Forget the gold; Peirsol gets the brass

Alicia Robinson

After winning gold in Athens this summer, world record-holding

swimmer Aaron Peirsol brought home the brass from Newport Beach on

Tuesday.

Peirsol, a Newport Harbor High School graduate and Olympic gold

medalist, was given a brass key to the city for his athletic

achievements. Mayor Tod Ridgeway presented the key at a City Council

meeting. Although there are no specific criteria, the council rarely

gives out the keys, Ridgeway said.

“Newport Beach, certainly, was [Peirsol’s] home for years,”

Ridgeway said. “He’s really looked up to by other students.”

The swimmer’s admirers Tuesday included Costa Mesa Mayor Gary

Monahan and one of his daughters.

The city key doesn’t open any doors, but Ridgeway said it does

have a useful function.

“Actually, I think it opens beer bottles,” he said.

Cryptic Web page posts plenty after phone call

If you searched online for information on the Newport Beach city

attorney’s office, you wouldn’t have found much before Wednesday.

For months, a page for the city attorney’s office on the city’s

website was blank except for the sentence, “We are unable to confirm

or deny the existence of this page.”

That was someone’s sense of humor in the city’s management

information systems department, acting City Atty. Robin Clauson said.

She thought it was posted when her office failed to tell management

information systems what it wanted on the city attorney’s page.

‘We get pretty busy up here,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard for

us to focus on those things.”

After a phone call from the Daily Pilot, Clauson called management

information systems personnel, and within minutes the page was

displaying the city attorney’s office goals, functions and e-mail

links to office staff members.

Cox urges firefighters

to grab that dough

Rep. Chris Cox this week encouraged local fire departments to

apply for 2004 fire prevention and safety grants, which are part of a

program to dole out $700 million to fire departments for equipment,

education and health and safety programs.

Grant applications will be accepted through Sept. 30. Information

on the grant program is available at https://www.firegrantsupport.com.

Another day, another rumored Cox move

Now that whispers saying Cox was in the running to be the new CIA

director have been quieted by the appointment of Rep. Porter Goss

(R-Florida), the political press’ rumor mill is naming Cox as a

possible replacement for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, should he

leave his position if President Bush wins a second term.

An Associated Press story on Friday listed Cox as well as National

Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, NASA head Sean O’Keefe and Sen.

Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) as contenders for Rumsfeld’s job.

And Cox may have more time on his hands after this month, unless

he convinces his colleagues on the House Homeland Security Committee

to support making their committee permanent.

A story in The Hill, a congressional newspaper, on Wednesday noted

there are several procedures that could cement the committee’s

status, but as its chairman, Cox is up against a Sept. 30 deadline to

submit recommendations on any changes regarding homeland security --

including whether his committee should oversee those changes.