Time Limit

As welfare rolls grow, Los Angeles County officials are considering limits on how long some of the area's most destitute residents can receive cash aid. Supervisor Don Knabe is pushing a proposal to replace monthly general-relief grants with housing assistance for recipients who don't try to find jobs or apply for disability benefits within a set time period. The goal, he said, would be to drop from the rolls people who are "just riding the system" so that funds are available to help those genuinely in need.

Re "Parking tickets a hot issue," Perspective, Feb. 16 I am a psychologist, and a few years ago I was leaving a shelter for homeless women in Los Angeles when an abused woman was brought into the shelter. I immediately sat with her to start a crisis healing process. When I left and approached my car, I was being issued a parking ticket for exceeding the specified time limit on the street (I wasn't parked at a meter). I pointed to the Good Shepherd Center and explained the services for abused women and that I was counseling a woman in crisis.

Question: I missed a rent payment, and my community supervisor served me with a three-day notice to pay rent or quit. The notice included the rent due and an additional $250. I asked the supervisor why the additional amount was included. He told me that when I missed the payment, his company accountant reviewed my payment records. As a result, he realized I had failed to pay the full amount of rent due in the first month after my rent was raised two years ago. Can the property management coerce me into paying this extra $250, after so much time?

Democracy as conventionally understood relies on decision by simple majority. Whichever side has more votes wins. Supermajority requirements stand this principle on its head. Whenever the side with the greater number of votes fails to reach the designated threshold, the side with the least votes prevails. The inevitable outcome is minority veto power. Though minorities cannot govern, supermajority requirements enable them to prevent majorities from governing as well. That is the primary structural source of our political gridlock at the federal and state levels.

Notorious for its marathon meetings, the City Council unanimously agreed to end each meeting by 11 p.m. The council set the time limit on its twice-monthly meetings, which often ended about 2 a.m. All unfinished business remaining after 11 p.m. will be continued on the next evening, beginning at 7:30 p.m. "This will hopefully force us to stick to the issues and not drag everything out," Councilman Anthony Naranjo said.

The Whittier City Council has imposed a six-minute limit on residents who speak during the oral communications period of council meetings. Mayor Gene Chandler said he favored a timing device in which a warning would be given after five minutes and the speaker would then have one minute to summarize. The chairman will have discretion to extend the time limit. No time limits were imposed on speaking during public hearings.

Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush on Monday blasted insurance companies who have refused to pay for Northridge earthquake damage because of a one-year time limit, saying they are hiding behind an incorrect reading of the law, are abusing consumers and using a stalling tactic to avoid paying fair claims. Unlike floods or tornadoes, Quackenbush said, quake damage is often hidden and takes longer to detect.

A lucrative offer for the Rams to move to Baltimore remains intact, but it now apparently includes this addendum: for a limited time only. In a meeting that ended late Sunday night in Los Angeles, Maryland Governor William Donald Schaefer and Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos were assured by Ram President John Shaw that they would not be strung along as the Rams, who are also being courted by St. Louis and Hartford, Conn., explore relocation options.

Shoppers can take their time and not worry about parking tickets since the City Council voted Tuesday to remove the two-hour time limit on city lots on the north and south sides of the Valley Mall between Granada Avenue, Ramona and Valley boulevards. The change was made after a request from the Downtown El Monte Business Assn. The two-hour limit will still apply to street parking on Valley Mall Boulevard. The ban on parking between 3 and 5 a.m. will continue.

Britain said today that it is giving Kuwait three years to divest more than half of its stake in British Petroleum Co., Britain's biggest company. Trade and Industry Secretary Lord Young, who told the Kuwait Investment Office in October that it had one year to cut its BP stake from 21.6% to 9.9%, said he was extending that period to three years. Kuwait had asked for a five-year time limit.

Question: I missed a rent payment, and my community supervisor served me with a three-day notice to pay rent or quit. The notice included the rent due and an additional $250. I asked the supervisor why the additional amount was included. He told me that when I missed the payment, his company accountant reviewed my payment records. As a result, he realized I had failed to pay the full amount of rent due in the first month after my rent was raised two years ago. Can the property management coerce me into paying this extra $250, after so much time?

