Mary Jo White could face conflicts of interest as SEC chairwoman

NEW YORK — As a lawyer in private practice, Mary Jo White worked for Wall Street all-stars: banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co., auditor Deloitte & Touche, former Bank of America Corp. chief Ken Lewis.

White, President Obama's pick to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, even did legal work for former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. director Rajat Gupta, the highest-profile catch in the federal government's crackdown on insider trading, according to disclosures White filed ahead of her U.S. Senate confirmation hearing.

If she wins approval to lead the country's top financial watchdog, government ethics rules could force White to sit out of some SEC decisions. Potential conflicts of interest — or the appearances of conflicts — could arise from her work at the high-powered New York law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, and that of her husband John White, a partner at the prestigious firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

Obama's appointment of White, a former U.S. attorney in Manhattan known for high-profile prosecutions of mobsters and terrorists, was seen as a signal the administration was getting tougher on Wall Street. Her confirmation hearing in the Senate has not yet been scheduled but is expected in the next several weeks.

"She would have quite a minefield to navigate," said Robert Kelner, an attorney who is an expert in government ethics rules at the law firm Covington & Burling in Washington. "But this is not unusual for a senior-level appointee coming out of a law firm."

White could have to abstain from votes on matters involving former clients at a time when the SEC has been struggling to regain investor confidence among regulators and financial markets.

Government ethics rules generally prevent commissioners from participating in matters in which they or their spouses have any financial stake, or have any interest that could raise questions about their impartiality, Kelner said.

These rules generally restrict commissioners from taking part in cases they worked on while in the private sector — whether to bring a securities fraud lawsuit against a former client, for example, Kelner said.

White could still be involved in other matters dealing with former clients, just as long as she hasn't previously worked on the other side of particular cases before the SEC, Kelner said.

What could also complicate White's tenure at the SEC is an ethics pledge Obama has required executive-branch appointees to sign since he took office.

Aiming to limit the effects of the "revolving door" between government officials and the private sectors they regulate, the ethics pledge precludes appointees from participating in any matter involving "specific parties that is directly and substantially related" to their "former employer or former clients." Kelner said the pledge generally would not apply to broad regulations or policies.

The White House could grant White a waiver from the ethics pledge.

White did not respond to an email request for comment. Nominees typically do not speak publicly ahead of their confirmation hearings.

White would take over the SEC at a time when the agency faces major regulatory issues, aside from enforcement issues. The five-member commission, under former Chairwoman Mary Schapiro, failed to pass a sweeping overhaul of money-market funds, which federal officials say remain a weak link in the financial system.

Also before the SEC are rules governing high-speed stock trading and how the increasingly fragmented stock market is structured. The agency still must mete out myriad regulations called for by the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul of 2010.

John Coffee, a securities law expert at Columbia University in New York, said White has no apparent conflicts involving the marquee regulatory matters facing the SEC.

"There is just a forest of bayonets waiting out there if she looked like she was protecting a former client from an enforcement action," Coffee said. "I think she's also too smart to put herself in that kind of position."

andrew.tangel@latimes.com

Times staff writer Jim Puzzanghera in Washington contributed to this report.

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Hollywood directs its star power toward a campaign closer to home

A stylish crowd waited beneath a flashing marquee outside the Fonda Theatre. "Appearing tonight!" the sign read. "Eric Garcetti 4 Mayor."

In a city where political campaigns are typically waged at neighborhood meetings, not Hollywood concert halls, last week's star-studded fundraiser for Garcetti highlighted the entertainment industry's outsized role in this year's mayoral race. Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel started the show with a stand-up routine and musician Moby got the crowd of several hundred dancing. Actress Amy Smart urged everyone to tweet about the campaign, and actor Will Ferrell beamed in via video to pledge that if Garcetti is elected, every resident in the city will receive free waffles.

Hollywood is taking to City Hall politics like never before, veterans say, with power players such as Steven Spielberg leading a major fundraising effort and celebrities such as Salma Hayek weighing in via YouTube. A Times analysis of city Ethics Commission records found that actors, producers, directors and others in the industry have donated more than $746,000 directly to candidates, with some $462,000 going to Garcetti and $226,000 to City Controller Wendy Greuel.

Several of Greuel's big-name celebrity supporters, including Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson and Zooey Deschanel, recently hosted a fundraiser for her at an exclusive club on the Sunset Strip. She is getting extra help from Spielberg and his former partners at DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, who have given at least $150,000 and are raising more for an independent group funding a TV ad blitz on her behalf.

