Riverside County

Jim Lytle gunned his silver BMW past the boarded-up model homes and the faded red flags of an abandoned sales office, then steered into a grid of empty streets and yellowed grass. Millions of dollars were spent to turn farmland into housing tracts. Lots were graded, roads were paved, sewers installed. The houses? They will come, Lytle promises, right here on these acres and acres of weed-strewn fields. "This is a broken subdivision, which is obvious by looking at the ground," said Lytle, whose real estate investment firm has been snapping up land in Winchester and throughout Riverside County.

Riverside County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to ban registered sex offenders from putting up Halloween decorations or handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. The measure takes effect immediately. The state attorney general's office lists 2,584 registered sex offenders residing in Riverside County, but the ban applies only to sex offenders in unincorporated areas. County officials said their records show that there are 3,491 registered sex offenders. Registered sex offenders will now be banned from answering the door to trick-or-treaters or putting Halloween decorations on their homes between 12 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 31 each year.

The Riverside County Planning Commission on Wednesday rejected an application for a massive rock quarry proposed near Temecula that was strongly opposed by the city and the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians. Granite Construction of Watsonville wants to develop a 414-acre rock quarry operation on a mountain that looms over Interstate 15, a peak the Pechanga say is within one of the most sacred sites for all Luiseno people. The commission voted 4 to 1 against the proposal, citing concerns about the effect on the environment and health of residents in the Temecula area and because of the tribal leadership's objections.

Brush fires broke out in three Southern California counties Monday, scorching hundreds of acres, forcing the evacuation of several dozen homes and threatening other structures. A blaze near the Pala American Indian reservation in northern San Diego County had burned more than 300 acres. Thirty-five homes were under evacuation orders and 605 firefighters were on the fire line, officials said Monday night. Meanwhile, two other fires in the region were contained as crews worked in triple-digit temperatures to beat back flames.

If California State Assemblyman Andres Pico had gotten his way more than a century ago, the college football team that plays its home games in downtown Los Angeles would be known as the University of Southern Colorado Trojans. It was Pico who introduced an 1859 bill to create the state of Colorado out of the counties of California south of Big Sur. He complained that Southern Californians — what few of them there were — were overtaxed and underrepresented. The state Legislature actually bade Southern California goodbye but before Congress could give final approval, a bigger secession problem cropped up — the Civil War. Pico's bill was shelved, then forgotten.

Accusing Sacramento of pillaging local governments to feed its runaway spending and left-wing policies, a Riverside County politician is proposing a solution: He wants 13 mostly inland, conservative counties to break away to form a separate state of "South California. " Supervisor Jeff Stone, a Republican pharmacist from Temecula, called California an "ungovernable" financial catastrophe from which businesses are fleeing and where taxpayers are being crushed by the burden of caring for welfare recipients and illegal immigrants.

Some Southern California communities have scaled back or canceled their July 4 celebrations this year — Marina del Rey and Inglewood have canceled — but the skies over L.A. will still bloom with plenty of colorful explosions when dusk hits Monday. Most of the shows in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and Riverside counties are free or inexpensive, but if you're looking for a more elaborate affair and are willing to spend extra money, head to the Hollywood Bowl to see Hall and Oates, or to the Newport Dunes resort, or to the Rose Bowl, where families can experience an all-day food and music celebration finished off by a pyrotechnic display.

Riverside County, home to some of the largest solar energy plants in the state, is considering imposing a development fee on such installations, a move that critics say could chill prospects for the renewable energy business in the region. The new levy, which would require solar developers to pay 2% of their annual revenue, is needed to help offset the potential toll that the massive plants could take on surrounding communities, county officials said. More large-scale solar plants are being installed in Riverside County than anywhere else in California, according to the county.

A woman authorities said was claiming to sell a moon rock was questioned in Lake Elsinore on Thursday morning as part of an undercover sting by NASA investigators aided by local police. The investigation, which spanned several months, led to a meeting in a Lake Elsinore Denny's restaurant on Grape Street, where undercover NASA officials agreed to buy the rock for $1.7 million, according to a report by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. When the woman produced an artifact, several Lake Elsinore police investigators and NASA agents swooped in. The federal agents took custody of the rock and are trying to determine if it is genuine.

A 40-acre equestrian estate built in the 1980s by actor Jack Klugman has come on the market in Temecula at $8,299,000. Called Hacienda de Endar and designed as a thoroughbred breeding and training facility, the property is set in Riverside County wine country and includes an 8,902-square-foot main house, guest houses, a five-hole golf course, a tennis court and a swimming pool with spa. The Spanish-style main house has four bedrooms and...