, real jobs. New Hampshire reps make $100 a year, plus a per diem.

New Mexico reps get only per diem — which, considering the capital is fancy Santa Fe, I hope is high, otherwise no enchiladas de mole for you, Mr. and Mrs. elected Leg.

Doesn’t this create a situation in which only people with flexible jobs — I don’t know, large-animal veterinarians, self-employed CPAs, sole-proprietor lawyers, successful novelists — can afford to serve in our state legislatures?

Why, yes it does. I don’t know that the guarantee of big bucks for a select group of people who bounce from the Legislature to county supervisor seats to cushy state boards their entire careers is part of the promise of our democracy.

Cranky enough for you? OK, how about this one: Yes, I also agree that for every law state “lawmakers” pass, they ought to repeal one. Actually, they ought to repeal five.

Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. [email protected].

​ Orange County Register