O.C. mayor displays Trump bust on the city council dais
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Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Jan. 29, and I’m Carol Cormaci bringing you this week’s TimesOC newsletter with a look at some of the latest local news and events.
It’s abundantly clear how the political wind has been blowing in Huntington Beach for the past four years. The many ultra-conservative actions of the City Council have been nearly head-spinning, especially because some of them have nothing to do with the actual mechanics of running a city. Instead, they have been politically ideological moves come up with by a panel that is supposed to be nonpartisan.
As if to leave no doubt about whose views they embrace, Mayor Pat Burns, who was recently bestowed the gavel by his predecessor, Gracey Van Der Mark, prominently placed on the dais during the council’s Jan. 21 meeting a bust of President Trump, who had returned to the White House just the day before. So much for nonpartisanship.
In my view Daily Pilot reporter Matt Szabo is the lucky one amid all of this. Assigned to cover Huntington Beach City Hall five years ago, he has never since had a shortage of controversial stories to report, the kinds of articles that make half the readers delighted and the other half furious in this time when our country is so divided. It’s gained Szabo a solid following among people either primed to cheer or toss pitchforks.
The neighboring (also all-Republican) Newport Beach City Council, by comparison, is as tame and circumspect as they come, sticking to the business of making decisions on, you know, things like city budgets, housing, planning and common-sense laws. The staff writer who covers Newport has virtually nothing controversial to report, or certainly very little that would make readers’ heads explode in disgust.
Here’s a list of some of the headlines so far this month related to Huntington Beach City Hall that have generated some heat. If you follow their hyperlinks you can read the stories.
— Huntington Beach ordered to pay more than $180K in attorney fees in air show case
— 2 Huntington Beach residents continue effort to overturn city’s Pacific Airshow settlement
— State attorney general, secretary of state file appeal in Huntington Beach voter ID lawsuit
— Huntington Beach sues state of California over sanctuary law
— Huntington Beach City Council declares city nonsanctuary, friendly to Trump immigration policies
— Huntington Beach City Council orders studies on library initiatives
— Library petition proponents cry foul after Huntington Beach sends out survey
Yep, that Szabo is living the dream. He’ll never run out of contentious actions to report.
MORE NEWS
• Much to the dismay of its supporters, Walk on Wilshire, a popular outdoor dining street closure in downtown Fullerton that came about during the pandemic, will end this Friday when a temporary extension it was given in October expires.
• After some challenges while dealing with City Hall, the owners of Westend, an arts-focused bar at 814 West 19th St. in Costa Mesa will be allowed to to build out a back patio into a dining area with a bar and space for live entertainment and extend its hours until 2 a.m. nightly, following a decision last week of the Costa Mesa City Council.
• In order to ensure two properties for sale in Laguna Canyon can become a place where artists can afford to live and work, the Laguna Beach City Council this month agreed to purchase them for $8.65 million. The city hopes to form a land trust to oversee the properties and is exploring having a private entity take title of them.
CRIME
• Westminster Councilwoman Amy Phan West learned Jan. 23 she is facing a misdemeanor charge of bribing a Westminster Police Department parking officer in the spring of 2023 to keep her husband’s Jeep from being towed. The city was negotiating a contract with the Westminster Police Officers Assn. at the time she allegedly made her statements, according to the district attorney’s office.
• Two men are in jail and a third is dead, after a Newport Beach police pursuit early Sunday led to a crash in Costa Mesa that knocked over a power pole and caused a road closure that lasted for hours, the Daily Pilot reported.
• Fountain Valley police were called shortly before 11 a.m. Friday after a man tried to get into the car of a woman parked near Kazuo Masuda Middle School. After a foot chase, the suspect allegedly attacked an officer seated in her squad car. Then, after the man brandished a gun, the partner of that officer fatally shot him.
LIFE & LEISURE
• “Mamba and Mambacita Forever,” a book written by the late Kobe Bryant’s wife and his daughter Gianna’s mother, Vanessa Bryant, and scheduled to be released Aug. 19, will feature images and stories of more than 100 murals around the globe honoring the father and daughter. The mural in Costa Mesa pictured above will be the cover art, according to this L.A. Times story.
• For 35 years, jewelry repair craftsman Todd Jost has been serving customers and even some South Coast Plaza retailers at Jostmar Jewelers, tucked down a long hallway of the shopping center, near the restrooms. Until this Friday, Jan. 31, that is. Jost, a 79-year-old resident of Lake Forest, told the Daily Pilot the time has come for him to wind down operations. He and his wife, Pat, who also works in the shop, say they will take a break before relocating the operation in March to a counter at the Watch Connection located nearby on Bristol Street and be open for business fewer days of the week. The watch repair portion of Jostmar will fly solo at at another location in Costa Mesa, under the name 9-High Watch Services.
• There’s more news out of South Coast Plaza: The shopping center and the Segerstrom family announced last week the donation of $1 million toward relief and recovery efforts for the Los Angeles area fires.
• Newport Mesa Unified School District has started a pilot program to teach Whittier Elementary School students in grades two through five how to stay safe in the water and potentially save others in an emergency. The kids in the program meet twice a week after school for eight weeks. The classes, which started a couple of weeks ago, are held at the YMCA of Orange County’s center on University Drive and taught by the facility’s instructors.
CALENDAR THIS
• Today we enter the Lunar New Year, which under the Chinese zodiac system is the Year of the Snake. Two of the several local celebrations reported Sunday in the Daily Pilot & Times OC are the Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival in Garden Grove Park, starting Friday evening and continuing through this weekend, and Westminster’s Tet Parade in Little Saigon, which gets underway at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
• On Saturday, the Orange County Black History Parade & Unity Festival, under the auspices of the Orange County Heritage Council, begins at 8 a.m. and runs until 5 p.m. at Center Street Promenade in Anaheim.
• This weekend also brings the Surf City Marathon, Half Marathon, 5K and Beach Mile to Huntington Beach, with the route beginning on Pacific Coast Highway. All the details of the various events and the registration information can be found here.
• Sweets for the Sweet: Looking ahead a bit, the OC Fair & Event Center is offering Chocolate Bliss, a pre-Valentine’s Day truffle making class on Saturday, Feb. 8 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Center’s Centennial Farm. Chef Vina DiBernardo will lead the class. Participants will be given gift boxes in which they can present the treats they’ve created to the Valentine(s) of their choosing. There is a $45 class fee. Tied-back hair and closed-toed shoes are required, and aprons are recommended. Parking is free. Reservations must be made by the this coming Monday, Feb. 3, at Centennial Farm Garden Classes.
Until next Wednesday,
Carol
KEEP IN TOUCH
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