The burst of support is coming from an industry often maligned for paying little attention to local politics.

While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is often photographed at red carpet events and former Mayor Tom Bradley was famously close to actor Gregory Peck, serious Hollywood money and star power has tended to remain tantalizingly out of reach for local politicians. "It's no secret that the entertainment industry has never really focused on the city that houses it," said Steve Soboroff, who ran for mayor and lost in 2001.

Political consultant Garry South, who has worked on mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns, recalled having to pay celebrities to appear at fundraisers in the past. Hollywood has long embraced candidates in presidential and congressional elections, South said, in part because they have more influence over causes favored by celebrities.

"The mayor of L.A. is not going to get us out of Afghanistan. The mayor of L.A. is not going to determine whether or not gay marriage is legal," South said. "The local issues are just not as sexy."

But this year, if you're a part of the Hollywood establishment, chances are you've gotten invitations to fundraisers for Greuel, Garcetti or both.

The difference this time is that both candidates have worked to cultivate deep Hollywood connections, observers say. Garcetti has represented Hollywood for 12 years, overseeing a development boom and presiding over ceremonies to add stars — Kimmel recently got one — on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Greuel is a former executive at DreamWorks, where she worked with the moguls who founded the studio. She has also served for 10 years on the board of the California Film Commission.

City Councilwoman Jan Perry and entertainment attorney Kevin James have reaped far less financial support from the industry, records show, although each claims a share of celebrity endorsements. Dick Van Dyke sponsored a fundraiser for Perry and Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black has given to James.

Agent Feroz Taj, who attended Garcetti's Moby concert, said a flurry of activity around the race, involving friends and colleagues, piqued his interest. He said he's never been involved in a political campaign, but now when he receives invites to Greuel events, he says he is supporting Garcetti.

Industry insiders have been buzzing about a letter they say is being circulated by an advisor to Spielberg and Katzenberg, urging people to give $15,000 to an independent group supporting Greuel. The DreamWorks founders have made a difference for Greuel in previous elections. In 2002, financial support from the studio executives and their allies helped her squeak out a victory in one of the closest City Council races in history.

This time around, billionaire media mogul Haim Saban is getting involved, providing his Beverly Hills estate for a Greuel fundraiser featuring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Greuel has also received contributions from Tom Hanks and actresses Mariska Hargitay and Eva Longoria, neither of whom have given to a local political campaign before, according to records.

Garcetti, on the other hand, has picked up contributions from former Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner, as well as newcomers to local politics Jake Gyllenhaal and Hayek, who once traveled with Garcetti on a global warming awareness mission to the South Pole. The actress released a video endorsing Garcetti and thanking him for helping her find her wallet in the snow.

Campaign consultant Sean Clegg linked the industry's burgeoning interest in mayoral politics to President Obama's election, which he said had "a catalyzing effect on Hollywood." Indeed, many Greuel and Garcetti supporters were Obama backers. Hayek hosted a fundraiser for Obama and Longoria served as a co-chair of his reelection campaign.

Clegg is a consultant for Working Californians, an independent campaign committee that hopes to raise and spend at least $2 million supporting Greuel, with donations from Spielberg and others in Hollywood, as well as the union representing Department of Water and Power employees.

Generally, Clegg argued, Hollywood money is different than the special-interest funding campaigns collect. "Money is coming out of the entertainment industry more on belief and less on the transactional considerations," he said.

But Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said Hollywood's new interest in local elections may be tied to growing concerns about film production being lured elsewhere by tax incentives.

Garcetti and Greuel have both pledged to reverse job losses tied to runaway television and film production, with Garcetti touting a recent proposal to eliminate roughly $231,000 in annual city fees charged for pilot episodes of new TV shows. The number of pilots shot locally has dropped 30% in recent years, but city budget analysts say the tax break would have a minimal effect because city fees represent only a small portion of production costs.

On the council, both candidates voted to eliminate filming fees at most city facilities. Greuel tells audiences she has an insider's perspective on the industry's needs and says she will create an "entertainment cabinet" to help it thrive. "I have sat with studio heads," she said in a recent interview. "They want a city . . . that is a champion for film industry jobs in Los Angeles."

Greuel may have Garcetti beat on experience in the studio front office, but he is the only candidate with his own page on IMDb.com — a closely watched industry website that tracks individuals' film and television credits.

The councilman, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, has made several television appearances, including one for the cable police drama "The Closer." He played the mayor of Los Angeles.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

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Cuomo Bucks Tide With Bill to Lift Abortion Limits

ALBANY — Bucking a trend in which states have been seeking to restrict abortion, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is putting the finishing touches on legislation that would guarantee women in New York the right to late-term abortions when their health is in danger or the fetus is not viable.

