Lancaster Ca

A teacher accused of molesting five teenage boys in the 1980s killed himself last week at his Lancaster home, a day after the allegations became public, authorities said. Ronald Eugene Wittlake, 50, had been a music teacher at Monterey Bay Academy, a boarding school run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in La Selva Beach near Watsonville, when the assaults allegedly occurred, according to court documents. More recently, he had worked at Lancaster High School as an independent studies teacher.

To pray to Jesus, or not? That is the question that Lancaster voters are being asked to decide in Tuesday's municipal election. Ballot Measure I asks whether the city should continue its policy of randomly selecting clergy from different faiths to deliver the invocation at council meetings, "without restricting the content based on their beliefs, including references to Jesus Christ." Other Lancaster ballot measures include whether to change the mayor's term limit from two to four years and whether Lancaster should become a charter city.

The first sign of trouble came almost immediately after Kurt and Michelle Dahlin moved into Lancaster's new Westview Estates in March 2007. The water slowed to a trickle midway through showering. The toilet tank took two hours to refill. The family often was forced to bathe at 4 a.m. -- before the neighbors awoke and the water flow became a dribble. Some days, there was no water at all. Things only got worse as more homeowners moved into the gated community on the outskirts of Lancaster.

A dispute at a Lancaster movie theater during a screening of "Shutter Island" ended with someone plunging a meat thermometer into the neck of the man who complained about someone sitting near him talking on a cellphone during the show. The incident occurred two weeks ago at the Cinemark 22 theater, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The theater was packed for a 9 p.m. Saturday screening of the Martin Scorsese film when the moviegoer complained about a woman near him using a cellphone.

Determined to prevent the Mongols motorcycle club from using a Lancaster motel to host its annual meeting this weekend, the city's mayor has taken steps to shut down the establishment. Mayor R. Rex Parris said the members of the Mongols, which law enforcement agencies consider a violent biker gang, are not welcome in Lancaster because they "are engaged in domestic terrorism . . . and they kill our children."

A dispute at a Lancaster movie theater during a screening of "Shutter Island" ended with someone plunging a meat thermometer into the neck of the man who complained about someone sitting near him talking on a cellphone during the show. The incident occurred two weeks ago at the Cinemark 22 theater, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The theater was packed for a 9 p.m. Saturday screening of the Martin Scorsese film when the moviegoer complained about a woman near him using a cellphone.

An infielder for the Inland Empire 66ers could face felony assault charges after striking a Lancaster JetHawk pitcher with a baseball bat late Monday night, sparking a 25-minute melee that resulted in the suspension of a California League game in Lancaster. Inland Empire second baseman Evel Bastida charged the mound and struck Lancaster reliever Josh Kranawetter in the lower back after Kranawetter had hit Bastida in the back with a pitch during the 15th inning of a game Inland Empire led, 7-4.

A Lancaster city official reported that the cost of cleaning up graffiti has escalated significantly, as has the number of graffiti complaints. Public Works Department Director Jeff Long told the Lancaster City Council that from July 1, 1992, to Dec. 31, 1992, the city spent $71,403 on sand, paint and labor to clean up graffiti-vandalized property. During the 1992 fiscal year, from July 1, 1991, to June 30, 1992, the graffiti cleanup cost the city $85,759.

A Lancaster woman and her son were killed and her daughter was seriously injured in a fiery collision on Sierra Highway in Palmdale, after their car was rear-ended and sent into oncoming traffic, authorities said. Myrna Bernardi, 28, and Kaylen Culver, 8, died at the scene after Bernardi's car was crushed Wednesday night by a 1-ton Dodge pickup, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy said.

A Lancaster child-care center operator whose two foster sons died of heat exposure was arrested and held on suspicion of child cruelty Wednesday as authorities tried to determine why no one noticed the children sitting in a sweltering sport utility vehicle next to the center for more than five hours. Leslie Sue Smoot, 48, was booked at the Lancaster sheriff's station late Tuesday, and bail was set at $100,000, said Lt. Al Grotefend of the sheriff's homicide unit.

