| Thieves Sought In Woodland Hills 'Smash-And-Grab' Heist
WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. -- A jewelry store was robbed in a Woodland Hills mall Friday, and police were looking for two male thieves in the "smash-and-grab" heist. The bandits, one armed with a handgun, entered the store in the Westfield shopping center in the 6600 block of Topanga Canyon Boulevard at about 4:10 p.m., said Officer Jason Lee. The men used a sledgehammer to smash a display in the store, grabbed up jewelry and fled, possibly in a gray PT Cruiser, the Los Angeles Police Department spokesman said. .
Township boosts mall tax assessment
HOBART | Ross Township Assessor Randall Guernsey said Thursday that the township is correcting a "huge undervaluation" of Westfield Southlake Mall, more than doubling the assessed value of the shopping center.Earlier this year, with the help of Indianapolis-based consulting firm Nexus Group, the township was able to obtain documents from the 2002 sale of the mall to Westfield to determine its value for 2006 as $129.5 million.The township trended the price back two years to increase the mall's assessed value from $53 million to $117 million. The combined assessed value for 2004 and 2005 will be $234 million, a $128 million increase from the original assessed price.The increase in assessment will mean additional tax revenues for Ross Township, Guernsey said.Westfield is appealing its 2006 assessment, but Guernsey said the documentation from the 2002 sale will help the township's case before the Lake County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals."I feel pretty confident that we should win.
Mall's demolition hits home
Caramel corn and Jimmy Carter. That's what I think of when I think about Evergreen Plaza, which along with Ford City, provided my first mall experiences while I was growing up in southern Cook County. I would hop the bus (remember when kids did this and they didn't all have their own fancy cars?) and travel east down 95th Street to wander the store aisles. Evergreen Plaza had a machine that made caramel corn and filled the mall with its enticing vapors. If you went to the mall to shop, you had to buy the caramel corn. And Evergreen Plaza was the location of my first presidential siting. A girlfriend and I drove down to the mall to see Jimmy Carter when he was campaigning for president. I was so excited to see a real live presidential candidate in the flesh, I'm not sure why.
Going gluten-free
William Barbeau, associate professor of nutrition at Virginia Tech, attributes the growth to two factors. First, he said, physicians are becoming more knowledgeable about celiac disease. The disorder can be diagnosed with a blood test, but a biopsy of the small intestine is the gold standard, he said. Second, Barbeau believes that some people have put themselves on an elimination diet and are avoiding gluten in order to get to the bottom of their health problems. “My sense of it is more people hear about food allergies," he said, “and then they jump to the conclusion that they have a food allergy." Whatever the reasons, I had no trouble finding folks in the Roanoke and New River valleys who suffer from gluten intolerance. In fact, I was virtually inundated with replies.
Will the cure be worse than the disease?
The White House and Congress are almost certain to enact some kind of stimulus package. But like all such temporary, feel-good measures, it will generate a quick blip in growth that will quickly evaporate. In reality only one player has the power to do anything swift and decisive: the Federal Reserve. And its chairman, Ben Bernanke, has already made his intentions abundantly clear, with a stunning three-quarters of a percentage point rate cut announced Tuesday following an unscheduled meeting. Unfortunately, the cure he's prescribing may be worse than the disease. Just how low will the economy go? There are conflicting signals. It's clear that the economy is losing steam. The plummeting value of America's houses is chilling consumer spending, layoffs are mounting, and banks and other creditors burned by the subprime crisis are far more reluctant to lend to everyone from small-business owners to private equity firms.
New in the Neighborhood
Plain Talk, a used bookstore and snack bar, opened Jan. 22 in the building at East Sixth Street and Grand Avenue, where Hammer Pharmacy has been for years. The bookstore shares the street level of the building, on the east side, with Hammer.
Plain Talk sells donated gently used books. Most prices range from 50 cents to $10. Small childrens paperbacks are priced at 50 cents. Good condition paperbacks are $3 and hardcover novels in good shape sell for $5. Some rare editions and other limited edition books may be priced higher.
The bookstore is a project of ResCare, a company that provides support services and therapy for people with developmental disabilities, mental retardation and mental illness. ResCare was founded about 20 years ago in Fairfield, where its corporate office is located, and it serves people in about 15 Iowa counties, program developer Anneke Gustafson said.
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