Los Angeles Times - 24.02.2020

$2.75DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER © 2020 WSCE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2020 latimes.com

MARINA, Calif. — Ten

miles north of Monterey and a

world away from Santa Cruz,

Bruce Delgado gazed up a

towering sand dune. Careful

not to step on the beach buck-

wheat that protects rare

butterflies or the sea lettuce

that survives only in stable

habitats, he wound his way

toward the ocean.

At the top, slightly out of

breath, he marveled at the

sandy beach that stretched

for miles along the bay. Big

surf broke into rhythmic

cusps by the shore. A red-

tailed hawk soared over his

town of Marina, where despite

its name, no dock or pier ex-

ists to interrupt this view.

Not much of the California

coast feels like this anymore,

with no pavement or harbors

or parking lots right up to

high tide. Home to sharks and

coyotes, shorebirds and

butterflies, this little town not

far from Silicon Valley is a re-

minder that the beach itself

used to be wild.

“It’s the best-kept secret.

Living in Marina is a choice,”

said Delgado, a botanist

turned mayor who has man-

aged to pull off what many

towns have not. “Sometimes

when you go jogging on the

beach, you see vultures eating

dead sea lions. ... There’s a lot

of nature happening in these

dunes.”

At a time when Del Mar,

Pacifica and other coastal cit-

ies are fighting to defend their

homes and roads from the ris-

ing sea, Marina has embarked

on a path less traveled. Here

in this Army turned uni-

versity town, residents are

learning how to adjust with

the ocean as the water moves

inland.

Sea walls are forbidden,

and sand replenishment proj-

ects seem unnatural in a city

so proud of its native environ-

ment. Officials instead are

embracing ideas that have

been political suicide else-

where: Require real estate

disclosures for sea level rise,

move infrastructure away

from the water, work with the

private resort in town to relo-

cate its oceanfront property

— a policy known as managed

retreat.

This small but lively town

of 23,000 says it’s fought

enough coastal issues over

the decades to know that bad

ideas must be stopped sooner

than later. A controversial

sand mine on the beach is fi-

nally shutting down after a

century of dredging away the

coast. Residents are still

fighting a large water com-

pany trying to build a desali-

A DREDGING VESSELon the beach in Marina, Calif., where a controversial sand mine is finally closing

after a century of operation. Scientists estimate the mine has eroded an average of 4 feet of coast a year.

Robert GauthierLos Angeles Times

Seeing the threat, coastal

town rises to the challenge

As other cities dig in, Marina embraces a policy of managed retreat

BRUCE DELGADO,mayor of Marina, gazes at

the beach, which stretches for miles. Despite its

name, the town has no docks or piers.

Rosanna XiaLos Angeles Times

By Rosanna Xia

[SeeMarina,A12]

INVASIVE,nonnative ice plants grow alongside

native species in Marina’s towering dunes. The

town has long accepted the ocean’s strength.

Robert GauthierLos Angeles Times

For most George Gascón

supporters knocking on

doors in South Los Angeles,

the race to determine the

county’s top prosecutor is

extremely personal.

Among those involved

in the $1-million get-out-

the-vote effort is Linda

Gomez, who as a teen was

sentenced to 14 years in pris-

on for assault with a gang

enhancement. She was re-

leased after criminal justice

reform laws like those cham-

pioned by Gascón changed

parole eligibility for juvenile

offenders.

“At 17, I just remember

sitting in that courtroom

scared to death,” she said.

“Most girls are getting ready

for prom or SATs, and I’m

looking at spending the rest

of my life in prison.”

Just a few miles away,

near downtown, is the Los

Angeles Police Protective

League, the union repre-

senting rank-and-file LAPD

officers that has long sup-

ported more traditional law-

and-order policies, which

poured $1 million into two

outside committees sup-

porting L.A. County Dist.

Atty. Jackie Lacey.

An outside committee

organized by the union re-

cently released an ad depict-

ing Gascón as a “con man”

scurrying out of San Fran-

cisco to escape criticism for

his alleged failings as district

attorney there.

As the combative district

attorney’s race hurtles

toward a March 3 primary,

the ideological split between

Lacey and her two challeng-

ers is starkly represented by

the people and organiza-

tions pumping a combined

$4.3 million into the race

through contributions to

outside committees.

A Times analysis of pub-

lic records found that nearly

all of the $2.2 million in con-

tributions to outside com-

mittees benefiting Lacey has

come from law enforcement

unions, while three-quarters

of the $2.1 million spent to

bolster Gascón’s candidacy

was offered up by a pair of

Northern California bene-

factors with a history of

donating to progressive

causes.

Though she has been a

force at some recent de-

bates, painting herself as an

alternative to two candi-

dates with law enforcement

backgrounds, records show

public defender Rachel

Rossi has generated little in

the way of financial support.

Outside

money

floods

contest

for D.A.

$4.3 million given to

committees is split on

ideological lines: law

enforcement unions

vs. progressive donors.

