Morning Splash: Calif. Prisons Released Risky Inmates; Stow Beating Suspect Appears in Lineup

California prison officials wrongly left more than 1,500 parolees on the streets without supervision last year, including more than 450 with a "high risk for violence," the prisons' inspector general said Wednesday. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation mishandled a new state law under which inmates who have served their sentences, and are considered low risk, are released without having to report to parole officers, the office of Inspector General Bruce Monfross said in a report.

The LAPD said it is "satisified" after placing the suspect in the beating of Giants fan Bryan Stow in a lineup for potential witnesses. The suspect, Giovanni Ramirez, was arrested Sunday. On Tuesday, prosecutors met with Los Angeles police detectives to review the case and determined that more investigating needs to be done before charges can be filed.

Mayor Ed Lee quietly signed into law a ban on the unsolicited distribution of Yellow Pages in San Francisco - a regulation that already has drawn a threat of a lawsuit from the trade group that represents the commercial phone book industry. "While we regret having to take this action and sincerely hope that litigation can still be avoided, we cannot stand idly by as our members' constitutional rights are trampled by a city once known for its tolerance and protection of civil rights," William Champion III, an attorney for the Local Search Association (until recently the Yellow Pages Association), wrote in a letter to Lee.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s residential customers could be slapped with new monthly fees, and its most energy-efficient and lowest-income customers could face additional fee hikes. The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to rule Thursday on the company’s proposal to charge all of its residential electricity customers a flat fee of at least $2.40 per month.

Muni, the Bay Area's busiest transit system, has reversed its long-standing policy that barred passengers from bringing bicycles aboard the buses and streetcars. But there's a catch: Only folding bikes will be allowed. The policy shift, while not everything for which bike advocates have lobbied, is nonetheless welcome, they say.

San Francisco's controversial sit/lie ordinance has been mostly ineffective in preventing transients from loitering in the city's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, a police lieutenant said at a department meeting Wednesday. The ordinance, approved as Proposition L by 54 percent of voters in November, makes it illegal to sit or lie on public sidewalks between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., with some exceptions.

Marin County officials flatly rejected the county grand jury's call for a permanent emergency shelter program for the homeless. The civil jury's key recommendation after investigating Marin's homeless — making a permanent emergency shelter program a top priority — "will not be implemented," according to a staff report that county supervisors swiftly endorsed Tuesday.

Victor Frasno thought God was on the other side of an Antioch lake, so he tried not once, but twice to get across, even though he could not swim. God would help him reach the other side of the 80-acre reservoir, he told his older brother. The brother was also "chosen," so he pulled him into the frigid water, too. After a chaotic hour or so at the sprawling Contra Loma Regional Park, battling with his brother and sister-in-law in and out of the frigid water, Frasno drowned. Authorities pulled his body from the lake at 11:20 p.m. Friday, 20 minutes after the first of a series of world-ending earthquakes were supposed to have begun, according to an Oakland-based radio evangelist's Judgment Day prediction.

SFMOMA has been gearing up for an over 225,000-square-foot expansion that will double the museum's size and create new public spaces downtown. A press release issued by the museum today was the first big reveal of what the new addition will look like. Designed by Swedish firm Snohetta (in collaboration with SFMOMA and EHDD of San Francisco), part of the expansion will run along the back of the existing building and extend from Howard to Minna, while the East Side “will feature a sweeping façade and an entrance in an area that is currently hidden from public view and largely unused.” The structure will include an open-air 18-foot-wide “pedestrian promenade” connecting Howard and Natoma streets. The promenade will “feature a series of stairs and landings terracing up to an entry court that extends from the new east entrance” and will be open to the public.

A Danville teenager who was last seen Monday is believed to have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, authorities said Wednesday. Allison Bayliss, 15, a sophomore at San Ramon Valley High School, was reported missing Monday afternoon. Early Tuesday, her mountain bike was found in the Battery East parking lot near the south end of the bridge.

Two Bay Area card clubs raided by law enforcement agents for allegedly allowing drug dealing and loan sharking have each agreed to pay $575,000 to state regulators. The Oaks Club Room on San Pablo Avenue in Emeryville and Artichoke Joe's on Huntington Avenue in San Bruno will each pay fines and investigative costs to the state Department of Justice's Bureau of Gambling Control and have promised to crack down on illegal activities.

Monday's U.S. Supreme Court order that California must release tens of thousands of inmates from its unconstitutionally overcrowded prisons brings new urgency to a bill to make nonviolent drug ex-cons eligible for food stamps, Assemblyman Sandre Swanson says. Swanson, D-Alameda, is the author of AB 828, the Nutritional Assistance for Families Act, which would let people convicted of certain nonviolent, drug-related felonies receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. Federal law bars certain former offenders from receiving such benefits, but lets states opt out of the ban; 14 states have eliminated the ban entirely, and 21 have modified it. The Assembly voted 46-30 Monday to pass Swanson's bill; it now goes to the state Senate.

...The Giants scored four runs in the ninth inning to send Wednesday night's game into extra innings. The Marlins won 7-6 in the 12th inning when Emilio Bonifacio's one-out sacrifice fly against Guillermo Mota scored Scott Cousins, who crashed violently - but cleanly - into Posey as Nate Schierholtz's one-hop throw arrived at the plate. Posey incurred what looks like a serious injury to his left ankle. After the game, he went for X-rays. Results were not immediately available.