The bedrock for Newport-Mesa event planning

TONY DODERO

By now, most of you should have seen our new Daily Pilot Community

Events Calendar.

The glossy, four-color special edition is the culmination of many,

many months of planning.

So let me share with you all the thinking behind the calendar’s

concept.

What we hope to create, with this calendar, the bedrock for

Newport-Mesa event planning. If you take a peek at the calendar

pages, you will see that we filled it with as many local events that

we could.

You’ll see that not only is Feb. 2 Groundhog Day (and you won’t

see this but it’s my daughter Kristen’s birthday) but it’s also the

night of the Grants to Teachers Dinner at the Hyatt Newporter and the

beginning of the spring semester at Orange Coast College.

Tuesday, March 16 is a busy day at the Newport Marriott as the

Philharmonic Society of Orange County’s Fashion Show takes place

along with the Toshiba Senior Classic Community Breakfast.

April 23 is the opening of “Trout Fishing in America,” at the

Orange County Performing Arts Center as well as the start of the

Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race.

So if you’re planning on attending opening night at The Center and

going on the yacht race, you’ve got a conflict.

Hence the reason for the calendar.

As 2004 kicks into gear, we plan on keeping the calendar going in

a couple ways. The first will be in the newspaper. On the last Sunday

of the month, we will publish the calendar of events for the

following month. Those who have alterations to the printed calendar

or have an event they believe should be in there, should e-mail us at

dpcalendar@latimes.com.

The next place we plan to take the calendar is to our Web site

https://www.dailypilot.com, which is scheduled to be overhauled this

year.

If all goes as planned, readers will be able to log onto the Web

site and consult the Community Events Calendar for scheduling big

events or meetings to make sure they don’t clash with other big

events in the community.

Our hope is that the calendar becomes a useful and necessary tool

for all local businesses, organizations and civic entities.

While we’re on the topic of the calendar, I wanted to answer a

reader’s concern about the photographs, which she contended were all

based in Newport Beach, save the back cover.

The reason for that is because the photos on the inside of the

calendar were chosen by advertisers, who purchased the top half of

the calendar page. The editorial department has no control over those

photos or what an advertiser chooses.

The photos on the cover and the back of the calendar were chosen

by our news staff, however.

That’s why we chose the cover shot of a sailboat boat cruising

through Newport Harbor and the back cover, being what we all thought

was a great shot from the grand opening night of the newly expanded

South Coast Repertory theater.

Both, we thought, were great illustrations of the best

Newport-Mesa has to offer.

Hope that explains things better.

If you didn’t get a calendar please call the Daily Pilot front

offices at (949) 642-4321 Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5

p.m. Extra copies of the calendar are $5.

*

As I read through our roundup of news stories and assorted year

end features, I noted two names missing from our Passings features --

former Newport Beach Councilman and Mayor Phil Sansone and local

attorney David Shores.

Sansone passed away in May at the age of 83.

Sansone had retired from politics and moved to Kona, Hawaii, after

the death of his beloved wife, Nadine.

As I noted in this space in May, I truly miss the phone calls and

e-mail discussions Sansone and I had over the years. And in reading

his obituary, it was nice to see that Sansone remains revered in the

hearts and minds of Newport Beach activists, Greenlight or otherwise.

I never really knew Shores, who died of a sudden heart attack in

November at the age of 58, except by telephone calls.

He had a thick raspy voice and a wry sense of humor. The local

attorney had famously defended Ryan Huntsman against the Newport-Mesa

school district’s zero-tolerance policy.

Huntsman became a casualty of the policy after police reportedly

found him in possession of a marijuana pipe and an empty zip lock

bag. He was ordered by the district to transfer from Corona del Mar

to Newport Harbor High, per the zero-tolerance punishment.

Shores successfully argued that the Huntsman circumstances were

unfair (police never cited him for possession of drugs) and the high

school senior was allowed by the courts to stay at Corona del Mar.

More recently, Shores was the attorney for John Emmes, the Corona

del Mar baseball coach who was sued by the father of a former player

because of disputes over playing time.

That same father later sued the Daily Pilot and then-sportswriter

Rich Dunn, who’s now the sports editor, for stories we published

about the lawsuit.

Both the suit against Emmes and the suit against the Pilot and

Dunn were thrown out of court, and the father was ordered to pay

attorney fees. Shores played a big role in those victories.

As with the other passings, Shores and Sansone mark two big losses

for Newport-Mesa.