Mr. Cuomo, seeking to deliver on a promise he made in his recent State of the State address, would rewrite a law that currently allows abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy only if the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. The law is not enforced, because it is superseded by federal court rulings that allow late-term abortions to protect a woman’s health, even if her life is not in jeopardy. But abortion rights advocates say the existence of the more restrictive state law has a chilling effect on some doctors and prompts some women to leave the state for late-term abortions.

Mr. Cuomo’s proposal, which has not yet been made public, would also clarify that licensed health care practitioners, and not only physicians, can perform abortions. It would remove abortion from the state’s penal law and regulate it through the state’s public health law.

Abortion rights advocates have welcomed Mr. Cuomo’s plan, which he outlined in general terms as part of a broader package of women’s rights initiatives in his State of the State address in January. But the Roman Catholic Church and anti-abortion groups are dismayed; opponents have labeled the legislation the Abortion Expansion Act.

The prospects for Mr. Cuomo’s effort are uncertain. The State Assembly is controlled by Democrats who support abortion rights; the Senate is more difficult to predict because this year it is controlled by a coalition of Republicans who have tended to oppose new abortion rights laws and breakaway Democrats who support abortion rights.

New York legalized abortion in 1970, three years before it was legalized nationally by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Mr. Cuomo’s proposal would update the state law so that it could stand alone if the broader federal standard set by Roe were to be undone.

“Why are we doing this? The Supreme Court could change,” said a senior Cuomo administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the governor had not formally introduced his proposal.

But opponents of abortion rights, already upset at the high rate of abortions in New York State, worry that rewriting the abortion law would encourage an even greater number of abortions. For example, they suggest that the provision to allow abortions late in a woman’s pregnancy for health reasons could be used as a loophole to allow unchecked late-term abortions.

“I am hard pressed to think of a piece of legislation that is less needed or more harmful than this one,” the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, wrote in a letter to Mr. Cuomo last month. Referring to Albany lawmakers in a subsequent column, he added, “It’s as though, in their minds, our state motto, ‘Excelsior’ (‘Ever Upward’), applies to the abortion rate.”

National abortion rights groups have sought for years to persuade state legislatures to adopt laws guaranteeing abortion rights as a backup to Roe. But they have had limited success: Only seven states have such measures in place, including California, Connecticut and Maryland; the most recent state to adopt such a law is Hawaii, which did so in 2006.

“Pretty much all of the energy, all of the momentum, has been to restrict abortion, which makes what could potentially happen in New York so interesting,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. “There’s no other state that’s even contemplating this right now.”

In most statehouses, the push by lawmakers has been in the opposite direction. The past two years has seen more provisions adopted at the state level to restrict abortion rights than in any two-year period in decades, according to the Guttmacher Institute; last year, 19 states adopted 43 new provisions restricting abortion access, while not a single significant measure was adopted to expand access to abortion or to comprehensive sex education.

“It’s an extraordinary moment in terms of the degree to which there is government interference in a woman’s ability to make these basic health care decisions,” said Andrea Miller, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. “For New York to be able to send a signal, a hopeful sign, a sense of the turning of the tide, we think is really important.”

Abortion rights advocates say that even though the Roe decision supersedes state law, some doctors are hesitant to perform late-term abortions when a woman’s health is at risk because the criminal statutes remain on the books.

“Doctors and hospitals shouldn’t be reading criminal laws to determine what types of health services they can offer and provide to their patients,” said M. Tracey Brooks, the president of Family Planning Advocates of New York State.

For Mr. Cuomo, the debate over passing a new abortion law presents an opportunity to appeal to women as well as to liberals, who have sought action in Albany without success since Eliot Spitzer made a similar proposal when he was governor. But it also poses a challenge to the coalition of Republicans and a few Democrats that controls the State Senate, the chamber that has in the past stood as the primary obstacle to passing abortion legislation in the capital.

The governor has said that his Reproductive Health Act would be one plank of a 10-part Women’s Equality Act that also would include equal pay and anti-discrimination provisions. Conservative groups, still stinging from the willingness of Republican lawmakers to go along with Mr. Cuomo’s push to legalize same-sex marriage in 2011, are mobilizing against the proposal. Seven thousand New Yorkers who oppose the measure have sent messages to Mr. Cuomo and legislators via the Web site of the New York State Catholic Conference.

