Inside Scoop

THE DWINDLING DAIS

Many Downtown residents came to Monday’s City Council meeting to protest

a plan to reinstate the city’s power to forcibly buy residential

property, but few council members were there to listen.

One by one council members Dave Garofalo, Pam Julien and Ralph Bauer

recused themselves because of potential conflicts of interest. Each one

owns property near the area where the city plans to redevelop, perhaps

through the use eminent domain.

Bauer, looking up to angry stares, understood how people felt.

“If this keeps up, we may all disappear,” he said. “Then the audience

would be a lot happier, I suppose.”

TIED TO THE SUMMERTIME TRADITION

This summer was Huntington Beach lifeguard Morgan Wolfe’s first

experience as a Junior Lifeguard Program instructor. He trained 12 kids

and now he says he sees the beach in a whole new light.

“When you’re a lifeguard, you can stay out until 1 a.m. and still have

enough energy for the next day’s work,” he said. “When you’re hanging out

with the kids all day, they wear you out. You get home, and you just want

to sleep.”

Sometimes the kids got scared, and he had to encourage them.

“I tell them that the fish are more afraid of them than they are of the

fish,” he said.

Now that the program is over for the summer, he said it was worth the

effort. “When the kids look back at the summer of 1999, they’ll remember

me. I’ve become a part of the tradition.’

--Ellen McCarty and Eron Ben-Yehuda