Aaron Swartz dies at 26; Internet folk hero founded Reddit

Aaron Swartz, who co-founded Reddit and became an Internet folk hero for fighting to make online content free to the public, committed suicide Friday. He was 26.

Swartz hanged himself in his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment, said a statement released by his family and his girlfriend.

"Aaron's commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life," the statement said. "He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place."

On his blog, Swartz had written of his history of depression.

He was a Harvard University fellow studying ethics when he was charged in 2011 with stealing nearly 5 million articles from a computer archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He faced 13 felony charges, including wire fraud, computer fraud and unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer. Prosecutors said he intended to distribute the articles on file-sharing websites.

Swartz pleaded not guilty, and his trial in federal court was scheduled to begin next month. If convicted, he could have faced decades in prison and steep fines.

On Saturday, his family and girlfriend called his death "the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach" and blamed decisions by the Massachusetts U.S. attorney's office and MIT for contributing to his death.

Some legal experts believe the charges are unfounded since Swartz had been a university fellow, which gave him the right to access the articles.

In 2011, Carmen M. Ortiz, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, defended the charges, telling the New York Times: "Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights group, called him "an extraordinary hacker and activist."

"Aaron did more than almost anyone to make the Internet a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge, and to keep it that way," the foundation said in a tribute on its website.

On Saturday, American historian Rick Perlstein, who was a friend, called Swartz a philosopher as well as an activist. Swartz had also co-founded the political action group Demand Progress, which campaigns against Internet censorship.

"He had this feeling for data and what it could do, how to master it instead of letting it master us," Perlstein told The Times. "He just insisted on and struggled to live a life of maximal authenticity and integrity."

Born in 1986 in Chicago, Swartz created his first Web application — an online encyclopedia that operated much like Wikipedia — when he was 13.

High school bored him, he later said. After his freshman year, he studied at home and took community college classes that included logic and number theory.

At 14, he helped develop the software behind RSS feeds, which distribute content over the Internet.

He was soon working on such major projects as creating universal ways to exchange information through a group founded by Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist considered the father of the World Wide Web.

As a freshman at Stanford University, he studied sociology but left after a year because "I didn't find it a very intellectual atmosphere," he later said.

Swartz moved to Cambridge, where he began to work on a project that in 2005 turned into the social news website Reddit, which taps "the wisdom of the crowds" by letting users submit and rank news and other online content.

Conde Nast purchased Reddit the next year for a figure insiders put at less than $5 million, Forbes reported in November.

In a 2007 speech called "How to Get a Job Like Mine," given at a computer conference, Swartz gave such advice as "be curious," "say yes to everything" and "assume nobody else has any idea what they're doing either."

Swartz is survived by his parents, Robert and Susan Swartz; his younger brothers, Noah and Ben; and his partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman.

Times staff writer Jessica Guynn contributed to this report.

valerie.nelson@latimes.com

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Immigration Arrests Lead to Online Outcry, and Release

PHOENIX — Immigration agents arrested the mother and brother of a prominent activist during a raid at her home here late Thursday, unleashing a vigorous response on social media and focusing new attention on one of the most controversial aspects of the Obama administration’s policies on deportation.

The agents knocked on Erika Andiola’s door shortly after 9 p.m., asking for her mother, Maria Arreola.

Ms. Arreola had been stopped by the police in nearby Mesa last year and detained for driving without a license. Her fingerprints were sent to federal immigration officials as part of a controversial program called Secure Communities, which the Obama administration has been trying to expand nationwide.

That routine check revealed that Ms. Arreola had been returned to Mexico in 1998 after she was caught trying to illegally cross the border into Arizona with Erika and two of her siblings in tow. As a result, she was placed on a priority list for deportation.

After being seized on Thursday, she could have been sent back to Mexico in a matter of hours, but Obama administration officials moved quickly to undo the arrests. Officials had been pressured by the robust response from advocates — through phone calls, e-mails and online petitions, but primarily on Twitter, where they mobilized support for Ms. Andiola, a well-known advocate for young illegal immigrants, under the hashtag #WeAreAndiola.

The reaction offered the Obama administration a taste of what it might expect when it gets into the thick of the debate over an immigration overhaul, which Congress is expected to tackle this year. President Obama has already been under harsh criticism for the number of illegal immigrants deported since he took office — roughly 400,000 each year, a record unmatched since the 1950s.

Ms. Andiola, 25, posted a tearful video on YouTube shortly after her mother and brother were handcuffed and driven away. “I need everybody to stop pretending that nothing is wrong,” she said in the video, “stop pretending that we’re all just living normal lives, because we’re not. This could happen to any of us anytime.”

