Dubious Distinctions

JANUARY

Newport Beach police were handed an unusual assignment when they were

asked to get rid of a swarm of killer Africanized honeybees that probably

hoped to set up shop atop a trash can on Newport Pier. The killers soon

after became the victims after officers summoned exterminators.

Those were hard times for Higgens, a lost, yellow Labrador who was

spotted by Costa Mesa Animal Control officials roaming the streets after

unknown vile hands had spray-painted his coat a bright neon pink.

Higgens’ fur had to be shaved because his paint could not be removed. The

sad story, however, did have a happy ending. Higgens was adopted after a

nervous few days of waiting at a Huntington Beach animal shelter.

It was a one-of-a-kind bank robbery at Fidelity Federal Bank on

Westcliff Drive in Newport Beach. The robber strolled into the branch, no

weapon and -- as people later found out -- no escape vehicle, either. He

demanded cash from the teller, got what he asked for and walked out of

the building. And that was the last anybody saw of the man.

FEBRUARY

It was a landmark period for West Newport’s notorious party host,

Dennis Rodman, who decided to fork over an undisclosed amount of money to

Kevin Finegold, owner of Josh Slocums restaurant on West Coast Highway.

It was also the start of Rodman’s involvement with the restaurant, as he

gave it a touch of his own flamboyant personality. In came red velvet

curtains, leopard-skin couches and disco balls. A different ambience for

sure.

Olive and Tino had their special day as their wedding helped raise

$300 for the Little Angels Pug Rescue and helped 12 of their kind to get

adopted. It was a fun affair on Balboa Island. Dog lovers watched

affectionately as Yoda the ring bearer and Pepper the flower girl,

dressed in pink satin, were wheeled down the aisle in a wagon.

“Do you, Olive, take Tino to be your stud puppy and Dog Chow dog?”

read Rudy Horwitz, the minister. “Do you promise to love and cherish his

smashed-in mug, wet nose and squatty legs?” How could a girl not say “I

do” to a guy like that?

Traffic can be crazy, especially near schools. But PTA mom Carla

Hummel made sure she would do her part to ensure a smooth opening day for

Newport Coast Elementary School. She put on a cow suit as she directed

traffic. And that did quite a bit to keep tempers down and the mood light

-- not to mention that it made opening day an “udder” success.

MARCH

Costa Mesa good Samaritan Jan McCandless rescued at least 15 cats and

put them up for adoption at an Irvine animal shelter after the animals

were abandoned by their owner -- the neighborhood “cat lady” who was

evicted from her home. McCandless said she found urine-soaked furniture

and carpets in the home and that she ran the cats out of the house and

cut down some of the bushes around the home to keep them from hiding

there.

Rupert, the black swan who rides the gentle waves off of Newport

Harbor, was rescued by harbor patrol deputies after they spotted him with

a fish hook in his beak and a string of fishing line injuring his throat.

The bird is a regular and a pal of the officers. Deputies say he can be a

pain during rescues sometimes, aggressively fluttering around and

sometimes even poking them with his beak. Well, Rupert will be Rupert.

APRIL

Newport Beach boasts a dubious expertise, but nonetheless one that has

been a big help for bordering Costa Mesa. Thanks to Newport Beach’s

shared savvy in dealing with massage parlors used as fronts for

prostitution, Costa Mesa too has made huge strides in eradicating the

problem.

It was the kind of archeological discovery you definitely don’t want

to share with your kids. Costa Mesa police said a jawbone found in the

backyard of a family home is less than 10 years old -- not what Evan and

Amy Chalmers wanted to hear about the apparently human bone found outside

their 2-year-old daughter’s bedroom.

When Mary Phillips heard a crash outside her Heather Lane home at 2:28

a.m. one morning, she wasn’t too surprised to step outside and see

portions of a Lexus in her garden. It was the eighth time a wall

sheltering the garden outside her Newport Beach home had been crashed

into by cars.

MAY

At the same time that neighboring Newport Beach was scrambling for

ways to keep crud out of storm drains and, ultimately, local waters, a

Costa Mesa homeowners association head was leading the charge against

parking restrictions to allow street sweeping. “I have a big party coming

in July,” Lance Hailstone said. “A lot of [guests] are driving here from

out of the state, and where are they going to put their cars?”

Don’t drive drunk, but if you do, don’t drive drunk directly into a

Costa Mesa police cruiser as Hector Renya of Bradley was accused of

doing. Police said the 39-year-old struck a patrol car that was parked at

the scene of a traffic collision. He was arrested on suspicion of driving

under the influence of alcohol, officials said.

There’s a special place in a jail cell for the kind of thief that

would steal the bike of a rider for an AIDS charity. Caroline Good, who

had been preparing to do the 575-mile AIDS Ride in June, was without her

wheels after a thief stole her bike. She was up a creek without her

pedals until Dover Shores resident Chris Miller bought her a new bike.

