Orange County city puts more teeth into its anti-camping law, kills mobile health service contract
Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Sept. 4. I’m Carol Cormaci bringing you this week’s TimesOC newsletter with a look at some of the latest local news and events.
Before we get started, let’s talk about the weather, specifically the high temps much of the Southland is expected to experience over the next several days. For those living in the inland areas of Orange County who could be in danger of becoming overheated due to a lack of access to air conditioning, the county has posted a list of its many Cooling Centers and “heat tips” here.
In actions last week related to its unhoused population, the Newport Beach City Council beefed up its anti-camping laws, decided to add more police to its homelessness team and decided to kill the city’s contract with a nonprofit that had been operating a mobile health clinic.
According to the most recent Point in Time data revised by the county in May, more than 70 people were living on the street in Newport Beach. The City Council’s moves, as reported in the Daily Pilot by my colleague Eric Licas, involved changes to two city ordinances that will make it illegal to store belongings unattended on public property, “sleep or lay down” in a public restroom, bench or bike rack, or to obstruct access to EV charging stations and ATMs. They also expand the city’s definition of camping to include sleeping overnight in an automobile.
Beginning in December, the city’s sole homeless liaison officer, who is charged with outreach as well as issuing citations, will be joined by three more officers. At that time the four officers will comprise two “quality of life teams” working seven days a week, Licas reports. An added goal is to put another three officers on the teams in early 2025; the city is also considering designating a city attorney to prosecute anti-camping laws on a full-time basis.
Several Newport Beach residents showed up at last week’s council meeting to ask for stricter enforcement of anti-camping laws to rein in homeless people. “Some accused people living on the streets of causing disturbances with homeowners, businesses and tourists, public defecation, drug use and theft,” the reporter writes.
“You have to have a zero tolerance policy for any vagrance, and this comes from the mother of somebody who’s been homeless,” recent Newport Beach resident Jennifer Hoff told the council. “Our police are made to be street corner psychiatrists because of current laws in place that prohibit families like mine from getting their loved ones in a psychiatric hospital for more than 48 hours.”
This wasn’t news to members of the council who echoed many of the sentiments expressed by residents, according to the report.
What surprised me most was the news the city declined to extend its contract with Be Well, the nonprofit that has been operating a mobile mental health response team there since 2021, when a $1.2-million contract was approved by the City Council, as I recall the high hopes expressed when the contract was first approved. The service was available to everyone in the city, not just homeless people. But it was also tasked with outreach and helping people apply for housing and other forms of support. It was my understanding then that a key benefit would be that it would lessen the burden on police staff, freeing them to fight crime instead of tending to homeless people experiencing mental health crises.
According to the Daily Pilot report, though, council members were underwhelmed by the service.
“As it comes to Be Well, it’s an approach that’s worked,” Mayor Pro Tem Joe Stapleton said, “[but] it hasn’t worked well enough. It hasn’t worked fast enough. Mental health is a problem in this community.”
MORE NEWS
• In other Newport Beach news, its Harbor Department became the first public agency in the U.S. to add a boat powered entirely by electricity to its fleet of vehicles unveiling the floating EV at a ceremony last week. The new boat was manufactured by VITA and cost $229,000. It has a top speed of 30 knots and can run a full 10-hour shift without having to recharge.
• Homeowners’ insurance has been hard to come by for property owners living in or near areas prone to wildfires, as insurance carriers in California have been dropping policies left and right this year to avoid the risk of becoming insolvent. That’s left few options to homeowners, among them the Fair Access to Insurance Requirement (FAIR) plan. So, when the city of Laguna Beach, located in a very high fire hazard severity zone set up a town hall last week for residents to learn more on the subject, the meeting room was packed, according to reporting by my colleague Andrew Turner. Steps people can take to reduce the cost of insurance include vegetation management, providing defensible space and upgrading windows to multi-paned glass, among others, and can be found at insurance.ca.gov.
• In a move that could prove to thwart the efforts of the conservative majority of the Huntington Beach City Council, the California Assembly passed Senate Bill 1174 last Tuesday, which would ban local governments from imposing voter identification requirements in municipal elections. The bill had already been approved by the state Senate, so it was sent to the governor’s desk for his signature. SB 1174, authored by state Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine) is directly at odds with Huntington Beach’s voter-approved Measure A, pushed by the City Council, which states the city could implement voter ID requirements beginning with the 2026 election. “We cannot have 100 different charter cities making up 100 different sets of voting rules, based on fringe conspiracy theories,” Min said.
