News Roundup from 3/28 to 4/1

Friday

• A driver crashed into a building in San Rafael before running away this morning, a California Highway Patrol officer said. The unknown driver crashed the Infiniti G37X sedan into a building located at 2171 E. Francisco Blvd. at about 7:30 a.m., Officer Chris Rardin said. The Infiniti was heading west on Interstate Highway 580, just west of Main Street, when it veered right and went off the road, Marin CHP officials said.

• Two men pleaded guilty this week to vandalizing the Pizza Orgasmica restaurant in San Rafael in February and will be placed on three years' probation when they are sentenced in May, the Marin County District Attorney's Office said.

Thursday

• San Rafael police officers arrested a 27-year-old San Rafael woman accused of stealing from her mother near Woodland Ave. on March 30, according to police spokesman Charly Taylor. Lydia Diane Ellison, who listed her occupation as nanny, broke into her mother’s house around 10:56 a.m. yesterday with her two kids and took a laptop worth approximately $750.
• HBO Films has descended upon St. Vincent's School for Boys to shoot a new movie starring Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen. The movie, “Hemingway and Gellhorn,” tells the highs and lows of the romance between literary icon Ernest Hemingway and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn during the Spanish Civil War.

Wednesday

• When the Borders Corporation cut a $60,000 check for March’s rent at their 609 West Francisco Blvd location in San Rafael, the check bounced. “They took care of it right away, of course,” said attorney Marc Coopersmith, who is representing their landlord, Toys Center, LLC. But the bookseller, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February, now plans on closing its San Rafael location in late May. Although Borders initially planned to keep the store open, Borders officials decided to close it after Toys Center would not accept reducing rent by half, according to Coopersmith. “That offer just wasn’t sustainable,” he said.

Tuesday

• The Marin County Board of Supervisors mourned the loss of colleague Charles McGlashan who in the North Lake Tahoe area.

Monday

• Marin County Supervisor and Mill Valley resident , who emerged as one of the leading political forces in Marin over the past seven years, collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack Sunday in the North Lake Tahoe area after a day of skiing, county officials have confirmed. He was 49.
• Marin sheriff deputies arrested a woman after breaking up a party on Margarita Drive at 10:16 p.m. Friday night, according to sheriff’s Lt. Barry Heying. Carolyn Hedrich’s 15-year-old son threw a party at their house on the 200 block of Margarita Drive. Deputies responded to a taxi driver’s report that parked cars from the party’s drivers were clogging the street.
• Many Californians wonder when the next earthquake will happen. After the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan on March 11, more San Rafael and Marin residents are taking steps to be prepared for a local disaster. After the earthquake in Japan spurred a tsunami warning for the West Coast, 73 people registered for disaster preparedness class "Get Ready Marin" and 56 actually attended, according to Emergency Services Coordinator Angela Del Ponte. Enrollment for the Marin County Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, has also increased since the tsunami warning.