A number of anti-abortion groups have also formed a coalition called New Yorkers for Life, which is seeking to rally opposition to the governor’s proposal using social media.

“If you ask anyone on the street, ‘Is there enough abortion in New York?’ no one in their right mind would say we need more abortion,” said the Rev. Jason J. McGuire, the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which is part of the coalition.

Members of both parties say that the issue of reproductive rights was a significant one in November’s legislative elections. Democrats, who were bolstered by an independent expenditure campaign by NARAL, credit their victories in several key Senate races in part to their pledge to fight for legislation similar to what Mr. Cuomo is planning to propose.

Republicans, who make up most of the coalition that controls the Senate, have generally opposed new abortion rights measures. Speaking with reporters recently, the leader of the Republicans, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, strenuously objected to rewriting the state’s abortion laws, especially in a manner similar to what the governor is seeking.

“You could have an abortion up until the day the child would be born, and I think that’s just wrong,” Mr. Skelos said. He suggested that the entire debate was unnecessary, noting that abortion is legal in New York State and saying that is “not going to be changed.”

The Senate Democratic leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers, who is the sponsor of a bill that is similar to the legislation the governor is drafting, said she was optimistic that an abortion measure would reach the Senate floor this year.

“New York State’s abortion laws were passed in 1970 in a bipartisan fashion,” she said. “It would be a sad commentary that over 40 years later we could not manage to do the same thing.”

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Deasy wants 30% of teacher evaluations based on test scores

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced Friday that as much as 30% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student test scores, setting off more contention in the nation's second-largest school system in the weeks before a critical Board of Education election.

Leaders of the teachers union have insisted that there should be no fixed percentage or expectation for how much standardized tests should count — and that test results should serve almost entirely as just one measure to improve instruction. Deasy, in contrast, has insisted that test scores should play a significant role in a teacher's evaluation and that poor scores could contribute directly to dismissal.

In a Friday memo explaining the evaluation process, Deasy set 30% as the goal and the maximum for how much test scores and other data should count.

In an interview, he emphasized that the underlying thrust is to develop an evaluation that improves the teaching corps and that data is part of the effort.

"The public has been demanding a better evaluation system for at least a decade. And teachers have repeatedly said to me what they need is a balanced way forward to help them get better and help them be accountable," Deasy said. "We do this for students every day. Now it's time to do this for teachers."

Deasy also reiterated that test scores would not be a "primary or controlling" factor in an evaluation, in keeping with the language of an agreement reached in December between L.A. Unified and its teachers union. Classroom observations and other factors also are part of the evaluation process.

But United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher expressed immediate concern about Deasy's move. During negotiations, he said, the superintendent had proposed allotting 30% to test scores but the union rejected the plan. Deasy then pulled the idea off the table, which allowed the two sides to come to an agreement, Fletcher said. Teachers approved the pact last month.

"To see this percentage now being floated again is unacceptable," the union said in a statement.

Fletcher described the pact as allowing flexibility for principals, in collaboration with teachers, first to set individual goals and then to look at various measures to determine student achievement and overall teacher performance.

"The superintendent doesn't get to sign binding agreements and then pretend they're not binding," Fletcher said.

When Deasy settled on 30%, his decision was in line with research findings of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has examined teacher quality issues across the country. Some experts have challenged that work.

The test score component would include a rating for the school based on an analysis of all students' standardized test scores. Those "value-added" formulas, known within L.A. Unified as Academic Growth Over Time, can be used to rate a school or a teacher's effectiveness by comparing students' test scores with past performance. The method takes into account such factors as family income and ethnicity.

After an aggressive push by the Obama administration, individual value-added ratings for teachers have been added to reviews in many districts. They make up 40% of evaluations in Washington, D.C., 35% in Tennessee and 30% in Chicago.

But Los Angeles will use a different approach. The district will rely on raw test scores. A teacher's evaluation also may incorporate pass rates on the high school exit exam and graduation, attendance and suspension data.

Deasy's action was met Friday with reactions ranging from guarded to enthusiastic approval within a coalition of outside groups that have pushed for a new evaluation system. This coalition also has sought to counter union influence.

Elise Buik, chief executive of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, said weighing test scores 30% "is a reasonable number that everyone can be happy with."

The union and the district were under pressure to include student test data in evaluations after L.A. County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled last year that the system was violating state law by not using test scores in teacher performance reviews.

A lawsuit to enforce the law was brought by parents in Los Angeles, with support from the Sacramento-based EdVoice advocacy organization.

If the "actual progress" of students is taken into account under Deasy's plan, "it's a historic day for LAUSD," said Bill Lucia, the group's chief executive.

