Cities

A dispute over who should be held liable when an on-duty Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy commits serious misconduct is hampering contract negotiations between county officials and the leaders of the 40 cities that pay the sheriff to patrol their streets. The disagreement stems from the case of former Deputy Gabriel Gonzalez, convicted in 2006 of raping three women while on duty in Compton and surrounding areas.

Facing multibillion-dollar state funding cuts, school districts across California are asking residents to tax themselves to fund local schools. Parcel taxes -- some topping $2,000 annually per family -- have been proposed this year from Sebastopol to San Marino.

This city in the foothills of the Rockies has scenery more diverse than most Hollywood back lots: A 19th century castle, a Spanish colonial plaza and miles of prairie and mountains. That landscape -- along with New Mexico's generous film incentives -- has lured more than a dozen movie productions here in the last decade. The filming has brought in a surge of money, but it has also brought tension.

The stimulus for this mill town turned artist's colony arrived in the form of green bills bearing sketches of herons, turtles and trees. A few dozen local businesses banded together this spring to distribute the Plenty -- a local currency intended to replace the dollar. Now 15,000 Plenties are in circulation here, used everywhere from the organic food co-op to the feed store to, starting this month, the Piggly Wiggly supermarket. Last popularized during the Great Depression, scrip, or locally created stand-ins for U.S. currency, is making a comeback.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Daniel Raschke realized how much things had changed for U.S. troops in Iraq when his team was politely but firmly turned away from two Baghdad police stations -- by officers he had helped train. "I wouldn't say it was tense, but it was unexpected because they had been so hospitable to us in the past," said Raschke, who used to spend most of his days training Iraqi police at stations in the once-volatile Baghdad district of Dora. He now works exclusively in rural areas.

The good folk of Broughton don't take kindly to being photographed without permission. Just ask Google. When the search-engine giant sent one of its specially equipped cars to take pictures of the village for its Street View feature, residents swung into action. They stopped the car in its tracks, called the police and quizzed the bewildered driver for nearly two hours before letting him go. "I don't think this guy anticipated how angry people would get," said Edward Butler-Ellis, 28. "We didn't stand there with pitchforks or anything and block the road with bales of hay, but obviously people were agitated.

Stung by the recession and a string of scandals, the ACORN community activist organization has been shutting down in many of the communities it once worked to empower. No new clients are being signed up, said national spokesman Brian Kettenring, while the group conducts an internal investigation into how its business is conducted. The Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now had already shuttered 40% of its centers -- in cities including Chicago, Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Omaha -- since its high of 105 offices two years ago, he said.

Shop owner Hideo Sakamoto knows this sad truth about his dying town: When he retires, no one will be left to take the reins of his tiny business selling eyeglasses and clocks. His two children have fled to big cities and his mother is bedridden. "It's a sad story," says the 57-year-old, "because I will not be passing down my business to my children." And not just that, he says. He and his wife, Mariko, are "so lonely." Almost every day, this Japanese town surrounded by streams and mountains is eerily quiet, with only a few elderly people walking down its narrow streets.

The law of unintended consequences has seldom been more clearly illustrated than by the catfight unfolding from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Veterinarians who did not want cities meddling in their business persuaded the state Legislature to bar local governments from banning the practice of declawing cats -- beginning in 2010. Not wanting to be pushed around themselves, nearly half a dozen cities are rushing to prohibit the controversial procedure before the January deadline, striking a blow for rights both animal and municipal.

As hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries have opened this year in a startling rollout across California, unnerved local officials have started to push back aggressively. Many cities and a few counties have banned them. Others have imposed emergency moratoriums. And some have started to sue dispensaries to force them to close. So far, the state's courts have sided with local officials. For marijuana advocates, who have seen over-the-counter sales become commonplace and watched the steady drift of California's vibrant weed counterculture into the mainstream, these setbacks are a discordant development.