Los Angeles Councilman Bernard C. Parks and opponent Forescee Hogan-Rowles traded jabs Saturday at a candidate forum in Leimert Park, where Parks defended his six-figure pension and compensation package and Hogan-Rowles brushed off accusations that she was a pawn of organized labor.

Hogan-Rowles, who has received heavy backing from city employee unions, has emerged as a strong challenger to Parks, who is seeking his third term representing the 8th District in South Los Angeles. The election will be held March 8.

Parks has questioned Hogan-Rowles’ readiness for the job as well as her grasp of the severity of the city’s budget crisis. In his latest campaign mailing, the former city police chief accused Hogan-Rowles of being the puppet of the Los Angeles Police Protective League -– a group that Parks has long quarreled with. The police union, which represents about 9,000 rank-and-file officers, has spent nearly $125,000 to boost Hogan-Rowles’ candidacy.

“I don’t see any strings here,” Hogan-Rowles told the members of the Cherrywood/Leimert Block Club inside a meeting hall of Transfiguration Catholic Church on Martin Luther King Boulevard. “I am nobody’s puppet.”

The two candidates appeared at different times, avoiding a face-to-face confrontation like the one last weekend hosted by the Park Mesa Heights Community Council. At that debate, they were joined by a third candidate, Jabari Jumaane.

Hogan-Rowles spoke first Saturday, repeating charges that it was hypocritical of Parks to call for scaling back city pension benefits for future hires, while collecting his own $265,000 police pension and a $178,789 council salary.

An audience member gave Parks a chance to respond to those attacks later when he asked whether the election was about candidates’ salaries or what they were going to do for the public. The district includes roughly 260,000 residents.

Parks, 67, called the criticisms “ludicrous” and noted that he didn’t set council salaries or the pension he was awarded from his service in the police department. When Parks asked how many people in the audience would be willing to “start from scratch” -- giving up their pension and benefits when they moved to a new job, only one man raised his hand.

“I worked 38 years in the police department.  I think I deserve the pension I earned,” said Parks, as some of his listeners nodded. “I think I should not leave it to the side and tell my family -- ‘Don’t worry about that, we’ll give it away because I’m young enough and healthy enough to keep working.’ ”

Parks and Hogan-Rowles, who runs a nonprofit that offers financial services in low-income communities, also debated whether the councilman had done enough to recruit new businesses, including to the 22-acre project known as Marlton Square -- at the site of a former shopping plaza that has been a community eyesore for decades.

As widely expected, most of the campaign money in the March 8 election for the Los Angeles Board of Education is coming from outsiders and not the candidates themselves.

The biggest player is a committee supported by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Next in line is United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers union for the nation’s second-largest school system.

The Villaraigosa-backed Coalition for School Reform is supporting incumbents Tamar Galatzan and Richard Vladovic as well as Luis Sanchez, who is running to fill the one open seat among four on the ballot.

The Coalition can't be called the "mayor’s committee" because state law prohibits the mayor, as a political officeholder, from exerting control. But that hasn’t stopped the mayor from fundraising for the effort. And the committee was formed solely to support the candidates he’s backing. All told, the committee has spent $410,696, according to the latest filings. It has more than $1 million still in reserve.

Two Los Angeles Police Department officers were injured in a car crash Wednesday near 37th Street and Western Avenue in Jefferson Park, authorities said.

The Los Angeles Fire Department was called to the scene in South L.A. just after 11 a.m.

Two people involved in the accident were taken to a hospital, said fire department Capt. Devin Gales. It was unclear if the two were the officers.

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After unearthing a body from the backyard of a  Lennox home, investigators said Tuesday evening that a second body may be buried on the property.

Investigators plan to begin searching Wednesday morning for the body, which also may be buried in the backyard, said Det. Phil Martinez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

He said detectives have been unable to locate James Stein, 53, and Gabriela Stein, both of whom live at the home in the 4800 block of West 112th Street.

On Saturday, deputies responded to the home and apprehended a woman on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. She told investigators that bodies may have been buried on the property, according to Martinez.

The recovered body was being examined by the coroner's office.

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Patrick Lynch's 17-year tenure running the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and Sports Arena abruptly ended Tuesday when he resigned following disclosures that he allowed a top assistant to double as a consultant to the producer of a trouble-plagued rave at the venue, The Times has learned.

Lynch, a key player in efforts to lure professional football back to L.A., tendered his resignation in an e-mail to the nine-member Coliseum Commission just hours before the panel was set to meet in closed session to discuss his future, sources said.

The Times had reported that Lynch allowed Todd DeStefano, then his events manager, to work for the company that staged last June's Electric Daisy Carnival even as he represented the commission in planning and overseeing security and medical services for the rave.

The concert was marked by numerous drug overdoses and the death of a teenage girl. The problems led to a moratorium on raves that the commission lifted in November.

As he sought to bring Electric Daisy back to the Coliseum this year, DeStefano also retained a lobbyist to contact City Council members and other officials, according to records and interviews.

Separate investigations into DeStefano are already underway by local prosecutors and the state. After The Times reported DeStefano's ties to the Electric Daisy producer, Insomniac Inc., Commissioner Rick Caruso demanded Lynch's resignation.   

Commissioners have said they had no idea of DeStefano's dual role.