All of this is playing out against the backdrop of the upcoming March 5 election. The campaign for three school board seats has turned substantially into a contest between candidates who strongly back Deasy's policies and those more sympathetic toward the teachers union. Deasy supporters praise the superintendent for measures they say will improve the quality of teaching. The union has faulted Deasy for limiting job protections and said he has imposed unwise or unproven reforms.

In the upcoming election, the union and pro-Deasy forces are matched head to head in District 4, with several employee unions behind incumbent Steve Zimmer and a coalition of donors behind challenger Kate Anderson.

Anderson had high praise for Deasy's directive, saying it struck the right balance and that teachers and students would benefit.

Zimmer said that although he understands that principals need guidance, "I worry about anything that would cause resistance or delay in going forward. I hope this use of a percentage won't disrupt what had been a collaborative process."

howard.blume@latimes.com

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Judge sets May trial date for Kardashian divorce

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kim Kardashian has a due date for her baby and now a trial date for her divorce from NBA player Kris Humphries.

A judge on Friday set a May 6 trial for the reality TV star who wants to end her marriage before July, when her child with Kanye West is due.

Kardashian filed for divorce on Oct. 31, 2011, after she and Humphries had been married just 72 days. Their lavish, star-studded nuptials were recorded and broadcast by E! Entertainment Television.

The trial is expected to last three to five days and could reveal details about Kardashian's reality show empire, which includes "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and several spinoffs.

Two judges determined Friday that Humphries' lawyers had adequate time to prepare for the trial.

Humphries wants the marriage annulled based on his claim that Kardashian only married him for the sake of her show.

She denies that allegation and says the case should be resolved through what would be her second divorce.

Humphries' attorney Marshall Waller asked for a delay until basketball season is over.

But Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon refused, saying firefighters, police officers, truck drivers and others have to miss work for trials, and Humphries must do the same if necessary.

Waller filed paperwork Thursday to withdraw from the case but didn't mention that development in court and refused to answer any questions about the document on Friday.

Waller said he was still hoping to obtain and review 13,000 hours of footage from Kardashian's reality shows to try to prove the fraud claim but noted he does not yet have an agreement to receive the footage.

Kardashian's lawyer said her client was ready for trial.

"Let's get this case dispensed with," attorney Laura Wasser said.

Humphries has provided a deposition in the case, as have West and Kardashian family matriarch Kris Jenner.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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Livestrong Tattoos as Reminder of Personal Connections, Not Tarnished Brand

As Jax Mariash went under the tattoo needle to have “Livestrong” emblazoned on her wrist in bold black letters, she did not think about Lance Armstrong or doping allegations, but rather the 10 people affected by cancer she wanted to commemorate in ink. It was Jan. 22, 2010, exactly a year since the disease had taken the life of her stepfather. After years of wearing yellow Livestrong wristbands, she wanted something permanent.

A lifelong runner, Mariash got the tattoo to mark her 10-10-10 goal to run the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 10, 2010, and fund-raising efforts for Livestrong. Less than three years later, antidoping officials laid out their case against Armstrong — a lengthy account of his practice of doping and bullying. He did not contest the charges and was barred for life from competing in Olympic sports.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Mariash, of Wilson, Wyo., said of the antidoping officials’ report, released in October, and Armstrong’s subsequent confession to Oprah Winfrey. “When I look at the tattoo now, I just think of living strong, and it’s more connected to the cancer fight and optimal health than Lance.”

Mariash is among those dealing with the fallout from Armstrong’s descent. She is not alone in having Livestrong permanently emblazoned on her skin.

Now the tattoos are a complicated, internationally recognized symbol of both an epic crusade against cancer and a cyclist who stood defiant in the face of accusations for years but ultimately admitted to lying.

The Internet abounds with epidermal reminders of the power of the Armstrong and Livestrong brands: the iconic yellow bracelet permanently wrapped around a wrist; block letters stretching along a rib cage; a heart on a foot bearing the word Livestrong; a mural on a back depicting Armstrong with the years of his now-stripped seven Tour de France victories and the phrase “ride with pride.”

While history has provided numerous examples of ill-fated tattoos to commemorate lovers, sports teams, gang membership and bands that break up, the Livestrong image is a complex one, said Michael Atkinson, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who has studied tattoos.

“People often regret the pop culture tattoos, the mass commodified tattoos,” said Atkinson, who has a Guns N’ Roses tattoo as a marker of his younger days. “A lot of people can’t divorce the movement from Lance Armstrong, and the Livestrong movement is a social movement. It’s very real and visceral and embodied in narrative survivorship. But we’re still not at a place where we look at a tattoo on the body and say that it’s a meaningful thing to someone.”