She is the co-founder of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, one of the groups pushing for a reprieve for immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, as she was. She has been arrested while camped in front of Senator John McCain’s office here, protested outside the United States Capitol, and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in June under the headline, “We are Americans — just not legally.”

In November, Ms. Andiola got a work permit under a program begun by the Obama administration last year that gives certain young illegal immigrants temporary reprieve from deportation. She graduated from Arizona State University in 2009.

On Friday afternoon, her mother returned home from a detention center in Florence, 70 miles southeast of Phoenix and usually the last stop for certain illegal immigrants before they are deported. Her brother, Heriberto Andiola Arreola, 36, who had been kept in Phoenix, was let go earlier, at 6 a.m.

Their swift releases underline the power of the youth-immigrant movement and their social media activism, which was critical in spreading Ms. Andiola’s story overnight.

In a statement, Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a preliminary review of the case revealed that it contains some of the elements outlined in the agency’s “prosecutorial discretion policy” and would “merit an exercise of discretion.” Advocates have long argued that the policy has done little to keep families from being broken apart by deportations.

Ms. Andiola said in an interview that she told her mother to go to her room before opening the door Thursday night; she suspected the men standing outside worked for immigration. By the time the men came in, her brother, who was outside talking to a neighbor, was already in handcuffs, she said.

“Where’s Maria?” the men asked her, she recalled.

Ms. Arreola walked out of the room and, in Spanish, the men asked her to accompany them outside, where they placed her under arrest.

Though she and her son are free, their future is uncertain, as they could be arrested again while their cases are under review or deported should the eventual ruling go against them, said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups helping the family.

Stories like this, Ms. Hincapié went on, “happen every day, in every state,” outside of the media spotlight. What made it different this time is that Ms. Andiola had connections and wasted no time mobilizing them. There are others, she said, whom “you never hear about.”

Julia Preston contributed reporting from New York.

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Britney & Jason's Love Story in 6 Sweet Shots

From a snuggle in the surf to a surprise engagement, see the former couple's most romantic moments

Credit: Kevin Mazur/Wireimage

Updated: Friday Jan 11, 2013 | 07:00 AM EST
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Flu season puts businesses and employees in a bind

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says.

"If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes that's a detriment."

The flu season that has struck early and hard across the U.S. is putting businesses and employees alike in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.

Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii. And the main strain of the virus circulating tends to make people sicker than usual.

Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York, says his agency is operating with less than 40 percent of its staff of 35 because of the flu and other ailments.

"The people here are working longer hours and it puts a lot of strain on everyone," Fleetwood says. "You don't know whether to ask people with the flu to come in or not." He says the flu is also taking its toll on business as customers cancel their travel plans: "People are getting the flu and they're reduced to a shriveling little mess and don't feel like going anywhere."

Many workers go to the office even when they're sick because they are worried about losing their jobs, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employer consulting firm. Other employees report for work out of financial necessity, since roughly 40 percent of U.S. workers don't get paid if they are out sick. Some simply have a strong work ethic and feel obligated to show up.

Flu season typically costs employers $10.4 billion for hospitalization and doctor's office visits, according to the CDC. That does not include the costs of lost productivity from absences.

At Carriage Ford, Book says the company plans to make flu shots mandatory for all employees.

Linda Doyle, CEO of the Northcrest Community retirement home in Ames, Iowa, says the company took that step this year for its 120 employees, providing the shots at no cost. It is also supplying face masks for all staff.

And no one is expected to come into work if sick, she says.

So far, the company hasn't seen an outbreak of flu cases.

"You keep your fingers crossed and hope it continues this way," Doyle says. "You see the news and it's frightening. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep everyone healthy. Cleanliness is really the key to it. Washing your hands. Wash, wash, wash."

Among other steps employers can take to reduce the spread of the flu on the job: holding meetings via conference calls, staggering shifts so that fewer people are on the job at the same time, and avoiding handshaking.

Newspaper editor Rob Blackwell says he had taken only two sick days in the last two years before coming down with the flu and then pneumonia in the past two weeks. He missed several days the first week of January and has been working from home the past week.

"I kept trying to push myself to get back to work because, generally speaking, when I'm sick I just push through it," says Blackwell, the Washington bureau chief for the daily trade paper American Banker.

Connecticut is the only state that requires some businesses to pay employees when they are out sick. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington have similar laws.

Challenger and others say attitudes are changing, and many companies are rethinking their sick policies to avoid officewide outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases.