By James Queally

and Maloy Moore

[SeeDonations,A8]

CHARLESTON, S.C. —
Former Vice President Joe
Biden, leaving Las Vegas be-
hind, is placing all his chips
on South Carolina as his
best — and perhaps last —
chance to reverse a string of
losses in early-voting states
and mount a serious chal-
lenge to Sen. Bernie Sanders
for the Democratic nomina-
tion.
As the Democratic con-
test moves here, the elector-
ate for the first time this pri-
mary season will feature an
African American majority,
testing support for the can-
didates among a key seg-
ment of the Democratic
base. Saturday’s primary
also marks the final single-
state contest before the race
dramatically widens to 14
states, including California,
which vote on March 3, Su-
per Tuesday.
If Biden doesn’t clean up
here, where he has long-
standing personal and polit-
ical ties, the result could
wipe out the remaining hope
for the candidate once con-
sidered the front-runner in
the Democrats’ 2020 presi-
dential campaign.
“If he were not to win
South Carolina, he would be
in a precarious position,”
Rep. James E. Clyburn, a
powerful South Carolina
Democrat who is the high-
est-ranking African Ameri-
can member of Congress,
said in an interview. Clyburn
has not yet endorsed any
2020 candidate but said
Sunday that he would do so
this week.
But Biden, speaking to
reporters after attending
services at a largely African
American congregation in
North Charleston, ex-
pressed confidence that he
would prevail here and
emerge as the sole, viable al-
ternative to Sanders.
“I think it’s going to be
Bernie and me going into Su-
per Tuesday,” he said.
Biden appears to have
come in a distant second in
Saturday’s Nevada
caucuses, walloped by Sand-
ers, with nearly 90% of the
vote reported. The Vermont
senator won more than

Biden

puts all

his chips

on S.C.

Trounced by Sanders,

former VP feels heat

to win in a state with

black voting majority.

By Janet Hook

[SeeSouth Carolina,A9]

Woman fought

to regain art

looted by Nazis

Beverly Cassirer, 99,

died as her family’s

legal fight to reclaim

an Impressionist

painting drags on.

CALIFORNIA, B

Suspicions over

Russia rejected

Trump officials down-

play intelligence that

Moscow is interfering

in the U.S. presidential

race again. NATION, A

Weather

Mostly sunny.

L.A. Basin: 72/53. B

Printed with soy inks on

partially recycled paper.

When Los Angeles

County set out to build a new

voting system from scratch

more than a decade ago,

election officials knew the

challenges in serving an

electorate larger than those

found in any of 39 states.

But what they didn’t

know was that their efforts

were on a collision course

with a series of statewide

election changes and the

most consequential presi-

dential primary in modern

California history.

Should Angelenos not

understand what to do or

where to go, the effects could

be felt both statewide and —

in terms of the Democratic

presidential race — across

the country.

“There’s a lot riding on

this,” said Rick Hasen, an

election law professor at UC

Irvine. “Any time you’re

making so many changes at

once, people can lose confi-

dence in the system.”

The list of changes is

long: L.A. ballots have been

fully redesigned; thousands

of neighborhood polling

VOTERSand a dog named Eleanor Roosevelt at a polling place in Venice in 2016.

A new balloting system has been in limited use ahead of the March 3 primary.

Genaro MolinaLos Angeles Times

Big voting changes reach L.A.

[SeeVoting,A8]

Redesigned ballots,

fewer polling sites and

touch-screens appear.

By John Myers

and Matt Stiles

PARIS — Gabriel Matzn-

eff was a celebrated writer

with a coterie of powerful

friends, including fashion

designer Yves St. Laurent

and former President Fran-

cois Mitterrand, who once

described Matzneff as a

“mix of Dorian Gray and

Dracula.”

That the French writer

had a pedophile past was a

secret to nobody. He wrote

about his penchant for sex

with children for years. He

discussed it openly on televi-

sion. He was reported to the

police for sexual abuse dec-

ades ago but was never in-

vestigated, even as he chal-

lenged bourgeois taboos and

collected a stipend from the

Ministry of Culture.

“To sleep with a child, it’s

a holy experience, a bap-

tismal event, a sacred ad-

venture,” he wrote in his 1974

book “Les Moins de Seize

Ans” (“The Under Six-

teens”). He went further in

his 1985 diaries — “Un Galop

d’Enfer” (“A Hellish Gal-

lop”) — writing of his visits to

the Philippines: “Some-

times, I’ll have as many as

four boys, from eight to 14

years old, in my bed at the

same time.”

Matzneff ’s perverse

predilections have become

this nation’s latest morality

tale. A new book detailing

his sexual relationship with

a girl beginning when she

was 14 and he 50 has stunned

French society and upended

the myth that artists, writ-

ers and filmmakers should

be indulged for their pas-

sions and creativity. The rev-

elation is a major reckoning

for the literary world and a

rebuke of an elitism that for

centuries has wrapped devi-

ant sexual practices in an air

of respectability.

In “Le Consentement”

(“Consent”), Vanessa

Springora, now 47, claims

she was groomed by Matzn-

eff when she was a girl. She

recounts a life of confusion

and conflicted feelings that

perhaps she had consented

to the relationship and must

be blamed. She writes of psy-

French author, long

known as pedophile,

may face reckoning

By Kim Willsher

[SeeFrance,A4]

ELECTION 2020

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