• Just weeks after it came to light Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do had directed millions of dollars in contracts to a nonprofit without disclosing a link to his daughter, Rhiannon Do, she began working as an unpaid intern for the county’s top prosecutor, the L.A. Times reported last week. She worked at the Orange County district attorney’s office for three months earlier this year, a spokesperson for the D.A.’s office confirmed to The Times. And at the same time, the county was also trying to account for $13.5 million in contracts that had been directed to Viet America Society, a nonprofit that once listed the supervisor’s daughter as its president. As mentioned in last week’s newsletter, federal agents raided the homes of both father and daughter in search of evidence, and Andrew Do’s colleagues on the Board of Supervisors called for him to step down.
• Frances Marquez, a member of the Cypress City Council, has filed a federal lawsuit against the city manager and three of her council colleagues alleging she was censured twice in “unconstitutional retaliation” against her vocal support of the city holding district elections, according to this TimesOC report by Gabriel San Román.
• In other legal action, San Román reports that an ethnic studies curriculum at Santa Ana Unified School District is embroiled in a lawsuit that alleges courses were developed in secret and “infected” with antisemitism.
• Orange County public health officials last Wednesday reported the county’s first human case of West Nile virus, in Huntington Beach, the Daily Pilot reported. The individual was hospitalized earlier in August but was recuperating at home as of last week. The virus, transmitted to humans and animals through the bite of mosquitoes, as of Aug. 23 had been detected in samples collected in Irvine, Anaheim, Orange, Fullerton, Los Alamitos, Placentia, Santa Ana and Tustin, according to the Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District.
PUBLIC SAFETY & COURTS
• There was some good news for local law enforcement officials last week when federal authorities announced they had busted a crime tourism ring that had been active in Orange County as well as several other areas. Prosecutors allege Juan Carlos Thola-Duran ran a rental car business for thieves, providing vehicles for crime tourism groups arriving from South America and directing them to locations both in and outside California for their thefts. He and five others are facing charges including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to transport stolen goods for their alleged roles in the scheme.
• Over the years several women have complained about Dr. John Hoefs’ physical exams — even to the California Medical Board — but the Irvine physician was allowed to continue working until he was recently arrested. Orange County prosecutors charged Hoefs earlier this year with 17 felony counts of sexual battery by fraud and three felony counts of sexual battery. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released from custody on a $500,000 bond, according to Orange County Superior Court records. Fifteen women filed a civil lawsuit last week alleging that Hoefs, 79, coerced them to expose their breasts under the guise of legitimate medical treatment, The Times reports.
• For the second time in recent weeks, a man in his 50s died in an apparent suicide after jumping from a parking structure at the Bella Terra shopping center in Huntington Beach. The most recent death occurred at around 7:30 p.m. last Thursday, just 30 days after the body of a 52-year-old man from the city of Westminster was found there on the morning of July 31.
From City News Service:
— An 84-year-old man was struck and killed by a hit-and-run vehicle at around 5:30 a.m. Monday in Anaheim, authorities said. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. “Due to the ongoing investigation, the suspect vehicle description will not be released at this time,” police said.
— An 18-year-old man was arrested Monday for allegedly stabbing a man to death and later striking a woman with a vehicle in Tustin. Police received several calls at about 12:15 a.m. Monday regarding a pedestrian being struck in front of apartments. “Responding officers arrived and located two victims, one male and one female, outside the location on Nisson Road,” a police spokesman told CNS. Both were taken to a hospital where the man died from his injuries. The woman, who was suffering from “significant injuries,” was listed in stable condition.
— Two males were arrested Saturday after one of them waved what appeared to be a gun amid hundreds of people at the Newport Beach Pier at around 1:45 p.m., an incident that was reported to the local police department by a witness. Officers located the suspects and recovered a pellet gun, police said.
SPORTS
• The Anaheim Ducks will move their 65 local games to free TV on Fox’s KCOP starting this upcoming season, The Times reports. The games also will be available on a new ad-supported streaming service called Victory+, launching next month. KCOP reaches all of the homes in Los Angeles and Orange County, according to the report.
• At 20 years, 259 days old, Caden Dana became the youngest pitcher in Angels history to win his major league debut as his team rallied for a 3-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Sunday. “That’s pretty cool hearing that,” Dana said, in an understatement. Last night, now-Dodger Shohei Ohtani was back in Angel Stadium playing the Halos on the anniversary of his last game there as a member of the team. L.A. Times writer Jack Harris is still wondering if the Angels could have kept Ohtani and puts “at least” part of the blame on owner Arte Moreno for losing him to the Dodgers.