"I think companies are waking up to the fact right now that you might get a little bit of gain from a person coming into work sick, but especially when you have an epidemic, if 10 or 20 people then get sick, in fact you've lost productivity," Challenger says.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Eileen A.J. Connelly in New York, Paul Wiseman in Washington, Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

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James' spending in mayor's race far outpaces fundraising

Kevin James, the sole Republican among the main contenders in the Los Angeles mayor's race, raised a little more than $42,000 in the final quarter of 2012, but spent more than four times that amount, largely on high-priced political consultants.

James, an attorney and former talk radio host who has never held elected office, spent $178,595 in the fourth quarter, a few thousand shy of top-tier candidate and key rival Wendy Greuel, according to campaign finance documents filed with the City Ethics Commission on Thursday. Greuel has vastly outpaced James in fundraising, raising roughly $630,000 more than James in the same period.

The biggest beneficiaries of James' spending are political consultants, including John Weaver, a top national GOP operative who was a senior advisor to the short-lived presidential campaign of Jon Huntsman in the 2012 presidential campaign. Weaver's firm, the Network Companies, billed James for $78,000 for work in the final three months of the year, and a total of $88,000 for all of 2012.

For the entire campaign, James' expenses also included $122,160 for Thomas Partners Strategies, $68,493 for the Prise Group, $40,175 for Capital Campaigns, $25,586 for Crummitt & Associates, $18,011 for Midnite Oil Media and $10,000 for Venture Strategic.

James' representatives said these expenditures represented a strategic decision to build a robust campaign.

"These investments will lead him to victory and get him into the runoff," campaign manager Jeff Corless said. "He has a professional team that has helped him achieve great success thus far in the campaign."

He added that a fundraising lull at the end of 2012 was to be expected because of the holidays and political fatigue. The campaign has seen a surge in fundraising in recent weeks and planned to start reaching out to voters Monday, Corless said.

In heavily Democratic Los Angeles, James is a long-shot candidate. But his outsider message has attracted attention, and some see a path for him earn a top-two spot in the March primary, advancing him to a May runoff. To do so, James must make sure Republicans turn out while also siphoning support of conservative Democrats, notably in the San Fernando Valley, from Greuel.

Greuel's campaign said James' spending showed that his effort will be futile, not only because of the rate of spending, but because of what he is spending his resources on.

"Kevin James is quickly burning a hole in his pocket, and if he keeps up his anemic fundraising pace, soon he'll be flat broke and in the hole," said Rose Kapolczynski, Greuel's campaign manager.

James' saving grace could rest on the success of an independent committee formed to support his candidacy that can collect unlimited donations.

"It's been fairly clear for a while now that if James is going to make a race of it, it's going to come predominantly through outside spending. The amount he's raised and spent on his own campaign is less relevant," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and a former GOP political operative. "James can't get elected solely on the strength of Super PAC money but a well-funded outside campaign can do significant damage to the other candidates."

But Schnur said the amount the Super PAC has collected so far, $200,000 is not sufficient.

Fred Davis, the GOP ad specialist who is running the group, Better Way L.A., said that he remains confident.

"The frustrating thing was the holidays. We really didn't get started until Jan. 4 and 5. It just was a tough time," he said. "But over the last week, we've been on daily conference calls. Things look good . It will be a race down the wire, we still think we'll make it into the runoff."

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maeve Reston contributed to this report.

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World Briefing | AUSTRALIA: Associate of Russian Arms Dealer Arrested

Richard A. Chichakli, a dual United States and Syrian citizen who has been described as a close associate of the Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, was arrested on Wednesday in Australia, American authorities said. He is expected to be extradited to the United States, where he faces charges in Manhattan of conspiring with Mr. Bout to violate international sanctions by attempting to buy two Boeing aircraft from companies based in the United States. Mr. Chichakli, who has previously denied being in business with Mr. Bout, faces a maximum 20-year sentence on each of nine counts if convicted, prosecutors said. Mr. Bout is serving a 25-year sentence for conspiring to sell weapons to people he believed were Colombian terrorists intent on using the arms to kill Americans. Michele M. Leonhart, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, called Mr. Chichakli “a key criminal facilitator in Viktor Bout’s global weapons trafficking regime.”

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Baby Bones Found Scattered in Ancient Italian Village

SEATTLE — The death of an infant may not have been an occasion for mourning in ancient Italy, according to archaeologists who have found baby bones scattered on the floor of a workshop dating to the seventh century B.C.

The grisly finds consist of bone fragments uncovered over years of excavation at Poggio Civitate, a settlement about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the city of Siena in what is now Tuscany. The settlement dates back to at least the late eighth century B.C. Archaeologists excavating the site have found evidence of a lavish residential structure as well as an open-air pavilion that stretches an amazing 170 feet (52 meters) long. Residents used this pavilion was as a workshop, manufacturing goods such as terracotta roof tiles.

