Verdugo Hills

A massive 36-inch pizza with 50 slices was being devoured in the boys' P.E. office at Verdugo Hills High in celebration of the basketball team's winning its first league championship since 1959, and the boyish-looking coach, Jared Gibson, could only smile at the irony of the moment. Gibson would never have been given this coaching job three years ago, and become the architect of an improbable turnaround, if an opportunity to run his own pizza parlor had not fallen through. Winning the championship "means everything to me," he said.

There was no denying the historic moment taking place in the tiny gym at Verdugo Hills High. Not since 1959, when Dwight Eisenhower was president, had the Dons' basketball team won a league championship. So some 300 people jammed into the gym Friday night and didn't leave disappointed, with the Dons defeating Van Nuys, 65-50, to finish with an 11-1 East Valley League record and win the league title outright. "It's the biggest win of my high school life, my career, everything," said senior guard Aragad Abramian, who finished with 19 points.

Behold America's theater capital, twinkling, preening, clanging, stoking ambitions and devouring tourist dollars. Now behold the drama students of Verdugo Hills High School, their parents ferrying them from the San Fernando Valley to LAX, their jet nosing eastward, their headphones tuned to the Broadway channel. There are 14 of them, 14 to 18 years old, and this is their biggest field trip ever, a five-day blitz of Broadway shows and Manhattan landmarks. Their jet zooms into Newark, N.J.

Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar) has shelved a proposal that would have allowed a developer to build 229 homes on the Verdugo Hills Golf Course over the objections of the city of Los Angeles. Fuentes wrote the proposal in cooperation with MWH Development Corp., a contributor to his political campaigns. He had said it addressed a broader issue of cities' ability to prevent the construction of housing. Los Angeles city officials and other critics said it appeared he wrote AB 212 to benefit a donor.

A developer and major campaign contributor who wants to build homes on what is now the Verdugo Hills Golf Course has arranged state legislation that would stymie an effort by the city of Los Angeles to block the project. The legislation was written by Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar) in collaboration with a company that has an agreement with the property's owner to develop the site. The company, MWH Development Corp.

A Glendale Superior Court civil jury has awarded an estimated $96 million in future damages in the case of a child who developed a rare but serious neurological disorder caused by untreated jaundice shortly after his birth four years ago at Verdugo Hills Hospital. The jury's 9-3 verdict, which came late Monday, is calculated in two ways.

The Verdugos, a 10-mile stretch of mountains on the northern edge of the Los Angeles Basin where coyotes, rabbits and lizards thrive in thick chaparral, has largely been spared the development that's grown up around it. Residents clustered around La Tuna Canyon Road like it just fine that way. Developer Rick Percell thinks there's room for more, though, and his plan to develop one of the last large swaths of private land in the otherwise wild area has residents upset.

Glendale's effort to kill plans for a large hillside subdivision lost ground this week when a judge ruled that a lawsuit brought by the developer has sufficient merit to proceed toward trial. John L. Gregg, who wants to build a 572-home luxury tract in the Verdugo Hills, filed suit after the City Council unanimously voted down the project in April. Council members said the 238-acre Oakmont development would pollute the air, harm wildlife and destroy scenic vistas.