2000 / The Year in Quotes

‘When greed takes the place of public safety and personal self-dealing overcomes public protection, then serious changes need to be made.’

George Kehrer, executive director of a consumer group that helps disaster victims nationwide. He spoke at a news conference in May at which homeowners angered by unpaid Northridge earthquake insurance claims demanded the resignation of Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, who quit his post soon after.

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‘I can’t wait to get off of welfare and make my kids proud. Opening this business is going to help me do it.’

Lynne Nixon, above, who completed a new welfare-to-entrepreneurship program funded by the city of Los Angeles and run by the Van Nuys-based Valley Economic Development Center.

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‘I’ve never been less excited in all my life for an election. They’re all a bunch of nincompoops.’

Everett Boone, 80, of Glendale, where state Sen. Adam Schiff unseated incumbent Rep. James E. Rogan in the hotly contested 27th Congressional District race. At a cost of $10 million, it could well have been the most expensive congressional campaign in U.S. history.

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‘She betrayed the trust of her children.’

L. Jeffrey Wiatt, Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, in sentencing Sandi Nieves to death for setting a fire that killed her four daughters.

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‘I’m a stay-at-home mom whose job has been taken away.’

Susan Markowitz, above, of West Hills, whose 15-year-old son Nicholas, was abducted and killed in August, allegedly over a drug debt owed by his half-brother.

Three men and a 17-year-old boy have been charged in the case, while a fifth suspect, Jesse James Hollywood, remains at large.

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‘I’m crying, I can’t believe it finally happened.’

Tony Lara, above, of Northridge, after President Clinton granted him permanent U.S. residency. At 10, Lara came from El Salvador and grew up alone after his mother died and his drug-addicted father abandoned him.

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‘It’s my fault that my 15-year-old brother’s dead.’

Benjamin Markowitz, 22, an acknowledged drug dealer and half-brother of Nicholas Markowitz.

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‘No one won here today. there are no winners...It’s been a very, very long year.’

Kevin Carney, a former Palmdale city councilman, school board president and sheriff’s sergeant, after a jury acquitted him of child molestation charges.

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‘They were athletic stars with very bright futures.’

Michael Dutton, principle of Littlerock High School, on the arrests of two varsity football layers after a man they allegedly beat up at a party died.

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‘There is so much that can be done to save animals if we can just show people ways to solve problems so that they don’t have to get rid of their loved ones.’

Volunteer dog trainer Bobby Dorafshar, above, who coordinates a project to reduce the euthanasia rate at the East Valley Animal Shelter.

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‘This is a labor of love. Bikes, in essence, have saved my life. I feel very lucky to have found this.’

Mark Blum, a former executive who has refurbished more than 800 bicycles and donated then to disadvantaged children and homeless people since he was stricken with multiple sclerosis six years ago.’

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‘Do you really want to put that little boy in the gas chamber? Look at how cute I am.’

Robert M. Bloom Jr., left, convicted murderer who represented himself during a retrial of his death sentence. Bloom showed jurors childhood photos of himself in an attempt to convince them to spare his life.

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‘You’re forced to water down the soup and then you proudly tell your guests it’s a special light soup recipe.’

Harold Tennen, vice president of the Glenridge Homeowners Assn., criticizing a Los Angeles Fire Department plan to split up the paramedic teams working on ambulances in the Valley.

‘I wasn’t too happy about it. I thought we had lost two states.’

Jonathan Shapiro, a second-grader at Calabash Street Elementary school in Woodland Hills, where a math lesson revealed that some American flags hadn’t been replaced since 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii joined the union.