Offices

In a move hailed by both business interests and environmentalists, the California Coastal Commission opened a Ventura office Monday to serve an area from Malibu to Santa Barbara County. The commission's South Central Coast office relocated from a Santa Barbara building to 89 S. California St. in downtown Ventura. The new office houses 15 staff members and, at 6,500 square feet, is almost twice the size of the Santa Barbara office, said Gary Timm, assistant district director.

The FBI has opened a branch office in Lancaster in response to a rise in white-collar crime and bank robberies in the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys. The two outlying valleys were previously served by agents from the FBI's Westwood office, but maintaining a presence in Lancaster is more cost-effective than having agents commute, said Gary Auer, the FBI supervisor in charge of the Lancaster branch and bureau operations in Ventura and Santa Barbara.

One of the questions home office owners ask as they prepare their taxes is, "Can I take a deduction for a home office?" The words regularly and exclusively are key to whether a home office qualifies for the deduction, said Sally Ruhnau, public affairs specialist at the Internal Revenue Service's Laguna Niguel District. "The area of the house designated as a home office needs to be used regularly and exclusively for business," she said.

Internet search giant Google Inc. plans to open an office in Ann Arbor, Mich., that would employ 1,000 people. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company will use the facility to handle sales and operations for its AdWords online advertising division, the Michigan governor's office said.

Security forces allowed supporters of opposition leader Andry Rajoelina to enter the offices of four government departments in the capital, Antananarivo, including two responsible for security. The anti-government group claimed it was in control. President Marc Ravalomanana did not immediately comment.

Citing fiscal and logistic considerations, the riot recovery RLA agency has scrapped plans to open three satellite offices that had been described as an effort to reach out to small businesses in impoverished neighborhoods. RLA President Linda Griego said research had shown that "physically setting up (the offices) was going to be too expensive and not necessarily too productive." The offices had been planned for South-Central Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles and the Van Nuys-Pacoima area.

Former President Ronald Reagan isn't renewing the lease in the Century City office tower penthouse where he entertained heads of state and others for more than a decade. Reagan's 10-year lease expires this year and won't be renewed, closing another chapter in the post-White House years of the nation's 40th chief executive. "There's a lot of history here.

Israel has told the PLO that offices controlling self-rule government will have to move out of Jerusalem, and police have been ordered to keep new offices from being opened, officials said Sunday. The toughened stand by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin comes amid escalating rhetoric between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization over the future status of Jerusalem, which both claim as their capital.

Moving the University of California's systemwide headquarters to Oakland from Berkeley is "not affordable at the present time," UC President David Gardner said Friday, quashing at least for now a proposal that the university administration leave the city of its birth.