2019 in review: Top stories of the year in Newport Beach
Newport Beach accelerated its response to homelessness this year as encampments became more visible and residents became more vocal in their demands for the city to get unsheltered people off the streets and beaches.
Finding local solutions to a region-wide social crisis was a consistent focus for local leaders throughout the year.
Here is that and some more of the city’s top stories of 2019:
City weighs how to tackle homelessness
Capacity crowds at meetings of the City Council and a newly formed homelessness task force shared criticism, frustration, anxiety and compassion while city officials navigated land-use restrictions shaping the potential development of a local homeless shelter.
By the end of the year, city officials were still contemplating whether to lease and convert part of a privately owned rental car lot near John Wayne Airport; partner with Costa Mesa on its forthcoming shelter, also near the airport; or install several modular trailers in a corner of the municipal public works yard on Superior Avenue. The Superior site has proved to be the most controversial possibility, with some neighbors protesting and threatening to sue.
Though the City Council has not committed to a site, staff has sketched out a possible outline for the city-owned Superior location: four or five prefab trailers with sleeping, dining and bathing quarters for up to 40 people, plus space for pets.
Newport needs a homeless shelter before it can enforce its anti-camping laws.
This year, the city also declared a “shelter crisis” to fast-track shelter development; began formulating an anti-panhandling campaign; agreed to a five-year, $1-million contract with the nonprofit City Net to provide street-level homelessness outreach and housing placement; and cleared an overnight encampment from the Orange County Transportation Authority bus depot on Avocado Avenue.
Philanthropists pledge $50 million for Banning Ranch preservation
Two Newport Beach philanthropists promised $50 million to a group of environmentalists that has long worked to protect Banning Ranch’s 401 acres from development.
Retired stockbroker Frank Randall and his wife, Joann, surprised the nonprofit Banning Ranch Conservancy with the gift at the group’s annual gala in November — seeding the conservancy’s acquisition fund to try to keep the property at Newport’s western edge, one of Southern California’s largest remaining undeveloped swaths of coastal land, as a nature reserve.
The potential price tag to buy the property from its current owner, Newport Banning Ranch, is unclear.
The most recent attempt to develop the site with homes and businesses died in 2017 after years of fighting at City Hall, the California Coastal Commission and in the courts.
Lemur thief sentenced to prison
A Newport Beach man was sentenced to three months in federal prison in October for the 2018 theft of a lemur from the Santa Ana Zoo.
Aquinas “Quinn” Kasbar broke into the zoo while it was closed and used bolt cutters to enter an enclosure housing Isaac, a 32-year-old endangered ring-tailed lemur. The primate was found abandoned in a crate at the Newport Beach Marriott Bayview a few hours later.
Kasbar also pleaded guilty in September to 32 charges related to a series of home burglaries in Newport Beach that occurred in 2017 and 2018. He is scheduled to be sentenced for those on Jan. 10.
Removal of Marine Avenue trees sparks controversy
The city cut down four of the iconic mature eucalyptus trees on Balboa Island’s Marine Avenue in October.
Residents and arborists had vigorously debated the health and stability of several of the trees for months, drawing on varying professional and personal opinions.
The city Parks, Beaches & Recreation Commission eventually decided four trees would be removed and six others that appeared distressed would undergo advanced stability and health testing.
About 40 eucalyptus trees line Marine, the island’s main street packed with boutiques and cafes. Trees have shaded the boulevard for nearly a century.
The targeted trees — estimated to be between 50 and 80 years old — were not the originals. They have been replaced with young lemon-scented gums.
Man convicted of kidnapping, torturing N.B. dispensary owner
Hossein Nayeri was found guilty in August of torturing a medical marijuana dispensary owner after kidnapping him and his roommate from their Balboa Peninsula home in 2012.
Prosecutors alleged that Nayeri masterminded a plot in which masked intruders abducted the pair, then brutally beat, tortured and sexually mutilated the man before leaving the two victims bound in the Mojave Desert. Authorities said the motive was to steal $1 million the kidnappers thought the dispensary owner had buried in the desert.
The dispensary owner was attacked with a Taser and a blowtorch, was doused in bleach and his penis was severed.
Nayeri, who previously escaped from Orange County Jail with two other inmates in 2016, is still awaiting sentencing.
Charges related to the jail escape, which also involved the kidnapping of a cab driver, are pending, according to prosecutors.
Murder suspect, subject of police podcast, captured after more than four years on the run
A wealthy Newport Coast man suspected in the 2012 death of his wife was found in Mexico and returned to California in August after more than four years on the lam.