Geoff Livingston, a 40-year-old marketing professional in Washington, D.C., said that since Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey, he has received taunts on Twitter and inquiries at the gym regarding the yellow Livestrong armband tattoo that curls around his right bicep.

“People see it and go, ‘Wow,’ ” he said, “But I’m not going to get rid of it, and I’m not going to stop wearing short sleeves because of it. It’s about my family, not Lance Armstrong.”

Livingston got the tattoo in 2010 to commemorate his brother-in-law, who was told he had cancer and embarked on a fund-raising campaign for the charity. If he could raise $5,000, he agreed to get a tattoo. Within four days, the goal was exceeded, and Livingston went to a tattoo parlor to get his seventh tattoo.

“It’s actually grown in emotional significance for me,” Livingston said of the tattoo. “It brought me closer to my sister. It was a big statement of support.”

For Eddie Bonds, co-owner of Rabbit Bicycle in Hill City, S.D., getting a Livestrong tattoo was also a reflection of the growth of the sport of cycling. His wife, Joey, operates a tattoo parlor in front of their store, and in 2006 she designed a yellow Livestrong band that wraps around his right calf, topped off with a series of small cyclists.

“He kept breaking the Livestrong bands,” Joey Bonds said. “So it made more sense to tattoo it on him.”

“It’s about the cancer, not Lance,” Eddie Bonds said.

That was also the case for Jeremy Nienhouse, a 37-year old in Denver, Colo., who used a Livestrong tattoo to commemorate his own triumph over testicular cancer.

Given the diagnosis in 2004, Nienhouse had three rounds of chemotherapy, which ended on March 15, 2005, the date he had tattooed on his left arm the day after his five-year anniversary of being cancer free in 2010. It reads: “3-15-05” and “LIVESTRONG” on the image of a yellow band.

Nienhouse said he had heard about Livestrong and Armstrong’s own battle with the cancer around the time he learned he had cancer, which alerted him to the fact that even though he was young and healthy, he, too, could have cancer.

“On a personal level,” Nienhouse said, “he sounds like kind of a jerk. But if he hadn’t been in the public eye, I don’t know if I would have been diagnosed when I had been.”

Nienhouse said he had no plans to have the tattoo removed.

As for Mariash, she said she read every page of the antidoping officials’ report. She soon donated her Livestrong shirts, shorts and running gear. She watched Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey and wondered if his apology was an effort to reduce his ban from the sport or a genuine appeal to those who showed their support to him and now wear a visible sign of it.

“People called me ‘Miss Livestrong,’ ” Mariash said. “It was part of my identity.”

She also said she did not plan to have her tattoo removed.

“I wanted to show it’s forever,” she said. “Cancer isn’t something that just goes away from people. I wanted to show this is permanent and keep people remembering the fight.”

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Andrew Meieran has ambitious vision for Clifton's Cafeteria

The gig: Real estate developer and moviemaker Andrew Meieran, 46, is staking his reputation and millions of dollars on an attempt to revive one of the most beloved restaurants in Los Angeles history — Clifton's Cafeteria on Broadway.

Known for its Disney-like forest theme, Clifton's Brookdale Cafeteria served an estimated 170 million meals starting in 1935 but lost traction in recent decades as the city's historic core fell out of favor.

Meieran took it over in 2010 and closed it the following year to begin its renovation.

As longtime fans of the cafeteria wait, Meieran is laboring on a $5-million makeover that he hopes will make Clifton's an elaborate dining and drinking establishment unlike any other in the city and bring back crowds.

The vision: Plans call for Clifton's to have multiple bars and restaurants in markedly divergent styles throughout the four-story building. Each is to be crafted with the sophisticated attention to detail that Meieran brought to the nearby Edison, the Jules Verne-like subterranean nightclub he created deep under a century-old building on 2nd Street.

How to stand out: A memorable bar or restaurant must stay intriguing even on repeat visits, he said. "If you come back, I want you to notice more," Meieran said. "If we don't get the details right, we have a huge potential to miss the mark with our audience."

Comfort food: Meieran aims to restore and improve the forest-themed dining hall that generations of Angelenos associate with Clifton's and continue to serve such traditional cafeteria comfort food as pot roast, mashed potatoes and Jell-O.