Texas Tech on Wednesday disclosed that it had reprimanded men's basketball Coach Billy Gillispie this year after learning he was exceeding NCAA practice-time limits. Red Raiders Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt said the school reported the secondary violations to the NCAA and the governing body approved the penalty that Texas Tech had decided upon. The letter of reprimand came in January and included language that there would be "no tolerance for disregard of rules," Hocutt told the Associated Press after speaking to members of the local media.

The Rays have been scoring three-quarters of a run more with Evan Longoria in their lineup than without him this year. He's back, but for the time being is limited to DH duties and unlikely to play more than three or four games in a row before resting his hamstrings. Don't pencil in Angels rookie Mike Trout for the Hall of Fame just yet. One other player had a 20 homer, 30 stolen base season before age 22, and Cesar Cedeno ended his 17-year career with 199 homers and 550 stolen bases.

Former star center fielder Lenny Dykstra will not be allowed to post or solicit on social networking or e-commerce sites over the next three years as part of a plea deal with city prosecutors, authorities said. Dykstra pleaded no contest Wednesday to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct and assault with a deadly weapon involving women who responded to housekeeping ads he placed on Craigslist, authorities said Wednesday. Prosecutors said he would receive nine months in jail. Under the plea deal, Dykstra also was placed on three years' probation, including provisions to prevent him from misusing the Internet, which he used to lure women who traveled long distances and were desperate for work in the bad economy.

Chinese television broadcasters have been ordered to stop showing foreign programs during prime time and limit the total amount of programming from other countries. A new set of rules bars imported programming from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. and calls for no more than 25% of programming each day to come from foreign sources, according to a statement issued Monday by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, China's media regulator. "If there's no rule against taking shows from abroad, then TV stations will only broadcast foreign shows," said Yuan Fang, a professor in the advertising department of the Communication University of China.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors oversees a vast operation: It incarcerates thousands of inmates; it cares for children whose parents have abused or neglected them; it runs hospitals, clinics, beaches, harbors, parks and a welfare system. So it's no surprise that the board's meetings draw animated commentary. What is surprising is what those commenters want to talk about. At a recent meeting of the board, the first member of the public to comment was Eric Preven, who calls himself "The County Resident from District 3. " He used his allotted time to raise questions about the county's legal bills and to complain that a report about those bills had been delayed.

The Assembly last week voted down a bill by Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) that would have prevented insurance companies from automatically denying earthquake damage claims simply because they were filed more than one year after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The Knox bill was rejected in a 41-29 vote. Knox said legislators "had been overwhelmed with lobbying from the insurance industry in a highly organized and very quiet effort."

A resolution that would limit public comment to a 45-minute period at City Council meetings will be considered by the council tonight. City Manager Frank Benest is recommending time limits to assure the council has enough time to conduct city business during meetings. In addition to the time limit, which could be extended at the mayor's discretion, the resolution would continue the city's policy of confining an individual speaker's comments to five minutes.

We've all been there — staff meetings that seem longer than "Gone With the Wind. " Not only are they often bad for morale, they can also easily stray into diminishing-returns territory. Here are some tips on making meetings more to the point: •Set goals: By knowing what you want to accomplish, you can streamline the agenda, said Susan M. Heathfield, About.com's human resources expert. "The goals you set will establish the framework for an effective meeting plan. " •Distribute materials ahead of time: Giving employees handouts, charts and graphs a day or so before the meeting allows everyone to come ready for discussion.

Reporting from San Francisco -- The California Supreme Court appeared reluctant Thursday to give adult victims of child molestation the right to sue decades later those who knew of the abuse and failed to stop it. During oral argument, several members of the state high court expressed skepticism toward a lower court's finding that gave adult victims flexible legal deadlines for bringing such third-party suits. The court is considering a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Church by six brothers who were in their 40s when they said they discovered that they were suffering the effects of abuse by a priest decades earlier.