Week in Review

The big word in police and fire departments last week was “blackouts.”

The rolling blackouts hit parts of Newport Beach on Monday and Costa

Mesa on Tuesday. Blackouts generally lasted about an hour in each

affected area, but people were not really prepared.

In Fashion Island, Macy’s was using impromptu solutions such as green

glow sticks to guide customers. Smaller stores simply shut their doors

and lost business fearing shoplifters.

In Costa Mesa, Fairview Road saw two injury crashes as a result of

dead traffic lights at some major intersections and freeway offramps. In

both cities, people were reported stuck in elevators.

In Santa Ana, the Orange County Human Relations Commission, released

hate crime numbers for the county. Those incidents are down by 11% in

2000 compared with the previous year, officials said.

But the good news came with a warning that several incidents go

unreported to the police in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach and that the

changing demographics of these communities, coupled with a plunging

economy, could cause a potential increase in hate crimes.

An end to the development

California State Parks last week pulled the curtain on Michael Freed,

the San Francisco developer laboring to build a luxury resort at Crystal

Cove under the hot lamp of public outrage.

The state coastal conservancy approved a $2-million payout to Freed on

Thursday, money state parks brass said they would use to buy back

development rights handed away in a 1997 concessionaire’s contract.

State Parks also tentatively set April 26 as the date for the first

public meeting to decide how the cove’s historic district should be

restored. The 46 cottages dotting 3.5 acres of state-owned coastline were

placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Screening, not surfing, the net

Surfing the Internet last week, Newport Beach public library trustees

didn’t at all like what they saw.

And after discovering how easy a search for innocent things such as

vegetable pictures and Barbie doll sites can lead to pornography images,

board members unanimously decided to set up Internet filters on 14

computers for children through sixth grade at the city’s four libraries.

The filters will not affect about 60 other computers with Internet

access for older users.

And trustees said parents will still have the ultimate responsibility,

because even the best filters don’t detect 100% of pornographic Web

sites.

Unlike other screening programs, such as the one that’s in use in

Newport-Mesa Unified schools, the filter library officials will purchase

redirects children to an education-oriented search engine that let’s them

safely surf for their favorite Barbie doll.

Teachers honored in Newport-Mesa

Newport-Mesa honored its top teachers last week, surprising the best

of the best with flowers and balloons.

Actually, Bob Kelly, a sixth-grade teacher at Newport Heights and the

elementary school teacher of the year, missed that portion of the

surprise. District officials were so tricky hiding out of Kelly’s sight

in the principal’s office that the committee members with balloons and

flowers couldn’t find them.

Kelly did eventually get all of the trimmings.

Then, as the congratulatory party headed to Costa Mesa High School for

the next two awards, they bumped into Jon Lindfors, named the middle

school teacher of the year and his class in the parking lot.

Then comes the report regarding the whereabouts of honoree No. 3.

Shannon Brewer (pictured with Linda Mook), high school teacher of the

year, had a free period and was wandering around campus. She too met the

party in the parking lot.

Finding the importance of art

It was a week of meetings in Costa Mesa.

The Costa Mesa City Council members Monday decided to require that

Commonwealth Partners LLC, one of three groups collaborating on the Town

Center project, maintain the Isamu Noguchi California Scenario sculpture

garden “in perpetuity” instead of for 25 years.

Orange County Fairgrounds officials met Tuesday to discuss the fair’s

future plan. But most Costa Mesa residents who attended said they are

concerned that the Pacific Amphitheatre might reopen, bringing in

unwanted traffic and noise.

And the Mesa Verde Community Inc. on Wednesday had a community meeting

to allow residents to ask new council members Chris Steel and Karen

Robinson questions about proposed projects, eminent domain and charities.