Week in Review

By the end of last week, Newport Beach Police had joined their

counterparts in Costa Mesa in the search for whomever is putting razors

blades in parks throughout both cities.

An 11-year-old boy was the latest to discover the blades, this time at

Bolsa Park. Back in March, a woman discovered a razor blade at Marina

Park. She didn’t report it until she returned from a vacation.

The two departments will be working closely together to figure out who

might be behind the five incidents. Other parks where razor blades have

been found are Heller Park, Pinkley Park and Lions Park in Costa Mesa.

Signs are out warning people about the razor blades, and one Costa

Mesa parent, Bud Haley, is organizing a fund-raiser to get together a

reward.

-- Deepa Bharath covers cops and courts. She may be reached at (949)

574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.

Bluffing their way through it

No matter what City Council members end up doing (or not doing) about

Corona del Mar’s bluffs, they’re certain to anger a whole bunch of

people.

At their meeting last Tuesday, Newport Beach’s elected leaders decided

to hold off on a proposal to add an extra layer of review to new homes on

the village’s bluffs.

Planning commissioners had come up with the idea after several

property owners had submitted plans for houses that would cover most of

the bluffs on their lot.

A city policy calling for the preservation of the bluffs has been on

the books since 1988. But so far, there’s no way to prevent property

owners from going ahead with constructing their proposed mansions.

Residents, who would be affected by the new rules, vehemently opposed

the proposal, saying that the move would take away their rights. Some

council members agreed that city officials shouldn’t interfere, but a

majority voted to at least study the issue further.

The proposal now returns to the Planning Commission, which will try to

come up with guidelines for reviewing projects.

-- Mathis Winkler covers Newport Beach. He may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at mathis.winkler@latimes.com.

On the future of Crystal Cove

Removing an unpopular luxury resort project from the state’s plans for

Crystal Cove State Park may have seemed like a Herculean chore to

environmentalists.

But deciding what should happen to the 46 cottages in the historic

district could present even more challenges than a Greek epic.

The activists joined California State Parks officials at a workshop

Thursday night at the same Corona del Mar elementary school where more

than 600 locals showed up Jan. 18 to oppose the resort.

Three months later, cooperation was in the air as activists and state

officials swapped ideas about how to restore the cottages.

The district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a

designation granted in 1979.

-- Paul Clinton covers the environment and John Wayne Airport. He may

be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at paul.clinton@latimes.com.

Nowhere to park at Newport Harbor High

If you’re looking for a place to park, don’t try near Newport Harbor

High School.

As students informed the Newport-Mesa Unified School Board last week,

there just aren’t enough parking places there to go around. In fact,

there are about 350 for the 1,000 or so students who have driver’s

licenses.

And that makes for a bunch of dangerous situations, students told the

board.

The problem stands to just get worse. This year’s senior class has 424

students. But there are more than 600 ninth-graders.

A few possible solutions are installing blinking cross walks,

increasing the police presence or even building a parking garage.

-- Danette Goulet covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at danette.goulet@latimes.com.

A hot time on the Westside

Heated debate about the city’s Westside marked the Citizens for the

Improvement of Costa Mesa’s first general meeting Tuesday.

Some residents vented their frustrations about problems they said were

getting worse, while others said they think many improvements have

already been made.

The group, which favors ideas such as using eminent domain to create

more expensive housing on the Westside and cracking down on illegal

immigrants, gathered names and phone numbers of community members

interested in helping and plans to put volunteers with similar interests

into working groups.

Possible committees would be one to work on eliminating vending trucks

from the city, one to improve the Westside for children, one to raise

standardized test scores at the schools and one to rezone the bluffs from

industrial to residential.

On Thursday, the Costa Mesa Sanitary District board voted to require

residents to use standardized trash containers, which the district will

provide for free.

The board has been working on the program for three years and will

vote on new trash regulations to accommodate the trash cans Monday.

-- Jennifer Kho covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at jennifer.kho@latimes.com.