When the eight-minute promotional video wrapped up, Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris' review wasn't entirely flattering. The movie-making seemed amateurish in spots, and, in some shots, he and others would have benefited from a little makeup. Most important, the mayor told his staff, there weren't enough Asians in the video. "If we're going to try to attract members of the Asian business community, we need to have more Asians in there," Parris told staffers. The promotional video, which Parris requested be re-shot before being dubbed in Mandarin, is part of a larger strategy that Lancaster hopes will help it attract Chinese investment and create jobs in a region where unemployed is pegged at 17%. The city is sending business delegations to China, partnering with a Chinese sister city, and using a language tutor to teach bureaucrats Mandarin.

Businesses operating in the city of Lancaster will be required to ensure that all new hires are eligible to work in the United States by using an Internet-based federal program to check the immigration and employment eligibility of potential workers. The free online program, called E-Verify, allows participating employers to use federal databases to compare information provided by job seekers with millions of records kept by the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

A plan to patrol Lancaster with an airplane that would record the movements of people on the ground has stoked the concerns of civil liberty advocates while being embraced by some residents who say they would support any means to crack down on crime. The piloted plane would circle the High Desert town 16 hours a day, recording video footage that would be transmitted to law enforcement officials, according to the plan. The plane, its designer said, would fly at an altitude of about five miles, making it all but invisible to residents.

The hundreds of glass mirrors break the dusty field in Lancaster, a sea of silver in a landscape of brown. When switched on for the first time today at an opening gala with investors, local politicians and others, they'll make up the first operational solar tower energy facility in the United States. They reflect the sun into a tower in the middle of the field, boiling water into steam that travels through pipes to power a turbine and create electricity.

Determined to prevent the Mongols motorcycle club from using a Lancaster motel to host its annual meeting this weekend, the city's mayor has taken steps to shut down the establishment. Mayor R. Rex Parris said the members of the Mongols, which law enforcement agencies consider a violent biker gang, are not welcome in Lancaster because they "are engaged in domestic terrorism . . . and they kill our children."

Inmates and staff at the state prison in Lancaster will be tested and evaluated for tuberculosis after a case of the disease was confirmed at the facility, officials said Thursday. "We take it very seriously," said Lt. George Allen, a spokesman at the prison. "That's why we're in full lockdown." Testing is set to begin today and will be conducted by medical staff and continue for as long as necessary, "depending on what they are able to determine," Allen said.

Dave Wood, a prosperous headhunter for electronic firms, sat on his pastel-hued porch in the hills high above Santa Barbara and recalled the day 15 months ago when he gazed into a digital photo of mummified remains, trying to discern the features of his younger sister's face. A man in a junk-strewn patch of desert outside Lancaster had been searching for aluminum cans when he discovered the body of a woman in October 2007.

As a stream of walkers trickled through Lancaster's main park one recent morning, Marie Ann Nicholson fell into step beside Mayor R. Rex Parris. There was a boarded-up house on the street where her daughter lives in a "nice neighborhood," Nicholson told Parris. The property was vacant. The front lawn had dried up. "It's a total eyesore," said Nicholson, 71, a lifelong resident of Lancaster.

The mother of an 18-month-old girl found dead near a San Fernando Valley freeway has recanted her story about the toddler being abducted during an attack and now says she panicked after her daughter died in an accident and dumped the body herself, a sheriff's official said Thursday. Stacy Barker initially told detectives that she was knocked unconscious by an attacker at a Lancaster park as she was buckling her daughter, Emma Leigh Barker, into her car seat.

The city of Lancaster is considering adopting stiff penalties for owners of "potentially dangerous" and "vicious" dogs, particularly those that law enforcement officials say are favored by gang members and used for intimidation. The proposed ordinance would also require spaying and neutering of all varieties of pit bulls and Rottweilers, including mutts that have "predominant physical characteristics" of those breeds. "I want gangs out of Lancaster," Mayor R.