The 10 stories that headlined 2004

Rape-trial details

shock community

1 After a year’s worth of legal wrangling from both sides,

19-year-old Greg Haidl will ring in the new year from behind bars.

Haidl, son of former Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl,

and friends Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann went on trial in May,

charged with raping an unconscious 16-year-old girl. The incident

took place in 2002 on a pool table in the garage of the elder Haidl’s

Corona del Mar home.

The boys, 17 at the time of the incident, faced up to 55 years in

prison if convicted.

Three days after the trial started, Orange County sheriff’s

deputies stopped Greg Haidl in Dana Point for allegedly trespassing

on private property. It was the second time since the beginning of

the year that he was stopped by authorities and let go.

The trial lasted more than a month and ended in a hung jury. The

three teenagers were freed on $100,000 bail each.

The night Judge Francisco Briseno declared a mistrial, Don Haidl

threw a party at his home. Greg Haidl reportedly met a 16-year-old

girl there.

Two weeks later, sheriff’s deputies were called to a San Clemente

home to check on a barking dog.

There, they found Greg Haidl hiding in the backyard and arrested

him for allegedly having sex with the girl.

Greg Haidl and Jane Doe 2 claimed the sex was consensual.

She filed a lawsuit against the district attorney’s office,

claiming her civil rights were violated when they got a warrant to

collect her DNA through a mouth swab.

Nonetheless, in August Briseno put a series of restrictions on

Greg Haidl’s bail.

Those included a curfew, staying away from drugs, alcohol and

girls, and not breaking any laws.

Less than two months later, the car Greg Haidl was driving crossed

a double-yellow line on a Santa Ana street, just a half-hour before

his curfew, and hit another car. Police reported that he seemed

intoxicated, and a breath test suggested he had drunk some alcohol

but was below the legal limit.

A day later, he checked himself into a hospital for depression.

His doctor testified in a bail hearing that Greg Haidl told him he

had taken tranquilizers and drunk half a beer the night of the

accident and had headed out to buy more drugs to kill himself.

Briseno revoked his bail and, despite his defense attorneys’ attempts

to talk the judge into letting their client stay in the hospital,

sent Greg Haidl to jail in November.

Less than a week later, CBS’ “48 Hours” aired an hour-long show

about the first trial.

And less than a month after his incarceration, Greg Haidl, who is

under suicide watch in Orange County Jail, was shot with a Taser gun

after allegedly sharing a candy bar with another inmate and

vociferously objecting when deputies told him he could not.

The retrial is scheduled to start Jan. 31. The three face reduced

counts and less jail time.

Greg Haidl will likely stay in jail at least until the conclusion

of the trial.

No hotel on hot parkland property

2 A grass-roots effort rose up and quashed a hotel proposed for

the city’s last piece of harbor-front property in yet another testy

political campaign now defined by Newport Beach’s slow-growth

Greenlight movement.

A Greenlight offshoot, Protect Our Parks, successfully mounted a

campaign for public use of the space between 15th and 18th streets on

the Balboa Peninsula where the Marinapark mobile-home park sits.

The city had entered into an agreement with hotel designer Stephen

Sutherland to have the first right to develop a hotel on the

property.

But this agreement was lambasted by residents who accused the city

of not knowing who it was dealing with.

Sutherland’s company changed several times since the city had

given Sutherland Talla Hospitality an exclusive right to develop the

hotel project in 2000.

The campaign included personal attacks, arguments back and forth

and, finally, solid voter turnout.

Ultimately, the ballot initiative that asked voters to approve a

change to the general plan to allow a hotel was rejected 66% to 34%.

Conservative revolution starts in Newport Beach

3 An Episcopal Church nestled on the Balboa Peninsula jumped onto

a controversial bandwagon in August, announcing it was going to break

away from the Episcopal Church USA and remove the word “Episcopal”

from its name.

St. James’ pastor, Praveen Bunyan, said church members had major

concerns about the Episcopal Church’s liberal views about

homosexuality, the divinity of Jesus Christ and the supremacy of the

Bible.

The church then placed itself under the more conservative Diocese

of Luwero in the Anglican Province of Uganda, Africa.

All Saints Church in Long Beach and St David’s in North Hollywood

also broke away from the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, prompting

Bishop J. Jon Bruno to file a lawsuit against all three churches

stating that their buildings and properties still belong to the

diocese. That suit will be heard in Orange County.

Expanding church leads to expansive debate

4 A proposed expansion of St. Andrew’s Church that would have

added nearly 36,000 square feet had church officials and neighbors in

battling all year long. The Newport Beach Planning Commission ordered

the two sides to talk out their differences, but hammering out a

compromise has taken nearly two years.

Residents in the Cliff Haven and Newport Heights neighborhoods

said excess noise and traffic caused by the church’s existing

facilities would only be exacerbated by adding space.

While neighbors thought the facilities plan was bloated, size

reductions church officials made to the new youth and family center

of nearly 40% may have left them with a shrinking feeling.

After several lengthy public hearings, planning commissioners in

mid-December approved the expansion with a list of 23 operating

conditions -- but commission chairman Larry Tucker still advised the

church not to build the project in its current form because of the

animosity it has created.

The City Council must still approve the St. Andrew’s expansion and

will likely discuss it in 2005, so more skirmishes on the project are

in the offing. One Cliff Haven resident already has threatened a

lawsuit if the council approves the project.

Voters turn the incumbents out

5 In an unprecedented act of voter rebellion, two incumbents were

knocked off the Costa Mesa City Council: Chris Steel, who had served

four years, and Mike Scheafer, who had served about a year and a

half. Scheafer was appointed in 2003 to replace former Mayor Karen

Robinson, who left to become an Orange County Superior Court judge.

