Bolsa restoration meeting

State and federal officials will update residents on long-awaited

plans to breathe new life into the Bolsa Chica Mesa at a town hall

meeting on May 20.

Funded largely by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,

restoration of the Bolsa Chica Wetlands calls for 370 acres of full

tidal and 180 acres of muted tidal habitat.

The project is set to begin this fall and will include

construction of a new ocean channel, tidal basins, island habitats

and pedestrian bridges that connect the wetlands to the beach via

Pacific Coast Highway.

Officials at the meeting will brief the community on construction

of the first phase of the project to give them time to prepare, said

Shirley Dettloff, a longtime activist, former mayor and president of

the Amigos de Bolsa Chica.

The first phase, which is expected to take about two years to

complete, will involve cutting a tidal inlet through the south end of

Bolsa Chica State Beach and across Pacific Coast Highway, allowing

ocean water to flow into the degraded marshes at the long-neglected

Bolsa Chica lowlands.

Speakers will include Jack Fancher from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service, Jim Trout from the State Lands Commission and Bob Hoffman

from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

At a meeting in Laguna Beach in March, the State Coastal

Conservancy approved the final $10 million needed to move forward

with the process. And in April, the State Lands Commission to grant

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a four-year lease of land.

“I think they’re ready to go,” Dettloff said. “Contracts have been

issued, money’s in place and we’re ready to go. And we’re certainly

100% behind it. It was save, then acquisition and then restoration.

This is the third goal.”

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the Talbert Room at the

Huntington Beach Central Library.

Applications open for youth board

The Huntington Beach Youth Board is looking for five high school

students to fill vacancies it needs to fill. The youth board acts as

a voluntary advisory board to the Huntington Beach City Council

regarding youth achievements, problems and needs.

All members must be Huntington Beach residents, attend school and

be in high school. Huntington Beach employees are not eligible.

The deadline for application deadline is May 31.

New members of the board will be selected by the City Council in

June.

For questions, contact Gisela Campagne at (714) 374-5397.

Enjoy a happy Mother’s Day

Surf City’s newest senior living center is celebrating mother’s

day, vintage style. The theme of the Mother’s Day event at the

Sunrise Senior Living Center is “Memories of our mothers, past and

present.” The center will host a fashion show, where teenagers will

model period clothing from different decades as residents may share

memories of their mothers.

“The ladies have contributed memories of their mothers from when

they were growing up,” said Lori Williamson, the event’s organizer.

The Sunrise Senior Living Center, which opened in March, offers

housing and care options for seniors. It offers assisted and

independent living, and there is an area designed specifically for

residents battling Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of memory

impairment.

Most of the residents at the assisted living community are in

their 80s and 90s.

Williamson expects the event to draw about 80 people.

The center is located at 7401 Yorktown Ave. The show will be held

at noon on Saturday. For more information on the fashion show, call

(714) 536-3032.