Oak View

In my travels over the years, no town has quite captured my heart like Leipzig, for all the reasons mentioned in "Exhortations for Resistance Again Echo From Leipzig Pulpit" (March 26): Bach, the music and poetry (and I add the city's music and literary publishing industries as well as the composers Robert and Clara Schumann). But my love for this city has grown in the last two decades for a special reason: the St. Nikolai Church. Once the place of Bach's university duties, now it is the gathering place for the fierce and staunch opposition of the citizenry to the oppressive regime of communist East Germany in 1989 and, today, to protest the aggression of the Bush administration.

The village of Oak View, once a bargain for those who couldn't afford a house in Ventura or Ojai, gained the most from Ventura County's sharp real estate run-up the last two years. South Oxnard gained the least. But every Ventura County seller gained a lot. As a regional real estate boom kicked in its superchargers, the median price of a home or condo soared by nearly one-quarter, or $66,000, in two years.

As his parents wept, a 20-year-old Oak View man was ordered Monday to serve a life term for crimes that included kicking and beating a homeless man to death and stealing his possessions from a beachside encampment. Robert Coffman, who prosecutors portrayed at trial as a violent white supremacist, made no statements before Ventura County Superior Court Judge Ken Riley rejected a defense request to reduce his sentence.

From the outside, the Oak View Community Center in Huntington Beach looks small, its walls old and worn, a tired-out building in a tough part of town. But it's a beacon of hope to those who live in the low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood, nicknamed the "Slater Slums," near Slater Avenue and Beach Boulevard. Now the city plans to slash funding for the center, which could wipe out programs that help children escape gang influence and help parents build better lives.

Did all the ex-Enron and Arthur Andersen accountants end up with jobs in major league baseball? The Colorado Rockies trade Mike Hampton to Florida, which trades him to Atlanta without even the courtesy photo in the new Marlin jersey. I get it this far, but then it gets murky. Over the next three seasons, Colorado will pay Hampton $6.5 million to pitch for Atlanta; Florida will pay Hampton $23.5 million to pitch for Atlanta; Atlanta will pay Hampton $5.5 million to pitch. What is wrong with this math?

Phil's Lakers are ugly. Keeping marginal talents such as Fox, Fisher and George just to instigate fights with the skilled players on the Kings isn't coaching, it's thuggery. Add 400-pound crybaby Shaq, and a bulked-up, trash-talking Kobe and yecch. Thank God for DirecTV and the Kings. Colby Carr Manhattan Beach My Laker season ended 2:07 into the final preseason game against Sacramento when Rick Fox added his name to the list of NBA playground thugs. I turned the game off and plan not to turn the Lakers back on until there is some indication that they care about the classy legacy left to them by Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Kareem and Magic.

An Oak View teenager accused of beating a homeless veteran to death is guilty of taking part in the attack, but he had no intention of killing James Clark, defense attorneys said Wednesday. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a whodunit," lawyer James Farley told jurors Wednesday during closing arguments in the trial of Robert Coffman, 19. "He did commit the crime. It's up to you to decide what is the degree of this crime."

Testimony concluded Monday in the trial of an Oak View teen accused of fatally beating a homeless man last year. Robert Coffman, 19, is one of four teenagers accused of kicking and throwing rocks at homeless veteran James Clark, 58, as they headed to a beach party June 30, 2001. Clark died of blows to the head inflicted as he lay in a sleeping bag near the shore. All four defendants, ages 14 to 19, were charged with murder. The youngest was convicted earlier this year.

An Oak View teenager accused of beating a homeless man to death admitted kicking and throwing pebbles at "the bum" in a police videotape shown to jurors Friday. "I had no intention of really hurting him," defendant Robert Coffman, 19, said during the video, recorded by detectives a few days after the June 30, 2001, slaying. Coffman is one of four teens accused of fatally beating James Clark, 58, as the youths headed to a Ventura beach party last year.

Standing shirtless before a jury Monday, a 21-year-old man pointed to scars on his back and arms to show where he was stabbed during a violent confrontation with three teens at Ventura's beachfront promenade last year. Daniel McGrath removed his shirt and turned his bare back to the jury after describing how he was stabbed four times while walking with his pregnant ex-girlfriend.