In California: A tender goodbye in Los Angeles
The world says goodbye to Kobe Bryant. Plus, travelers possibly exposed to coronavirus head to quarantine sites across the state, including one in Ventura County, as the Dow drops 1,000 points following the jump in worldwide cases. And Prop. 13 offers multi-unit developers a sweet deal — is the same true for taxpayers?
It's Arlene Martínez, with all your need-to-read Monday news.
But first, an international coalition has convened to reel in the answer of how a rare hoodwinker fish ended up in Santa Barbara, thousands of miles from home.
In California has your daily news, features and interviews from across USA TODAY Network newsrooms and beyond. Click here to get this straight to your inbox.
Remembering Kobe
L.A. came to a stop Monday, as for two hours the world remembered Kobe Bryant.
Outside Mamba Sports Academy, the holistic training facility that rebranded after partnering with the NBA legend, mourners found their own way to remember Kobe.
Other fans across SoCal paid tribute to Kobe Bryant, who "unified the city and state."
Vanessa Bryant lost her husband and daughter suddenly, leaving her with three daughters of completely different ages. Her faith may help as she gets used to life in a (sadder) new world.
Watch: The memorial in its entirety here (video).
Military barracks becomes coronavirus quarantine site
A traveler who arrived at LAX was transported Sunday night to the new coronavirus quarantine site at Ventura County Naval Base's Point Mugu, federal and Ventura County officials confirmed Monday.
Officials said all of the people who would be candidates to be quarantined and monitored at the site would be U.S. citizens who are healthy and have not shown symptoms of the virus. They would be quarantined based solely on their travel, meaning they visited a region where they could have been exposed to coronavirus.
The arrival marks the beginning of the use of an isolated barracks as a 20-bed quarantine site. It's one of several set up across the country.
The Dow plunges over 1,000 points as coronavirus cases outside China jump.
As of noon Monday, 8,000 people across California have quarantined themselves.
What else we're talking about
Vanessa Bryant files a wrongful death suit against the helicopter company behind her husband's fatal flight.
Corporations would be discouraged from letting their homes sit empty under proposed legislation that would impose fines and allow cities/counties to buy or assume control of the property and rent it out to low- and moderate-income families.
Students are rallying around a Long Beach high school teacher placed on administrative leave for being too disruptive on social media. Myriam Gurba said she voicing her Twitter support for students who alleged verbal and physical abuse by another teacher who is currently on leave as police investigate her conduct.
A Hemet woman, 20, and her boyfriend, 18, are accused of killing three of her roommates over a possible rent dispute.
After Borderline, officials move to block autopsy report access
A bill has been introduced in the state Legislature to shield autopsy reports and death investigations from public view, a measure intended to protect the privacy of the dead and their families but raising concerns it could hide government malfeasance and problems that lead to fatalities.
Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin introduced the bill last week at the request of Ventura County officials trying to stop the disclosure of records on victims in the mass shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill a little over a year ago.
In a news release issued Thursday, Irwin said the public should not have access to the intimate details found in a medical examiner's records. “This information can be very traumatizing for the surviving family members of a crime victim," the release said.
The records also detail how and why someone died, a chronology of events, toxicology results, reports from witnesses and other facts.
If the law goes through, it would apply to autopsy reports across the state. To get a copy, a person would have to be a direct relative or make a request through a judge.
A 'miracle' ending for couple presumed dead
A couple in their 70s who got lost while hiking on Valentine's Day were found over a week later. Authorities called their rescue from a densely forested bay near San Francisco a "miracle."
Carol Kiparsky, 77, and her husband, Ian Irwin, 72, were found Saturday, two days after the Marin County Sheriff’s Office had switched from search mode into a recovery mission. They were airlifted by helicopter to get treatment for what Sheriff’s Sgt. Brenton Schneider described as “slight hypothermia’’ but were otherwise doing well.
Prop. 13: Something for everyone, but especially for property taxpayers
Property taxes are likely to go up and developer fees will go down or be eliminated entirely if voters on March 3 give the state approval to issue $15 billion in debt.
Proposition 13 is designed to give K-12 schools and public universities the ability to issue state bonds for the construction of new schools and buildings and renovations of existing ones. When local educational facilities get the green light to take on the new debt (voters would need to approve it), the costs will show up on the bill of property taxpayers.
But the bill also exempts new multi-family developments built within a half-mile of subway stops and bus stations from school impact fees, CalMatters reports. It also reduces those fees by 20% on apartment buildings farther way from mass transit.
Impact fees are typically added to the cost of residential projects to account for the new residents' use of roads, schools, police and fire protection. That means the burden could fall even heavier on property owners, who will necessarily make up the share private developers no longer would have to pay.
The bill also gives funding priority to projects that use union labor through what are called Project Labor Agreements.
The legislative analyst's office determined the bond would cost $26 million over its 35-year life, which includes interest.
BTW, this Prop. 13 has nothing to do with that other Prop. 13, which voters approved in the late 1970s to keep property taxes immune from sharp increases without their approval.
In California is a roundup of news from across USA TODAY Network newsrooms. Also contributing: CalMatters, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bryant, wrongful death, coronavirus, hoodwinker, Prop. 13: Mon news
