Word: gardena
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Whenever Mitch Lansdell, manager of the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena, has an important phone call, he swivels his chair to face the northeastern corner of his office. He has permanently sealed one of his office doors and put all his books in the southeastern corner. It's not tidiness. It's the instructions of "intercultural consultant" Angi Ma Wong, a practitioner of feng shui, the Chinese tradition that says success is largely a matter of orienting your surroundings...
...otherwise. The city faced a $4.7 million budget deficit back in 1998 when Lansdell, then acting manager, agreed in desperation to try a feng shui (pronounced fung shway) practitioner. It could be coincidence, but within three weeks of her visit, Lansdell was promoted to full-time manager of Gardena, whose economy then got a boost when Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt bought a bankrupt casino there. This month Lansdell expects Gardena's deficit to decrease to $2.9 million...