Peter Gregory Chadwick, a real estate investor with dual U.S.-British citizenship, became a fugitive in 2015 when he disappeared while awaiting trial on a charge of murdering his wife, Quee Choo Lim “Q.C.” Chadwick, in their home. Her body was found in a trash bin about 20 miles outside San Diego.
Chadwick originally pleaded not guilty and was released on $1.5-million bond about two months after his initial arrest in 2012. He was ordered to surrender his passports and stay with his father in Santa Barbara to await trial.
Authorities said that Chadwick had emptied millions of dollars from multiple bank accounts and researched how to “change one’s identity and live off the grid.”
The Newport Beach Police Department released a podcast about the search for Chadwick in 2018.
City welcomes new fire chief and opens new facilities
Newport Beach promoted Jeff Boyles to fire chief in July following longtime veteran Chip Duncan’s retirement.
Boyles has been in the fire service since 1994 and with the Newport Beach Fire Department since 2000. He advanced through the ranks from firefighter and paramedic to assistant chief for operations to chief.
Duncan retired in July after more than 30 years in fire service, similarly climbing the ranks in Newport Beach before taking the top job in 2017.
In other major departmental developments, Newport christened the rebuilt Corona del Mar station, with adjoining public library, in July and selected a design for its next new firehouse, near Lido, in October.
County approves general aviation expansion
The Orange County Board of Supervisors decided in June that John Wayne Airport would get a new general aviation terminal with customs screening while keeping onsite storage space for smaller airplanes roughly as is.
The plan also includes infrastructure updates for buildings and airfield roads to comply with Federal Aviation Administration standards. All the proposed changes will stay within the airport’s existing footprint.
The planned upgrades to general aviation infrastructure offer new amenities to users of larger, typically noisier business jets while preserving access for pilots of the smallest, generally single-engine “light GA” planes.
The county-approved plan had its detractors, though — namely Newport residents living beneath the JWA departure path.
Private jets fall outside the restrictions that JWA has operated under since 1985, when a Newport Beach-initiated settlement agreement set limits on noise levels, commercial departures, number of annual passengers and airport capital improvements.
Fire destroys Wedge lifeguard tower
A lifeguard tower at the famed Wedge surf spot was consumed by flames in a pre-daybreak blaze in June.
The elevated wooden structure with the letter “W” on its outer walls burned quickly, although one beam that was carved with the names of six surfers who died in Newport waters was salvaged.
Lifeguards moved the next-closest tower down the beach to cover the high-traffic spot for the summer. They will install a permanent replacement next year.
Two killed in Newport Heights condo
A Newport Beach man and Costa Mesa woman were found shot to death in the man’s Newport Heights condo in April.
Police allege that Jamon Rayon Buggs killed Darren Partch, 38, and Wendi Miller, 48, in the condo in the 2100 block of East 15th Street.
Buggs, a personal trainer from Huntington Beach, was already in jail on suspicion of attempted burglary when he was arrested in connection with the slayings. He has pleaded not guilty.
Suspect arrested in cold-case murder
A Colorado man was charged in February in connection with the death of an 11-year-old Corona del Mar girl in 1973.
James Alan Neal faces a murder charge in the strangling death of Linda Ann O’Keefe. Investigators allege Neal, who lived in the Newport area at the time, kidnapped Linda while she was walking home from summer school at what is now Lincoln Elementary in Corona del Mar. Her body was found the next day among the cattails in the Back Bay.
Neal left Newport not long after the slaying. He was arrested in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Newport Police revisited the case in 2018 with a Twitter campaign narrating the events that preceded Linda’s death in the girl’s imagined voice, although it was material run through a genealogical website, Family Tree DNA, that ultimately pointed investigators to the suspect.
Neal also has been charged with sexually assaulting two other children in Riverside County in the 1990s and 2000s. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
Man charged with murdering parents, housekeeper
A man was charged in February with murdering his parents and their housekeeper in a Newport Beach home.
Authorities allege Camden Burton Nicholson killed his parents Richard Nicholson, 64, and Kim Nicholson, 61, as well as Maria Morse, 57. He has pleaded not guilty.
Nicholson’s parents were concerned by his erratic behavior, according to a private investigator who said he was helping them build a case for conservatorship. Authorities allege Nicholson told police he killed his parents because he didn’t want them to send him to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation.
Morse’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Richard and Kim Nicholson’s estate, alleging the couple knew their grown son was “violent, aggressive and unstable.”
Daily Pilot staff writer Julia Sclafani contributed to this report.
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