Defined spaces: There will be distinct venues throughout the building, much of it rarely visited by the public in years past. The basement will house a bar full of historic local relics intended to transport visitors back in time. The ground floor and mezzanine-like second floor will remain a forest-themed cafeteria, with added details such as an old-fashioned soda fountain.

The third floor, which most recently held Gay '90s-themed banquet rooms, is being turned into a sit-down restaurant with classic food, Meieran said, but "not fine dining." It will also house a museum that he would not describe other than to call it "a cabinet of curiosities."

The fourth floor — Clifton's old offices — will get a Polynesian-themed restaurant and bar called South Seas, named after a Clifton's cafeteria on Olive Street that was popular in the 1940s and 1950s.

Also on that floor will be a second historic-themed bar and restaurant, this one Art Deco style. It's intended to be an upscale yet casual joint where diners can get a steak or chili.

Speed bumps: Renovation of the building, which opened in 1915 as a Boos Brothers cafeteria, has been far more costly and time-consuming than anticipated. At first, Meieran hoped to keep Clifton's open during construction. Then he closed it in fall 2011 for what he hoped would be a $3-million rehabilitation lasting three to six months.

Now he aims to finally reopen by Halloween, and even then some of the venues won't be complete. He's trying to keep the final tab under $5 million.

"Everything takes longer and costs four times more than you expect," he said. "What can go wrong will go wrong. My feeling is that there is just so much incredible potential in this project that it would be a disservice to not do it right."

Early years: Meieran was born and raised in the Bay Area and educated at UC Berkeley. As a young developer he bought a former Roman Catholic church in San Francisco and turned it into a live-work space.

In 1988 church leaders asked him to evaluate the real estate potential of St. Vibiana's, a Los Angeles landmark dating to the 1870s.

Meieran stayed in L.A. to help rehabilitate the adjacent abandoned Higgins Building office tower into housing and created the Edison in its basement.

Domestic front: Meieran and his wife, Christy, renovated and live in Charlie Chaplin's former home in the Hollywood Hills. They have two daughters, Amelie and Natasha.

Hollywood connection: Meieran produced and directed the upcoming "Highland Park," which stars Parker Posey and Danny Glover. Scheduled for release March 20, the movie, set in Detroit, is about the revitalization of a neighborhood.

Like Clifton's, he said, the movie "reflects my philosophy about taking responsibility and doing what you can personally to inspire pride and hope in one's community."

roger.vincent@latimes.com

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Former Bell official says he voted for pay raise out of fear

One of the former Bell city leaders accused of plundering the town's treasury by taking oversized salaries testified Thursday that the fat paychecks and other extraordinary benefits that came with the job were all but forced on him.

George Cole, a former steelworker, returned to the witness stand for a second day and testified that he voted for a 12% annual pay raise for a City Council board in 2008 only because he feared retribution from then-City Manager Robert Rizzo.

"He had shown himself to be very vindictive if you crossed him at that time," Cole said. "I was worried that if I didn't vote for this, if I voted against it, he would do whatever he could to destroy the work that was important to me and the community. I knew that was his character."

Cole said it was the most difficult decision he ever made while on the council but was in the best interest of Bell — a city, he said, where he had devoted decades to advocating for new schools and programs for at-risk youths and senior citizens.

Cole, along with Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal, is accused of drawing an inflated salary from boards and authorities that rarely met and did little work.

The pay increases for the authorities were placed on the consent calendar — a place for routine and non-controversial items that are voted on without discussion. Cole defended the practice and said the agendas, minutes and staff reports were always available to the public at City Hall and at the library.

"I never tried to hide what we were doing," Cole said.

He also testified that the minutes did not reflect work done for those authorities.

Cole justified his vote for previous City Council pay raises to allow for a more diverse pool of council candidates who could use the money. And when he voted for a council salary increase in 2005, Cole noted that Bell was in a "very strong financial position."

The 63-year-old also told jurors that when he discovered $15,500 had been deposited into a 401(k)-style account for him, he complained. Cole said Rizzo refused to remove the money.

Initially, Cole said, Rizzo was a first-rate city administrator, making improvements such as repairing and keeping streets clean and erecting a protective fence around the city's largest park.

"From the time he started, he was able to accomplish things other managers previous to him said couldn't be done or were unable to do," Cole said.

Cole said the two would sometimes meet for breakfast to discuss city matters. "It was business," he said. "It wasn't two chums getting together."

But when Cole decided to give up his salary during his last year in office, he said it fractured his relationship with Rizzo. When he learned about Rizzo's near-$800,000 salary from a story published in The Times in 2010, he said he felt sick.

