Inside Scoop

-- Compiled by Eron Ben-Yehuda and Andrew Wainer.

Turning over a protest sign is no way for Huntington Beach’s top

politician to behave, admitted newly appointed Mayor Dave Garofalo at

last week’s City Council meeting.

Garofalo couldn’t resist the temptation earlier this month when he

noticed an anti-Wal-Mart sign by the entrance to a holiday party for city

employees.

“If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t,” he said.

But as far as he’s concerned, his record so far shows he has nothing to

be ashamed of.

“I’ll be making mistakes along the way, and I’ll put that in the mistake

column,” he said. “But I’m keeping score, and I’m a little bit ahead so

far.”

Huntington Beach is no Rodeo Drive

Referring to the store Wal-Mart plans to build in Huntington Beach as a

“big box” riles resident Virginia Sims.

“Well la-di-da,” Sims said during last week’s council meeting. “Aren’t we

highfalutin?”

Other popular stores like Price Club and Costco are designed in a similar

way, she said.

Opponents of Wal-Mart will just have to live with a box, “unless they

want to go to Rodeo Drive and bring Saks Fifth Avenue 1/8from 3/8 there,”

she said.

That’s one fine gavel

In many school districts, the tradition of naming a new president is done

with a symbolic gavel.

Outgoing Huntington Beach Union High School Board of Education President

Bonnie Bruce received a one-of-a-kind gavel to commemorate her

presidency. Her successor, Michael Simons, gave Bruce a solid crystal

gavel.

Simons said the see-through device symbolized Bruce’s “strong leadership”

and represented her “internal and external beauty.”