Mistress of devil-worshiper Anton LaVey camped out in Imperial Beach

San Diego — Now the story can be told. More than ten years ago, Ed Legace, boys' swim and water-polo coach at Grossmont Union School High School District's El Capitan High School, abruptly quit his job for what the school district called "undisclosed reasons." The popular English teacher moved over to San Diego Unified until 1993, then made his way to Prineville, Oregon, becoming assistant principal in charge of discipline at Crook County High School. Legace was a local hero there last year when he gave cardiopulmonary resuscitation to a fellow teacher who had suffered a heart attack. But Legace's mysterious past finally caught up with him last week, when it was revealed that he had allegedly fathered a child by a 17-year-old El Capitan student back in 1988. According to the Bend Bulletin, the Oregon Teachers' Standards and Practices Commission yanked Legace's teaching license after determining he had lied on his application about the circumstances under which he departed Grossmont. Legace, however, told the paper he was innocent of the charges and had agreed not to fight the revocation to avoid embarrassing Crook High and distressing his students. "These are all allegations. If this was a criminal case it would've been thrown out long ago. It's based on a lot of hearsay." According to the Bulletin, California authorities pulled Legace's license last year.

The Devil, You Say

The controversial mistress of famed San Francisco devil-worshiper Anton LaVey is said to be camped out at a house in Imperial Beach, mulling her future. Blanche Barton, LaVey's last consort, high priestess, and mother of his five-year-old son, Xerxes, began reading The Satanic Bible as a San Diego teenager; she met LaVey while visiting the Bay Area in 1984. Two days before Halloween 1997, LaVey, 67, died of a bad heart, leaving his estate -- including Rasputin chair, bed of nails, vintage Gramophone, and royalties from The Satanic Bible -- to Barton. But LaVey's children from a rival satanic sect challenged the will and triggered a legal fight that's just been settled out of court, according to an account in the San Francisco Chronicle. Meanwhile, Barton has been telling reporters she has dropped a fundraising campaign to buy back the Black House, LaVey's spooky Richmond District home that was seized in 1991 to pay off his estranged wife.

Sewage and Waste

The second meeting of San Diego's "new, improved" Public Facilities Finance Authority was held last week, and for the second time, a highly touted new member didn't attend. Attorney Christine Frahm, the county water board member who led the crusade against L.A.'s Metropolitan Water District, was billed by Mayor Susan Golding as a perfect watchdog over the multibillion-dollar sewer and stadium debts being run up by the PFFA on behalf of the city council. But so far, she's a no-show, forcing the board to twice postpone its election of officers ... Ronald Saunders, an ex-deputy sheriff from Glen Falls, New York, probably regrets that little vacation to San Diego he took back in May 1997. Saunders pled guilty last week to driving back to Glen Falls with 200 pounds of pot in the back of his Ford Bronco. Saunders said a drug dealer gave him $5000 and told him to flash his badge if he got pulled over along the way ... Pete Wilson's out of the presidential race, but his wife, Gayle, is raking in the money. She's just been appointed to the board of giant ARCO oil ... A couple of entrepreneurs from Boynton Beach, Florida, have latched on to exclusive rights for the Tijuana.com Web site. They also own Palmsprings.com.

Endangered MSCP

San Diego's highly touted Multiple Species Conservation Plan is drawing criticism from a seemingly unlikely source: environmentalists. According to an 18-month study by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California-Santa Barbara, little scientific evidence suggests that the so-called Habitat Conservation Plans like the San Diego MSCP actually work to save species ... San Diego only got honorable mention in Bicycling Magazine's annual survey of best places to cycle. Tucson claimed the number-three spot. Montreal was first and Portland second.

Contributor: Matt Potter