"I just felt like the dumbest person in the world that this guy had just pulled one of the biggest cons I've ever seen on, not just me, but on the city of Bell," Cole testified.

Rizzo faces 69 felony corruption charges. He and his former assistant, Angela Spaccia, are expected to go on trial later this year.

Cole's top annual salary was $67,000, his attorney said. At the time, he was earning nearly $95,000 a year as chief executive of the Steelworkers Old Timers Foundation.

In 2004, the city paid the state pension system $36,648 to buy Cole an additional five years of service time. Cole was one of 11 Bell administrators for whom the city bought service time.

CalPERS — the state's largest public pension program — has disallowed the service time the city bought, saying the buy-ins were not council-approved and that a municipality cannot pay for them.

Cole also was among the 40 or so Bell employees who were scheduled to receive additional payments through Bell's own supplemental retirement plan, established in 2003. In combination with the CalPERS pension, the payout was among the best retirement plans for non-safety employees in the state. The council never approved the plan.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

corina.knoll@latimes.com

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Kim Kardashian makes another bid to end marriage

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kim Kardashian's divorce case is returning to court Friday with her attorney urging a speedy end to her marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries.

Lawyers for the pregnant reality star and the Brooklyn Nets power forward disagree over a timetable for a trial to end the marriage, which Humphries wants annulled.

Kardashian is asking a judge to order a trial as soon as possible. Humphries wants the case to remain on hold until the basketball season ends.

Setting a trial date may be complicated by a filing Thursday by one of Humphries' attorneys to leave the case, citing "irreconcilable differences" with Humphries. The attorney, Marshall Waller, had stated in recent court filings that he was still seeking evidence from several companies that produce Kardashian's reality shows to try to prove their fraud claims.

Kardashian's attorney Laura Wasser has repeatedly sought a trial date so that the marriage can be ended and denies that the couple's televised marriage was based on false pretenses.

The model is due to give birth in July to a child conceived with her boyfriend Kanye West. Each side accuses the other of trying to use Kardashian's pregnancy for a legal advantage.

"It appears from (Kardashisan's) moving papers that what is really going on here is that an 'urgency' in the form of an apparently unplanned pregnancy ... is perceived by (Kardashian) as an opportunity to gain a litigation advantage by trying to force this court to prematurely set this matter for trial," Waller wrote in a court filing earlier this month.

"(Humphries) to his great discredit thinks that because (Kardashian) is now pregnant he can exert some leverage over (her) knowing that she wants to be divorced," Wasser wrote.

Kardashian filed for divorce on Dec. 31, 2011 after 72 days of marriage. The pair was married in a star-studded ceremony that was televised by E! Entertainment Television.

The case has already drawn in West, the producers of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," and Kardashian family matriarch Kris Jenner.

Superior Court Judge Stephen Moloney will determine Friday how the case will proceed. He has previously said the case should be ready for trial early this year.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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Well: Ask Well: Swimming to Ease Back Pain

Many people find that recreational swimming helps ease back pain, and there is research to back that up. But some strokes may be better than others.

An advantage to exercising in a pool is that the buoyancy of the water takes stress off the joints. At the same time, swimming and other aquatic exercises can strengthen back and core muscles.

That said, it does not mean that everyone with a case of back pain should jump in a pool, said Dr. Scott A. Rodeo, a team physician for U.S.A. Olympic Swimming at the last three Olympic Games. Back pain can have a number of potential causes, some that require more caution than others. So the first thing to do is to get a careful evaluation and diagnosis. A doctor might recommend working with a physical therapist and starting off with standing exercises in the pool that involve bands and balls to strengthen the core and lower back muscles.

If you are cleared to swim, and just starting for the first time, pay close attention to your technique. Work with a coach or trainer if necessary. It may also be a good idea to start with the breaststroke, because the butterfly and freestyle strokes involve more trunk rotation. The backstroke is another good option, said Dr. Rodeo, who is co-chief of the sports medicine and shoulder service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

“With all the other strokes, you have the potential for some spine hyperextension,” Dr. Rodeo said. “With the backstroke, being on your back, you don’t have as much hyperextension.”

Like any activity, begin gradually, swimming perhaps twice a week at first and then progressing slowly over four to six weeks, he said. In one study, Japanese researchers looked at 35 people with low back pain who were enrolled in an aquatic exercise program, which included swimming and walking in a pool. Almost all of the patients showed improvements after six months, but the researchers found that those who participated at least twice weekly showed more significant improvements than those who went only once a week. “The improvement in physical score was independent of the initial ability in swimming,” they wrote.

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