• A high school football game pitting Laguna Beach against Santa Monica last Friday night was a great opportunity to see two promising quarterbacks in action, according to this report by The Times’ Eric Sondheimer. Minnesota commit Jackson Kollock led Laguna Beach, passing for 115 yards and a touchdown while rushing for 84 yards, to a 21-9 victory. The opposing QB was junior Wyatt Brown, who threw two interceptions that led to TDs for the Breakers. The 6-foot-4 Kollock also plays basketball and runs track. In football last season, he passed for 3,174 yards and 41 touchdowns for a team that ended with nine wins and two losses.
• My colleague Andrew Turner interviewed Carter Voorhis, 20, the off-duty deckhand on the Patriot who reeled in a 172-pound marlin last week and was quick to acknowledge the help of “the whole crew” in the effort. “It was my first marlin that I’ve ever caught,” Voorhis said. “I will definitely say I think fighting a bluefin was significantly easier than that. It takes some longer runs, definitely more exciting watching it come up, surface, jump around, kind of put on a bit of a show for everyone on the boat. I think everyone enjoyed seeing that. I know I definitely did.”
LIFE & LEISURE
• As the daughter and granddaughter of men who struggled to live with Parkinson’s disease, I found this feature story about a local boxing program designed specifically to help boost the quality of life for such patients very interesting. My colleague Matt Szabo spoke to participants as well as healthcare industry veteran Donna Clervi, who incorporates Rock Steady Boxing into the work with her nonprofit, the Donna Clervi Foundation, which she created in 2021 to help bring into existence a holistic Parkinson’s Development Center in Orange County. She told Matt she hopes to ink the deal on a a lease for a building space in Mission Viejo, which she hopes the center can move into by the end of the year.
• Former Orange County election official Jackie Wu recently published her book, “On the Front Lines of Democracy: One Election Official’s Story of Protecting the Vote in 2020.” Her work chronicles the turbulent election of 2020, when political unrest included unprecedented organized acts of hostility and intimidation and threats of violence toward election officials, not the least of which was a bomb scare. My colleague Sara Cardine interviewed Wu to learn why she was prompted her to write her book.
CALENDAR THIS
• Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa is preparing to mark what it calls LatinX Heritage Month with a series of events. On Saturday, Sept. 14 there will be a family-friendly festival from 1 to 4 p.m. at the outdoor Julianne and George Argyros Plaza, featuring live music and vendors. Food trucks, lawn games and a photo booth will be on hand along with a DIY screen-printing cart and crafts for the kids. For National Dance Day on Sept. 21, the center will present different Latino dance styles with a bilingual emcee from 1 to 5 p.m. The center’s LatinX Heritage Month will close out with a Día de Muertos performance from Grammy-award winning singer songwriter Lila Downs at 7 p.m. on Oct. 13 in Segerstrom Hall. All the details can be found in this TimesOC article by my colleague Sarah Mosqueda.
• The 28th annual Original Lobster Festival takes place this weekend at Fountain Valley Sports Park, featuring fresh live Maine lobster that will be flown in and cooked up. Organizers promise dancing, arts and crafts, activities for the kids, carnival rides, a karaoke lounge and more. All the details, including hours and ticket information, can be found here.
• The Pacific Symphony will present its “Tchaikovsky Spectacular” at 8 p.m. Saturday in Irvine Great Park, 8000 Great Park Blvd. Carl St.Clair conducts. Among the works that will be performed is Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, featuring young American violinist Aubree Oliverson. Admission ranges from $43 to $225. General parking is included in the price of the tickets, which can be ordered here.
• Also this Saturday, the Fullerton Family YMCA will hold its annual Crab Feast & Auction Under the Stars from 6 to 8 p.m., benefiting the YMCA’s programs. The Y is located at 2000 Youth Way. Individual tickets, priced at $100, are available here.
• City of Hope is gearing up for its fundraising effort toward ending cancer, the Walk for Hope, set for this Sunday, Sept. 8. Locally, participants will gather at City of Hope Orange County, 1000 FivePoint, Irvine, at 9 a.m. for the program that will precede the walk, which begins at 9:30 a.m. For more information visit cityofhope.org/walk-for-hope.
• The Southern California Begonia Society will present a judged plant show and sale at Sherman Gardens on the weekend of Sept. 21 and 22 featuring many varieties of locally grown begonias. Horticulturist Amy Dolin will give a tour of the Sherman collection on Sunday, Sept. 22 at 1:30 p.m. The show is free with garden admission. Sherman Library & Gardens, 2647 E. Coast Hwy, Corona del Mar, is open from 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. Admission is $5 for nonmembers; free for members.
Stay cool until we meet here again next Wednesday!
Best,
Carol
KEEP IN TOUCH
I appreciate your help in making this the best newsletter it can be. Please send news tips, your memory of life in O.C. (photos welcome!) or comments to carol.cormaci@latimes.com.
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