The Digest

Disney, eBay Team Up Walt Disney Co.’s Go.com announced a four-year agreement with eBay to develop and market online trading sites and auctions on two new Web sites. Under the agreement, eBay will ultimately become the online trading service across all of Disney’s Internet properties, including the Go Network portal. The companies intend to develop, implement and promote a co-branded person-to-person trading site for the Go Network at http://ebay.go.com. They will also develop several trading sites in an auction format for Disney.com, ESPN.com and ABC.com, that will showcase Disney products, props and memorabilia from Walt Disney Studios, Disneyland and Walt Disney World, ESPN Cable Networks and ABC Television. The partnership will kick off at Disney.com auctions, with the sale of products related to the celebration of the 100-year anniversary of Walt Disney’s birth. Go.com will continue to have a relationship with uBid through the term of its current agreement. LAUSD May Use Private Developers Los Angeles school officials agreed to test a new method of school construction in which developers would finance the projects with bank loans and sell the completed schools to the district. The plan came as a way to overcome bureaucratic delays, which set back the group’s goal of opening 20 new primary centers in two years. Only four of those schools have opened in more than two years. Howard Miller, the district’s chief operating officer, said that if the construction plan is approved by the Board of Education, it would supplement the district’s ongoing construction. Home Prices Surge San Fernando Valley home prices continued their upswing, with January prices showing the largest gain in the last decade. January’s median home price was $222,000, up 16.8 percent over the like period a year earlier, according to a report by the Southland Association of Realtors. January marked the 12th month in a row that the median single-family home value was above the $200,000 mark. The price still hasn’t caught up to the $245,000 median price that homes were selling for in 1989. The number of homes sold dropped to 705 in January 2000, down 2.2 percent from the like period a year earlier. Realtors blamed the decrease on a drop in the number of homes on the market. Real estate experts say they expect statewide values to increase between 5 percent and 8 percent over the next year. Developer Faces New Hurdles Newhall Land Co. is facing more obstacles in its bid to begin developing its proposed 22,000-home suburb Newhall Ranch. The state Public Utilities Commission agreed to hold a hearing on whether the development would have sufficient water supplies for its expected 70,000 residents in northern L.A. County. County officials and environmental groups have charged that the planned Santa Clarita suburb would not have adequate water supplies. Valencia Water Co., a subsidiary of Newhall Land, has not challenged the order for a hearing, with officials saying they will show there is enough water. Ventura County has already filed a lawsuit against developer Newhall Land and against L.A. County for approving the project despite what Ventura County says is a flawed environmental report and insufficient water resources. The PUC hearing is set for late May. Secession Timetable Released San Fernando Valley and L.A. Harbor secession studies are expected to be finished in 22 months, giving secession backers enough time to place the issue on the 2002 ballot. The time frame was laid out by Pacific Financial Management Inc., a consulting firm that ranked first in bidding for the secession study. LAFCO could approve the $1.39 million contract by March 1. Officials had previously thought the study would take up to four years, delaying a public vote on city breakup until the 2004 elections. Once the study of the economic impacts of city breakup is completed, LAFCO must decide whether it is feasible. If they decide it is, the proposal would be put before voters. CSUN Gets Big Donation A San Fernando Valley couple donated $1.5 million to Cal State Northridge, the school’s largest gift ever. The donation was made by Sherman Oaks residents Linda Brown, a CSUN alum, and her husband Abbott Brown, who donated the money to the school’s Center for the Achievement of the Physically Disabled. The money will be used to help fund the center’s planned $3.5 million Western Center for Adaptive Aquatic Therapy. The announcement of the gift coincided with the official launching of the CSUN Rising campaign, which is aimed at raising $10 million for capital projects at the school. So far, CSUN has raised $4 million in the effort.