JUNE

The ones who most loved Costa Mesa’s Lions Park have been all but

booted out. But, for obvious reasons, no one’s crying foul. Pigeons in

the park were creating a smelly, slimy mess until the park’s gazebo

rafters were made much less friendly by netting the city put up to keep

the birds from nesting.

New Orleans would love it, so would Las Vegas, but West Newport Beach

is hardly honored by being dubbed “party central.” With professional bad

boy Dennis Rodman just one reason residents have dubbed the area “Rowdy

Town.” Along with dealing with an influx of up to 100,000 beachgoers on

summer weekends, officers also get called out to West Newport Beach much

more frequently when the renters arrive, reported Sgt. Steve Shulman,

spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department.

How much boat is too much boat for the otherwise yacht-loving Balboa

Island? Ask Lowdrick Cook, whose humongous vessel drew humongous outrage

from about 50 neighbors who packed City Council chambers to protest his

plan to park his 55-foot Carole Diane. The sometime Newport Beach

resident tried docking the boat parallel to the shore, but that drew

complaints that he was blocking the navigational waterway. He suggested

parking it perpendicular, but some said that defied the rules. At least

in the latter plan he’s not hogging up anyone else’s frontyard because he

owns both homes at 1106 and 1108 S. Bay Front.

JULY

The night life in Costa Mesa is crackling hot, at least on one night

of the year. Costa Mesa is one of the only cities in the area that still

allows fireworks, and people come from all over Orange County to satisfy

their pyrotechnic tendencies. You just haven’t lived until you’ve felt

the warmth from the flame of a Piccolo Pete.

One major perk of living in Newport Beach is having the Pacific in

your backyard -- except when it is filled with harmful bacteria, animal

waste and other muck. Levels of harmful bacteria were more than three

times the normal permitted level and Orange County Health Care Agency

officials tacked up signs near 38th Street to warn folks. So much for

summer vacation on the beach.

It’s true -- money doesn’t grow on trees. But apparently some people

found a way around that cliche when they passed $1,500 in counterfeit

bills at the Orange County Fair. Luckily, fair officials were keeping a

close watch on their cash. The bogus bills were discovered after a

staffer noticed the same serial numbers on five bills.

Forget the Olympics or major league baseball. Start molding your kids

for the sport of the future -- professional bubble blowing. Future

all-stars in the up-and-coming pastime could be found this summer at the

Orange County Fair in the biggest bubble-blowing contest. So throw out

those oily old mitts, and stock up on some Hubba Bubba.

AUGUST

Got pants? A parolee from state prison could have used them after he

lost his while jumping head first out of a police car on the Costa Mesa

Freeway. Apparently, the impact with the pavement was enough to rip the

pants right off Abraham John Derain of Montebello. Derain was being

transferred from the Newport Beach Police Department to Orange County

Jail because he was thrashing around too much in his holding cell. On the

way, he escaped, allegedly carjacked a catering truck, led police on a

wild chase and was finally arrested by La Habra police. Just imagine that

police sketch.

“Bubbles,” a popular entertainer at the notorious Panther Palace

swingers lounge, is out of work. Costa Mesa won a victory in its fight to

close down the sex parties at a seemingly harmless 10-bedroom house in an

otherwise quiet neighborhood. Neighbors were happy with the city’s win,

hoping it would return the street to a normal, family environment.

Duane Kressin was obviously not listening when his mother told him to

respect his elders. The Newport Beach resident has been accused of

scamming local senior citizens out of thousands of dollars by allegedly

making false promises to clean air ducts and eliminate fire hazards in

their homes. He was charged with 15 counts of elder abuse, 18 counts of

felony grand theft and four misdemeanor counts of contracting without a

license.

Tagging is bad enough, but when you start defacing religious property

your gambling with a fate worse than jail time. Guillermo Omar Amaro, 20,

allegedly covered about 16 square feet of a Catholic church with

spray-painted gang monikers. Officials at Our Lady of Mount Caramel may

have had to pay about $500 to clean up the mess, but it may cost Amaro

more than that in the end.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic is certainly annoying, but in at least one

case it proved to be a helpful crime-fighting tool. Newport Beach police

caught up with alleged carjacker Wilson Villanueva after a 20-mile chase

when the driver got stuck in a traffic jam in Laguna Niguel. The next

time you’re stuck in traffic, don’t get frustrated, just think of all the

crime you could be preventing.