In 1983, scientists uncovered a cache of bones on the workshop floor, consisting mostly of pig, goat and sheep remains. But among the bony debris was a more sobering find: two arm bones from an infant (or infants) who died right around birth.

In 2009, another baby bone surfaced at the workshop, this one a portion of the pelvis of a newborn. [See Images of the Infant Bones]

The bones “were either simply left on the floor of the workshop or ended up in an area with a concentration of discarded, butchered animals,” said Anthony Tuck, an archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who presented an analysis of the bones Friday (Jan. 4) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.

Abandoned bones

The discovery of the discarded infant bones in an area used for work could suggest that the people who labored in the workshop had little social status, Tuck said. They may have been slaves or servants whose lost infants would garner little sympathy from the community at large.

However, a third find complicates the picture. In 1971, archaeologists found an arm bone from another newborn or near-term fetus pushed up against the wall of the lavish residence along with other bones and debris. It seems as if someone swept the debris up against the wall, not differentiating between baby bones and garbage, Tuck said. [8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries]

There’s no way to know whose infant came to rest up against the wall of a wealthy person’s home, said Tuck, who plans to submit the findings to the journal Etruscan Studies. Perhaps the infant belonged to a desperate servant, or perhaps to a member of the family. If so, it may be that even high-status families didn’t consider babies worth mourning when they died in infancy.

The possibility can sound horrifying to modern ears, Tuck said.

“This kind of new data makes people a bit uncomfortable,” he told LiveScience. “People have a tendency to romanticize the past, especially in a place like Tuscany. When we have direct evidence for this kind of behavior, it can be a little tricky to present.”

Death in infancy

Nevertheless, Tuck said, there is reason to think that people have not always given infants the same community status as adults or older children. However, baby bones tend not to preserve well, which makes it difficult to know how ancient Italians in Tuscany treated their deceased infants.

Very few signs of infant burial appear in central Italian cemeteries from this time period, though, Tuck said. The handful of coffins containing baby bones that have been found are loaded with ornaments and jewelry, suggesting that only families of great wealth could have given a lost baby an adult-style funeral.

Even in modern times, societies have sometimes seen babies as belonging to a different category than adults, Tuck said. In areas of extreme poverty and stress that have high infant mortality, the death of a newborn may not trigger many outward displays of mourning, he said.

And many cultures have naming traditions that only recognize the baby’s identity significantly after birth. For example, in traditional Jewish culture, a baby boy’s name isn’t revealed outside the family until the bris, or the ritual of circumcision eight days after birth. According to superstition, naming the baby before then would attract the attention of the Angel of Death.

The Maasai people of Africa give their newborns temporary names until a ceremony as late as age 3, in which the child receives a new name and has his or her head shaved to symbolize a fresh start in life.

On the other hand, not all ancient cultures differentiate between the burials of babies and adults. Stone Age infant graves found in Austria in 2006 date back to 27,000 years ago and contain the same beads and pigments as adult gravesites.

The people who lived in Poggio Civitate more than 2,000 years ago have left little evidence of how they viewed infants, but Tuck and his colleagues expect more finds to emerge as the researchers continue to dig in the Tuscany hills. More evidence that high- and low-class babies were buried differently would suggest that the civilization had a rigid hierarchy, they said.

Images of more than 25,000 objects recovered from the site can be found at Open Context, an open-source research database developed by the Alexandra Archive Institute.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Audrey Hepburn: Remembering the Private Legend

By Elizabeth McNeil

01/10/2013 at 07:35 PM EST

Audrey Hepburn with her son, Luca Dotti, in 1985

Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund

She captivated the world with her doe-eyed beauty, but behind the Givenchy glamour, there was an Audrey Hepburn few people knew.

She thought her nose too big, her feet too large and her neck too long. She loved to shop for groceries (but not clothes), didn't wear makeup at home, never went to the gym and enjoyed two fingers of Scotch every night. 

"She was not this ethereal creature," says Robert Wolders, 76, the Dutch actor who was her companion for the last 13 years of her life. "She was an earthy woman with a ribald sense of humor."

What Hepburn had, adds Wolders, "was more than beauty. It was this extraordinary mystique."

Hepburn left Hollywood at age 34 at the height of her fame, moving into a 1732 farmhouse in Tolochenaz, a small Swiss village, where she found happiness raising two sons and purpose in her charity work for UNICEF. 

