Week in review

The City Council met Wednesday to discuss layoffs affecting three people representing two full-time positions and one part-time position. Some employee groups agreed to a salary freeze resulting in some savings next year. The money was enough to guarantee a job of the part-time employee next year and keep the two full-time employees an additional two months, through August, said City Manager Jim Nantell.

By early August, the city will know if there is a budget balance from this fiscal year. If enough money is left over, the city could decide to keep the employees through the year, said Nantell.

Eleven vacant positions will still be cut, as part of the city’s effort to create a balanced $40.75 million budget. Ceasing the use of the red-light camera, which is not resulting in revenue or adequate information about increased safety, is also part of the plan.

Teen guilty of first-degree murder

The teenager who told jurors he fatally shot an unarmed rival gangmember at a party in unincorporated Redwood City out of fear for his own safety was convicted Wednesday of first degree murder and special circumstances that will send him to prison for life without parole.

Jurors deliberated less than two days before convicting Ricardo Garcia, 18, of murder and the special circumstances of using a firearm and acting to benefit a street gang in the death of 19-year-old Solomone Zarate.

Prosecutor Al Giannini called the verdict appropriate but conceded it isn’t necessarily a happy occasion.

Giannini contended Garcia jumped into a fight between his friend and Zarate outside a Sept. 13, 2008 party on Columbia Avenue because he wanted to prove he was the "biggest, baddest” member of the Fair Oaks Park sect of the Norteño gang.

School layoffs made official

Layoff notices to 63 Redwood City teachers were approved by the school board Tuesday night, the last district to send final notices out this year.

While other districts made final layoff notices by May 15, the state deadline, Redwood City Elementary School District’s decision was postponed until Tuesday night when the board approved layoffs of 63 full-time equivalent employees, known as FTEs. Mainly teachers were laid off. The unanimous vote was delayed after mandatory hearings about the proposed layoffs ended in early May. In March, the district sent preliminary pink slips to 127.2 FTEs. Of the 63 laid off, 52.5 are due to increasing class sizes.

Redwood City is facing $4.7 million to $10.6 million in cuts from this year’s $78.8 budget.

Court lays heart retention case to rest

Coroner Robert Foucrault and pathologist Dr. Peter Benson were never required to seek permission from a Daly City mother before retaining her deceased son’s heart, according to an appellate court that dismissed the woman’s civil suit against the men and San Mateo County.

The ruling ended nearly three years of wrangling over the keeping of Nicholas Picon’s heart — an action that ultimately changed the local retention policy, sparked a failed attempt at amending state law and became a campaign issue for the former office assistant looking to unseat Foucrault in the June election.

Nicholas Picon, 23, died in October 2006 of a cardiac dysrhythmia. On Nov. 13, 2006, Picon learned that, after her son’s autopsy, his heart was kept with the intention of forwarding it to Stanford University because of a congenital heart defect.

Foucrault returned the heart to Picon in a wooden box and later amended the local office’s rules to require next of kin notification and consent for organ and tissue retention.