Las Virgenes Municipal Water District

A municipal water district engineer was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty after he allegedly killed a former girlfriend's dog and dumped the small Maltese in a West Hills trash bin, investigators said Friday. Rommel Marzan, 44, was arrested Tuesday after investigators deemed that his story that he had fallen on the small dog was not credible and a veterinarian determined that the animal had died from blunt head trauma, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Det. Steve Colitti said. Marzan works for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District.

Three days after the giant Metropolitan Water District ended mandatory rationing, the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District followed suit and eased restrictions on water use for customers in Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village. The district's board of directors voted 3 to 2 Monday to replace a mandatory 17% reduction in water use with a voluntary 10% reduction. Earlier last month, the board reduced the 27% mandatory reduction in effect since last year.

As a candidate for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District board, Marcus Allen Frishman would prefer to talk about water rates rather than his age, job title or convictions for disturbing the peace and auto theft. But, then again, it is a political campaign. Frishman, who ran unsuccessfully for the Calabasas City Council last year, is hoping to unseat 16-year incumbent Glen Denis Peterson in the race to represent Division 2 on the west Los Angeles County water district board.

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District wants all your holiday cards. The district is collecting used cards to be recycled into new ones and sold to raise money for a home for abused and abandoned children. Cards may be dropped off at the district office, 4232 Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas. The cards will be sent to St. Jude's Ranch for Children in Boulder City, Nev. for the recycling.

A Calabasas couple sued the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, charging that water rationing rules unfairly discriminate against new residents of the western San Fernando Valley. The suit filed by Robert Ross, an attorney, asked for an increased water allotment on the grounds that the rationing plan adopted by the district in January grants new residents only 70% as much water as the average customer in the hottest months.

The California Court of Appeal on Wednesday overturned a ruling that would have forced the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and a water district to pay a developer $4.2 million for interfering with the builder's ability to buy land near Westlake Village. Wednesday's decision sends back to Superior Court the issue of whether the conservancy and the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District improperly thwarted Village Properties' attempts to buy nearly 500 acres above the Las Virgenes Reservoir.

Jessica Morrow, a fifth-grader at Willow Elementary School in Agoura Hills, has been named a top finalist in a poster competition sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District. Her entry depicts a cloud with a caption reading, "You Can't Depend On Me." The local contest was arranged by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which gets its water from the MWD. Some 500 students entered the contest, from private and public schools in the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

There is little risk that potentially sickening sewage that oozed into Malibu Creek State Park over the weekend will reach beaches and the ocean, a water official said Monday.

The California Court of Appeal on Wednesday overturned a ruling that would have forced the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and a water district to pay a developer $4.2 million for interfering with the builder's ability to buy land near Westlake Village. Wednesday's decision sends back to Superior Court the issue of whether the conservancy and the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District improperly thwarted Village Properties' attempts to buy nearly 500 acres above Las Virgenes Reservoir.

There is little risk that potentially sickening sewage that oozed into Malibu Creek State Park over the weekend will reach beaches and the ocean, a water official said Monday.

A water agency has appealed a court order that it pay $470,000 to attorneys for an employee who won a discrimination lawsuit against the district and $40,000 in damages. The appeal is by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District. Last year Jonathan Vo was awarded $40,000 after a Los Angeles County jury found the water district had failed to prevent discrimination and permitted a hostile work environment where Vo was the victim of racial slurs.

Vernon Padgett, a retired doctor and frequent critic of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, has unseated board President Harold "Hal" Helsley, the white-bearded director who has served for 20 years. Backed by a group pushing for lower water rates, Padgett and two other challengers seeking seats on the board forced three veteran directors--with 48 years of water board service among them--into tight races.

To hear their supporters tell it, a slate of challengers seeking three seats on the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District board are riding to the rescue of customers tired of paying too much for their water. But over in the incumbents' camp, these white knights look more like a Trojan horse. They say the group backing the challengers in Tuesday's race, Citizens for Lower Water Rates, is a front for developers trying to take over the five-member water board.

Thanks to Jessica Azani, a Calabasas sixth-grader, Bay Laurel Elementary School has been deemed keeper of the bowl. The bowl, a Waterford crystal trophy, is given annually by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District to the school whose student wins its annual water awareness poster contest. With a message taken to heart in this arid climate, Jessica won this year with a poster proclaiming, "No Water, No Life!"

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District has created a new rebate incentive program to encourage its customers to replace their high water volume toilets with environmentally friendly water-conserving models. When all toilets at one property are replaced simultaneously, the new program offers water customers a rebate of $100 per toilet. But if individual toilets are replaced, the district will offer the previously set rebate of $60 per toilet.

A water agency has appealed a court order that it pay $470,000 to attorneys for an employee who won a discrimination lawsuit against the district and $40,000 in damages. The appeal is by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District. Last year Jonathan Vo was awarded $40,000 after a Los Angeles County jury found the water district had failed to prevent discrimination and permitted a hostile work environment where Vo was the victim of racial slurs.

Representatives of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District will discuss emergency safety procedures tonight with the Westlake Village Disaster Response Team, including what would happen in the event of a dam failure. District officials will speak about dam safety and water and sewer system operations at the team's general quarterly meeting at 7 tonight in the City Council chambers, 4373 Park Terrace Drive.

Backed by a new citizens group angry about years of rising water rates and other fees, three candidates filed papers Friday to challenge incumbents for seats on the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District board in the Nov. 3 election. In District 2, real estate broker Dana Levy is seeking incumbent Glen Peterson's seat. Vernon Padgett, a retired doctor who participated in a recall effort against two board members in 1996, is challenging board President Harold "Hal" Helsley in District 3.