Two decades after her death from abdominal cancer at 63 on Jan. 20, 1993, her children and her last love remember the Audrey they adored. 

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Flu season strikes early and, in some places, hard

NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.

Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.

While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in more than 40 states, with about 30 of them reporting some major hot spots. On Thursday, health officials blamed the flu for the deaths of 20 children so far.

Whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.

"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The evidence so far points to a moderate season, Schaffner and others say. It looks bad in part because last year was unusually mild and because the main strain of influenza circulating this year tends to make people sicker and really lay them low.

David Smythe of New York City saw it happen to his 50-year-old girlfriend, who has been knocked out for about two weeks. "She's been in bed. She can't even get up," he said.

Also, the flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." So what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.

"There may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most people don't undergo lab tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it can be hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the flu.

Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.

"I'd say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The 17-bed emergency room saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166 visitors.

The early onslaught has resulted in a spike in hospitalizations. To deal with the influx and protect other patients from getting sick, hospitals are restricting visits from children, requiring family members to wear masks and banning anyone with flu symptoms from maternity wards.

One hospital in Allentown, Pa., set up a tent this week for a steady stream of patients with flu symptoms. But so far "what we're seeing is a typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.

On Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, with the city's hospitals counting about 1,500 emergency room visits since December by people with flu-like symptoms.

All the flu activity has led some to question whether this year's flu shot is working. While health officials are still analyzing the vaccine, early indications are that it's about 60 percent effective, which is in line with what's been seen in other years.

The vaccine is reformulated each year, based on experts' best guess of which strains of the virus will predominate. This year's vaccine is well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that between a third and half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.

In New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones skipped getting a flu shot this season and suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years. She was laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just couldn't function," she said.

But her daughter got the vaccine. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.

Europe is also suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. Flu reports are up, too, in China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo. Britain has seen a surge in cases of norovirus.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC. That's an estimate — the agency does not keep a running tally of adult flu deaths each year, only for children. Some state health departments do keep count, and they've reported dozens of flu deaths so far.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

Most people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Of the 20 children killed by the flu this season, only two were fully vaccinated.

___

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

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Irvine City Council overhauls oversight, spending on Great Park

Capping a raucous eight-hour-plus meeting, the Irvine City Council early Wednesday voted to overhaul the oversight and spending on the beleaguered Orange County Great Park while authorizing an audit of the more than $220 million that so far has been spent on the ambitious project.

A newly elected City Council majority voted 3 to 2 to terminate contracts with two firms that had been paid a combined $1.1 million a year for consulting, lobbying, marketing and public relations. One of those firms — Forde & Mollrich public relations — has been paid $12.4 million since county voters approved the Great Park plan in 2002.

"We need to stop talking about building a Great Park and actually start building a Great Park," council member Jeff Lalloway said.

The council, by the same split vote, also changed the composition of the Great Park's board of directors, shedding four non-elected members and handing control to Irvine's five council members.

The actions mark a significant turning point in the decade-long effort to turn the former El Toro Marine base into a 1,447-acre municipal park with man-made canyons, rivers, forests and gardens that planners hoped would rival New York's Central Park.

The city hoped to finish and maintain the park for years to come with $1.4 billion in state redevelopment funds. But that money vanished last year as part of the cutbacks to deal with California's massive budget deficit.

"We've gone through $220 million, but where has it gone?" council member Christina Shea said of the project's initial funding from developers in exchange for the right to build around the site. "The fact of the matter is the money is almost gone. It can't be business as usual."

The council majority said the changes will bring accountability and efficiencies to a project that critics say has been larded with wasteful spending and no-bid contracts. For all that has been spent, only about 200 acres of the park has been developed and half of that is leased to farmers.

But council members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, who have steered the course of the project since its inception, voted against reconfiguring the Great Park's board of directors and canceling the contracts with the two firms.

Krom has called the move a "witch hunt" against her and Agran. Feuding between liberal and conservative factions on the council has long shaped Irvine politics.

"This is a power play," she said. "There's a new sheriff in town."

The council meeting stretched long into the night, with the final vote coming Wednesday at 1:34 a.m. Tensions were high in the packed chambers with cheering, clapping and heckling coming from the crowd.

At one point council member Lalloway lamented that he "couldn't hear himself think."

During public comments, newly elected Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer chastised the council for "fighting like schoolchildren." Earlier this week he said that if the Irvine's new council majority can't make progress on the Great Park, he would seek a ballot initiative to have the county take over.

And Spitzer angrily told Agran that his stewardship of the project had been a failure.

"You know what?" he said. "It's their vision now. You're in the minority."

mike.anton@latimes.com

rhea.mahbubani@latimes.com

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