Lynch has managed the Coliseum and the neighboring Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, which the commission also operates, since 1994. Lynch made about $275,000 in salary and bonus pay last year.

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Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas threw his support behind Los Angeles City Council candidate Forescee Hogan-Rowles at a late afternoon fundraiser in Hancock Park Sunday, calling her “very capable,” “very well-regarded” with strong credentials to lead the 8th District. 

Ridley-Thomas’s backing of Hogan-Rowles, who is attempting to unseat Councilman Bernard C. Parks in his South Los Angeles district, is all but certain to add heat to an already scorching feud between Parks and Ridley-Thomas.

The two men waged a bitter battle for the 2nd District seat on the Board of Supervisors in 2008. Ridley-Thomas won by double digits, aided by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which spent an unprecedented $8.5 million to help his effort. Hogan-Rowles shares some of the same allies. The labor federation has spent more than $81,000 so far in independent expenditures on her behalf. 

“It is time, after a long time of eight years of people registering serious displeasure and discontent,” Ridley-Thomas said, “that we do the positive thing, the forward-looking thing, the right thing and to call someone to represent that district who has a feel for that district, who has the heart of that district, who identifies with the constituents of that district, in contrast to one who positions himself otherwise.” 

At least three men were fatally shot and one other was wounded late Friday in a Willowbrook backyard, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Detectives were investigating whether the shooting, which was reported about 8:45 p.m. in the 2100 block of Bliss Street, was gang-related, authorities said.

The surviving victim was taken to a hospital and undergoing surgery, said sheriff's Lt. Victor Clay. The man's condition was unknown.

None of the men's identities was released Friday night.

-- Larry Gordon

Los Angeles police Thursday were investigating why a 31-year-old man was fatally shot in the back while he was crossing a street.

Herbert Eugene Seymour Jr. was targeted Wednesday night for no apparent reason as he walked near his home in the area of 105th Street and Western Avenue, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

The attacker ran away and was seen heading north on Western.

Since January 2007, at least 152 homicides were reported within two miles of the crime scene. The vast majority of victims died of gunshot wounds, according to a database compiled by The Times' Homicide Report.

Anyone with information about Seymour's slaying is asked to call Dets. Eric Crosson or San Arnold at (213) 485-1383.

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Map shows homicides reported in area since 2007. Credit: Times' Homicide Report.

The controversy over raves at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the consulting work of a top Coliseum official who oversaw events at the venue quickly spilled into the reelection campaign of Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who serves on the Coliseum Commission and has said the events should be permitted because of the economic benefit to the community.

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that an administrator who helped oversee the 2010 Electric Daisy Carnival was a paid consultant to the company that produced the event. Parks has joined a majority of commissioners in the past in defending the raves at the Coliseum since the Electric Daisy Carnival there last June, which resulted in 118 arrests.  A 15-year-old girl who attended the event died of a drug overdose several days later. 

Todd DeStefano’s arrangement with the promoter, Insomniac Inc., was cleared by Commission General Manager Patrick Lynch, who said he had run it past the attorney for the commission. DeStefano, who recently resigned his post to pursue a career as an events promoter, told the Times there was “no conflict of interest.” Both the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the state Fair Political Practices Commission announced Wednesday that they planned to investigate the dual employment of DeStefano, who helped supervise security and emergency services at the rave.

Forescee Hogan-Rowles, who is challenging Parks in his bid for a third term on the City Council, has criticized Parks for defending rave events at the coliseum and has said the noise and trash have created a nuisance for residents of the 8th Council District. Her spokesman said she believes any future raves should be canceled until promoters can ensure illegal drugs will be banned and mitigate the events’ effect on neighbors.

On Wednesday, Hogan-Rowles called on Parks to return a $500 contribution from DeStefano, who has also contributed to other council members, and a $250 contribution from Pasquale Rotella, the chief executive of Insomniac Events Inc. Her spokesman, Steve Barkan, alleged that Parks “puts the interests of his campaign donors ahead of the safety of teenagers, and ahead of the concerns of coliseum neighbors.”

Parks rejected that charge and said he had no intention of returning the contribution: “We are going to run our campaign; we already have an advisor, so we don’t need the opponent as an advisor.” The councilman also received $1,500 in contributions from DeStefano when he ran for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2008.

Parks also did not back away from his support for the events, which he said are “legitimate concerts,” and said he feels comfortable with new safety precautions that have been put into place since last year.

Local and state authorities will investigate whether laws were broken when a top official for the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission helped plan and oversee security and emergency services for a huge rave while also working as a paid consultant for the company producing the event.

The Times reported Wednesday that Todd DeStefano, who was the commission's longtime assistant general manager for events, went to work for the rave producer about two months before last June's Electric Daisy Carnival, which was marred by numerous drug overdoses and the death of a 15-year-old girl.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Wednesday that authorities there would investigate the circumstances surrounding DeStefano's double employment. DeStefano quit the commission's staff in January.

Roman Porter, executive director of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, said his agency also “has initiated an investigation into Mr. DeStefano based on the issues raised in the L.A. Times article.”

Porter said the probe would examine whether DeStefano broke laws by failing to disclose income from an outside source and engaging in a conflict of interest. In addition, Porter said, the inquiry will determine whether DeStefano violated “revolving door” statutes that require government employees to wait at least one year after leaving their jobs before lobbying their former agencies.