SEPTEMBER

Want to hear a joke? What happens when a Laguna Niguel man uses the

valet at Costa Mesa’s Hilton, leaving a gag gift of a bunch of road

flares taped together with an alarm clock in the car? Answer: Bristol

Street is closed for 90 minutes. The hotel is partially evacuated, and

the bomb squad is called out -- bomb robot and all. Funny, huh? Police

didn’t think so, but it was something they just had to laugh off.

The Costa Mesa City Council used the terrorist attacks as an excuse to

hold a closed-door session on something that should have been approved

weeks before the tragic event at the World Trade Center. The council

stated that a need for the “urgency action” existed because there were

concerns over the state of the economy in relation to the terrorist acts

of Sept. 11. Sounds like a feeble excuse for an emergency closed session

to discuss a police contract that expired Aug. 31 and was on the consent

calendar earlier that same month.

Some may say Rupert the swan’s troubled past may have led him to a

life of crime. Dramatic events in the striking black bird’s life -- such

as a brush with death after an oil spill and an unfortunate run-in with

some fishing wire and a hook -- may have pushed the local mascot to rebel

against the residents of Newport Beach. A feisty Rupert was found pecking

at two teenagers who capsized their sailboat and then hindered the harbor

patrol’s rescue.

OCTOBER

Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustee Jim Ferryman disregarded

the district’s zero-tolerance policy and got arrested on suspicion of

drunk driving after his car was involved in a minor traffic accident in

Costa Mesa. Fellow trustee Wendy Leece called for Ferryman’s resignation

if he was convicted. Ferryman continues to delay his trial, probably

until next year’s school board elections are over.

About-face: Supervisor Jim Silva’s head spun faster than the girl in

“The Exorcist” as he did a 180-degree turn on putting the county’s

proposed El Toro airport to a public vote. First he offered to let

residents vote on turning the former Marine base into an airport. The

next day, he changed his mind, promising to support the county’s plan.

Later in the month, Republican candidate for governor Richard Riordan did

an about-face as well, retracting his former support for the airport,

backing a more regional solution (which possibly includes an El Toro

airport) instead.

Dennis Rodman was still partying like its 1999 at the age of 40 and

paying the price -- pleading guilty to three misdemeanor charges relating

to noise violations at his 40th birthday party in May.

Bikers tried to bolster their nice-guy image by engaging in a bloody

brawl at the Orange County Fairgrounds during a swap meet. Another swap

meet later in the year was canceled after the melee was blamed on rival

members of the Hells Angels, Vagos and Mongols motorcycle gangs.

NOVEMBER

Greenlight means...? In its first test, a special election of the

Greenlight Initiative -- a slow-growth measure passed in Newport Beach a

year ago -- proved fatal for a developer. Measure G -- expansion of the

Koll Center near the airport -- failed, managing to confuse everyone in

the process, as both sides tried to use the “Greenlight” name to their

advantage. Even the backing of the City Council, the Chamber of Commerce

and the Daily Pilot could not sway the majority of residents to green

light the project.

The school district admitted to negligence on the part of teaching and

assessing English-language learners only after the federal government

found the district does not fully meet the needs of students with limited

English proficiency. The initial charge was filed by Mirna Burciaga, a

parent who was concerned about children other than her own who were

missing out on core curriculum classes to learn English.

Close encounters of the offensive kind: Two county health officers

sued the leader of a religious sect and a former member, claiming they

were victims of libel in newspaper advertisements and newsletters. The

officers, who visited the Piecemaker County Store for unannounced

probationary inspections, said public statements made by the Piecemakers

caused them to suffer “loss of their reputation, shame, mortification and

hurt feelings.”

DECEMBER

You’re part of Newport Beach whether you like it or not: Newport Coast

residents who tried to challenge the annexation of their enclave failed

in their attempt to gather enough signatures to force a public vote.

Simple Vote, a group of residents headed by attorney Phillip Greer, could

not muster 25% of the area’s registered voters. Maybe they should have

used the name “Greenlight.”

School board trustee Wendy Leece, tired of being passed over in the

annual election of board officials, took her campaign for the presidency

public. Again, she was denied because of what other board members

characterized as her lack of team spirit. It probably didn’t help that

Leece accused fellow board members of being intolerant and prejudiced for

excluding her in the past.

Sandals are more than a fashion trend at John Wayne Airport (and other

airports around the country) these days -- they can now expedite the

cumbersome security process. After an FAA directive, airport security

personnel are now randomly checking shoes because a man who had converted

to Islam tried to light explosives that were hidden in his shoes. “I

think it’s a good thing to check everything that’s possible to check,”

said one good-natured traveler. Let’s just hope rubber gloves don’t make

an appearance any time soon.

And last, but not least, Newport Coast Elementary School Principal

Monique VanZeeBroeck puckered up and kissed a dog dressed up as a

reindeer. VanZeeBroeck’s gesture of goodwill was to honor her students

for exceeding their fall reading goal.