TONY DODERO -- Editor’s Notebook

We get lots of news tips here at the Daily Pilot and most are pretty

good, a credit to our loyal readers.

Usually, we send out the bloodhounds to pursue those nuggets of news and

often they turn into good stories. But a news tip we received at the top

of the week left us frozen in our tracks.

The tip, presumably sent by an employee of the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District, alleged that officials at a local high school were

engaging in illegal gambling.

The tipster sent off documentation, which included the names of some of

the culprits, namely the athletic director, the reputed ring leader, and

the principal. Good stuff, right?

Well, yes and no. It turns out the documented gambling evidence was none

other than a Super Bowl pool.

Hmm. How can I put this lightly and avoid the possibility of a police

raid. You see, there was no way I could assign a reporter to this story,

or even an editor to edit it. Because we at the Daily Pilot were also

guilty of having an office football pool for the Super Bowl.

And I think, it’s safe to say, we were in good company. Thousands upon

thousands of Super Bowl fans and non-fans take part in office pools each

year. For my money, I’d bet for the most part they are a harmless

exercise, but the truth be known, the large majority of them are illegal,

albeit minor, forms of gambling. Though, my police reporter assures me

that he heard some officers even talking about pools they were in.

So, alas, because of a huge case of hypocrisy, this is a news tip that

will have go the same route as the Tennessee Titans, close, but not quite

enough.

Besides, I’d probably have to give back the $50 my wife won. ...

You can say a lot of things about John Moorlach, the county’s treasurer

and chief tax collector. Top of the list of course is that he’s a great

financial whiz who, if we would have listened to him in 1994, probably

could have saved the county from suffering the worst municipal bankruptcy

in history.

He’s also the guy, I, and other property owners write our property tax

checks to each year. And I’m sure people say a lot of things about him at

that point.

But being a great judge of newspaper journalism isn’t something I’d

particularly ascribe to him. Nonetheless, we in the media now have more

than Pulitzers to aim for, now that the Moorlach Award for Excellence in

Journalism on Government Accountability is in existence.

The three awards, kicked off this year by Moorlach’s office, are titled,

Breaking the Story, The Heavy Lifting and The Insightful Column.

And apparently the only catch to winning such a coveted prize is you have

to write about something Moorlach thinks is important. Take for instance

the stories Moorlach deemed the best in all three categories of his

inaugural awards.

Each dealt with his latest cause, the 91 Express Lane toll road.

Curse that road for not stretching down to Newport-Mesa. Otherwise, I

know we would have had a chance. But I guess not everyone can win a

Moorlach.

...

I recently had the pleasure of sitting next to and across from our

esteemed mayors, Costa Mesa’s Gary Monahan and Newport Beach’s John Noyes

at a luncheon for the Orange County Coast Assn. at the Newport Nautical

Museum.

The event, which featured mayors from north and south county beach

cities, was very insightful and Noyes and Monahan did us proud.

And Monahan, after clicking off a long list of accomplishments Costa Mesa

had achieved, made a guarantee that I want to hold him to. He promised

that the old Costa Mesa High School farm site, which has been plagued by

a case of non-growing grass, will indeed open up this year complete with

new soccer fields.

But as county Supervisor Jim Silva, the emcee of the luncheon, pointed

out, he’s not getting much help from the rain. * TONY DODERO is the

editor of the Daily Pilot.. He can be reached at 949-574-4258 or via

e-mail at tony.dodero@latimes.com.