Los Angeles County Housing

Los Angeles County housing officials failed to hand out 3,500 housing subsidy vouchers even though poor families were sitting on a waiting list that was years long. "It makes me sad.... There are people who really need it," Carolyn Davis said Tuesday. Davis, 40, said she has been homeless and sleeping on her sister's floor while waiting for a subsidy. "I am bipolar times five," she said to explain why she can't work and needs a public subsidy to afford a place to live.

Wendell James Franklin, a pioneering Hollywood executive who in 1960 became the first African American member of the Directors Guild of America, has died. He was 78. Franklin died of cancer in Los Angeles on July 22, Joe Bleeden, a friend for 40 years, said this week. Franklin began his entertainment career as a parking attendant at NBC. Within a dozen years, he had become the second African American stage director in network television.

The Pomona Unified School District plans to acquire a 72-acre site in northern Diamond Bar next week in hopes of building a high school there. Now used for cattle grazing, the parcel is south of the Pomona Freeway (60) and west of Chino Hills Parkway. Escrow is expected to close by Monday, a school district official said. The property owner, City of Industry's Redevelopment Agency, has agreed to transfer the land to the school district as authorized by a recent state law.

Faced with an estimated $13.4-million shortfall, the Los Angeles County Housing Authority is reducing the amount of monthly assistance it offers low-income families whose rents are subsidized by the federal government. The move means some poor families will eventually pay higher rents or possibly lose their housing. The change in the Section 8 program, a federal initiative administered by the county, will be phased in. Beginning Sept.

Strong sales of mid-priced homes helped Los Angeles County's housing market end the year with a punch as monthly sales reached their highest levels since summer. Home sales, including condominiums and newly built houses, rose 11.3% in December from the same month the previous year, according to real estate information company Acxiom/DataQuick. In all, 9,781 homes sold last month, the most since July's 11,196 total.

The City Council is expected to approve today the hiring of an outside legal team to head up negotiations with Disney executives on the company's planned $3-billion Westcot Center expansion. Lawyer Thomas F. Winfield III would be hired at a rate of $250 per hour to join Deputy City Manager Tom Wood as Anaheim's representatives at the negotiating table. Winfield is with the firm of Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri, based in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County housing market continued to pick up steam in May, with the median price for all homes rising 9.9% to $189,000 in the strongest year-over-year gain of the decade, a real estate research firm reported Thursday. The county's housing results so far this year have exceeded analyst's expectations as a robust economy, high consumer confidence and low mortgage rates have fueled demand for housing.

Los Angeles County's housing prices blazed upward again last month, setting another record high. The median price of new and existing homes sold in January hit $352,000. That was 26.6% more than the median of $278,000 a year earlier, DataQuick Information Systems of La Jolla reported Wednesday.

The article by Doug Kaplan ("Overmalled, Underschooled," Commentary, Dec. 9), concerning redevelopment agency financing of shopping centers to the detriment of local schools, ignores some important facts. As of 1993, Section 33426.5 of the California Redevelopment Law has prohibited any direct assistance by a redevelopment agency for an auto dealership or a retail commercial development on previously undeveloped land on a site in excess of five acres. This effectively eliminates redevelopment agency participation in auto malls or large shopping centers.