Inside Scoop

Eron Ben-Yehuda and Andrew Wainer

The new mayor of Huntington Beach, Dave Garofalo, hasn’t even warmed up

to the job and he’s already suffered attacks by the press, including the

Independent, for everything from alleged conflicts of interest to the

elaborate parties being held in his honor.

Garofalo considers the criticism unfair. He can only imagine in what

other ways he’ll be picked on.

“What else can you criticize me for? I am only 5-4 but that’s life,” he

said. “[However], I’m told that my stature is a great deal greater than

that.”

A SLOW MOVER

To avoid being late to a city meeting on the Bolsa Chica, a reporter for

the Independent ran as fast as he could.

The city’s planning director, Howard Zelefsky, noticed the reporter

arriving at the meeting out of breath, which didn’t make sense to him

considering that the Bolsa Chica’s future has been debated for more than

25 years.

“You ran to a Bolsa Chica meeting?,” he asked, incredulous. “You can

crawl and get here on time.”

HOLD THE GAVELS

The Fountain Valley School District has entered a new era.

The presidency of the board of trustees was passed from Julie Hoxsie to

Joanne Lew at Tuesday’s annual organizational meeting.

The board presented Hoxsie with a bouquet of flowers for her year of hard

work.

“We heard you already had a lot of gavels so we decided to give you

these,” Lew told Hoxsie as she handed her the bouquet.