News Briefs

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School district to

discuss finances

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education will discuss at its meeting on Thursday how the district will afford a proposed 5 percent raise for its teachers. A representative from the firm Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which the district hired late last year for this matter, will be at the meeting. Last fall, the district and the teachers union reached an agreement, which still must be approved by the board. It was supported by Superintendent Dianne Talarico but not by district financial chief Winston Braham, who later resigned. Also, all but one member of the Financial Oversight Committee expressed concern about the deal. In November, the district received a letter from the Los Angeles County Office of Education saying that the district would have a reserve below the minimum 3 percent by the 2008-09 fiscal year if it were to pay the teachers the estimated additional $3 million per year. LACOE said the district must come up with what it called a Recovery Plan so the reserve funds would not sink too far.

Coastal Commission votes for sonar restrictions

The California Coastal Commission voted 8-1 last week to place restrictions on the U.S. Navy’s use of sonar, which it says is harmful to marine mammals off the state’s coast. But the Navy does not necessarily have to accept the commission’s vote.

An official at the meeting said the Navy is willing to accept some recommendations, including lowering the volume of the sonar and to watch for marine mammals, but he said the Navy could not accept other recommendations until they receive further review.

If the Navy does not accept all the Coastal Commission’s recommendations, the commission could take the Navy to court to try to get its restrictions enforced. The president could override a court ruling on this matter.

Hearing scheduled for SM Mountains Draft LCP

The county’s Regional Planning Commission will hold a hearing Jan. 24 on the proposed Local Coastal Program for an area that includes unincorporated Malibu.

Copies of the Draft LCP can be found at http://planning.co.la.ca.us/spSmmlcp.htm. The hearing will take place in the Regional Planning Commission Hearing Room 150, located at 320 West Temple St. in Los Angeles.

For more information, call 213.626.0434

Malibu man arrested on money laundering charges

Canadian John Lefebvre, who owns a home in Malibu, was arrested and charged Tuesday for allegedly laundering billions of dollars in illegal gambling income, according to Reuters. Canadian Stephen Lawrence was arrested and charged as well.

A founding minority partner in NETeller, a money transfer company based in the Isle of Man, Lefebvre could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the charge of conspiring to transfer funds with the intent to promote illegal gambling. Companies like NETeller allow gambling entities to transfer money collected from U.S. gamblers to bank accounts out of the country, according to U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia.

NETeller, launched eight years ago, was worth more than $2 billion until shares fell by 60 percent since September, after executives from British companies involved in online sports gambling were arrested and a new law was passed in October that disallows banks from transactions involving Internet gambling.

Lefebvre had resigned as a nonexecutive director of NETeller in December 2005, according to Reuters. He holds a 5.54 percent stake in the company. Lefebvre was to appear in federal court in California on Tuesday.

-Jonathan Friedman

& Laura Tate