People and Events

There was a local connection Friday in the story out of Chicago that someone has been bilking banks there and elsewhere by depositing chemically treated checks that disintegrate in a couple of hours--before officials discover they were rubber to begin with.

In about a dozen such incidents, say Chicago police, banks issued funds against such deposits, only to find the checks were bogus and had turned into confetti that would not serve as evidence.

Some of those checks, according to Detective Gregory Danz, of the Chicago Police Department’s financial crimes division, came from the Culver City branch of Coast Savings & Loan Assn.

Peter Summerville, Coast S & L spokesman here, said there had been “absolutely no loss” to Coast. He said he understands someone used Coast checks, but wrote them on a non-existent account. How many? “Not very many at all, quite frankly,” Summerville said.

With Easter on the horizon, two or three local schools held their (sort of) traditional egg drop contests Friday, determining who could package an uncooked egg so that it could be dropped from several floors up without breaking.

At both the private Pilgrim School in Los Angeles and at the public Barranca Elementary School in Covina, some eggs survived. In both events, adults did the actual dropping so that some kindergartner wouldn’t spill out of a high window.

The rules varied. At Pilgrim, no parachutes, streamers or other air catchers were allowed. At Barranca, which is part of the Covina Valley Unified School District, parachutes were OK. One was rigged with a circle of balloons. “There was a lot of Styrofoam,” said Georgia Florentine, principal.

The student winner at Barranca was Lamont Solitaire, a sixth-grader whose method was not released. In the adult category, it was sixth-grade teacher Kristin Thornburgh.

At Pilgrim, 11-year-old Jennifer Wong took the prize with the smallest packaging for an unscathed egg.

Rene Engel claims he was only trying to get a cat-sitter when security guards at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art twisted his arm, forced him to the floor, handcuffed him and held him for 90 minutes.

In a Los Angeles Superior Court suit filed by attorney Jeffrey Melczer, broadcast and music consultant Engel says he was on his way to a concert at the museum last Oct. 15 when he found a stray cat in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard.

He says he took it into the museum and asked one of the guards to look out for it until the concert was over, when Engel would reclaim it and “deal with it in a humane and proper manner.”

He recalls being told that cats aren’t allowed in the museum. He persisted. Then, according to the suit, he was manhandled and detained until police came and released him.

The suit asks unspecified damages for false imprisonment and emotional distress.

A museum spokeswoman said she could not comment because the suit was filed against the county, and museum officials were unfamiliar with its details.

Melczer said he doesn’t know what finally happened to the cat.

Stella L. Ross, who is running for city clerk in Arcadia’s April 12 election, has noted in the background material on candidates sent out with sample ballots that she has been “active in preventing cults in Arcadia.”

Asked about this, she said she was the one who provided much of the literature that helped persuade the City Council that it should refuse to let Hare Krishna members solicit funds in that city a dozen or so years ago. That action followed the emotional case of a couple who retrieved their daughter from the group and had her deprogrammed.

Arcadia Mayor Charles Gilb, who was on the council then, said Ross was simply “one of many” who spoke to the council on what was a very hot issue at the time.

Just how does that qualify her to be city clerk?

“I don’t know that it’s a qualification,” responded Ross. “But it shows some of my commitment and dedication to this city.” She recited a long list of issues on which she has expressed herself before the council over the years and conceded, “I’m a pretty vocal person.”