The winners were Planning Commissioner Katrina Foley, former Mayor

Linda Dixon and Planning Commissioner Eric Bever, who had stepped

aside and allowed Scheafer to take Robinson’s seat.

Bever and Garlich jostled for third place for a month following

the election. Initially on election night, Garlich edged Bever for

third place.

By the next day, the two had switched places, and Bever had taken

a solid lead. The gap eventually narrowed to the 44-vote margin.

Garlich decided not to ask for a recount because he didn’t think

that would change the results, with the electronic voting machines

being so precise.

In Newport Beach, there was no such rebellion. All three

incumbents, Steve Bromberg, John Heffernan and Steve Rosansky won

their races. Voter denial of the Marinapark resort, however, signaled

that residents don’t agree with everything their council is doing.

Agreement puts

many out of joint

6 As Costa Mesa city officials found out this year, even city

business as arcane as “joint-use agreements” are not immune from

controversy.

The city is taking a harder look at one such document, which

establishes a partnership between the city and the school district

with regard to field use after several high school coaches resigned

over a scuffle with the city about using and maintaining their teams’

fields. The agreement dictates that any high school, community group

or league secure a permit from the city to use a field.

Joined at the hip of the joint-use agreement is another document

called the “field allocation policy,” which spells out how fields are

allotted and the rules governing allotments.

To add to the school district’s problems, Mark Gleason, president

of Estancia High’s girls’ soccer boosters filed a complaint in

September with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil

Rights alleging that the school district was favoring Newport Beach

schools, which have a majority of white students as opposed to Costa

Mesa schools, which have bigger Latino populations. School district

officials denied the allegations and met with school principals right

away in an attempt to fix the problems.

Missing couple nets national attention

7 The mysterious disappearance of a retired couple after they sold

their yacht, on which they’d lived in Newport Harbor, captured

nationwide media attention in December.

Family members reported Tom and Jackie Hawks missing after they

sold their 55-foot cabin cruiser, the Well Deserved, in mid-November

and suddenly fell out of touch.

That raised concern from relatives and friends because the couple

were normally in close contact. Despite the fact that the boat’s

buyer told police he paid $400,000 cash for the vessel, which

remained at its mooring in the harbor, none of that money turned up

in the Hawkses’ accounts.

In fact, none of their accounts showed any activity since their

disappearance.

Police and family members appealed to the public in early

December, publicizing photographs and descriptions of Tom Hawks, 57,

and Jackie Hawks, 47, and their missing SUV.

Then police got a call that their SUV had been spotted in

Ensenada, Mexico. They found the car but not the couple.

The next day, they arrested the boat’s buyer, Long Beach resident

Skylar DeLeon, 25 -- a former actor on the “Mighty Morphin’ Power

Rangers” show -- on money-laundering charges.

By the time he made it to court for his arraignment, he faced

three counts of money laundering and three counts of possession of

money earned through large-scale sales of cocaine.

One of the county’s top prosecutors, who usually handles

high-profile homicides, is on the case.

Investigators have yet to determine what happened to the couple,

who had dreamed of retiring on a boat but wanted to sell the Well

Deserved and purchase a smaller one. Police now say they suspect foul

play.

Network still trying

to get on public TV

8 The continuing saga of Orange County’s only PBS channel finally

looked sewn up, but with just enough of an open ending for a sequel.

The Coast Community College District, which owned the station,

decided in 2003 to sell it to prop up its sagging budget.

All but one bid, from the station’s own fundraising arm, came from

religious broadcasters.

The district declared the $32-million bid from the KOCE-TV

Foundation the highest and chose to sell to it in October 2003.

The foundation, backed by local business and education leaders,

was the only bidder promising to preserve the PBS format.

But Dallas-based Daystar Television Network, the nation’s

second-largest religious broadcaster, made a last-ditch effort to buy

the station, boosting its $25 million cash offer to $40 million --

after the deadline for bids had passed.

Earlier this year, Daystar sued the district and its trustees,

claiming the district had not sold to the highest responsible bidder,

a violation of state law.

Though the foundation’s bid was revised downward to adjust for

programming and other compensation that was part of the deal and

included a substantial portion financed over a long-term note, a

judge declared that the district was not obligated to sell to

Daystar.

Daystar then filed an appeal and tried to block the FCC from

transferring the broadcast license to the foundation.

Meanwhile, the district granted the foundation three extensions on

its deadline to make the $8-million down payment.

The group finally came up with the cash in October.

The FCC approved the transfer at about the same time, and the

district gave its final OK at a meeting in November.

KOCE-TV is planning new programming to start in 2005 and in

November launched an endowment to fund arts and science education in

local schools.

Attorneys for Daystar are still promising to pursue the appeal,

though officials with the foundation and the district aren’t too

worried about it succeeding.

Stay tuned.

Get the sand out

9 A group of West Newport residents fought against the tide and

won in August when their complaints led the U.S. Army Corps of

Engineers to change a $5-million dredging project that would have

spread 400,000 cubic yards of Santa Ana River sand on beaches from

32nd to 56th streets.

Residents were concerned the river sediment would contain trash

and bacteria and that enlarging the beach with more sand. At the

urging of Newport Beach city officials, the Corps agreed to pump the

sand offshore in Newport so waves could wash it onto beaches

naturally. The three-month project is underway, with workers on the

job 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Part of the sand is being used

to shore up an island for endangered least terns, and some will be

pumped to an offshore fill area north of 56th Street. The Corps is

swallowing about $500,000 in costs added by the change in plans.

The city had wanted the sand initially to combat gradual beach

erosion, and because it was free, but city officials and residents

are happy with the offshore disposal plan.

Everyone wants a

piece of ‘The OC’

10 Holding the key to the hearts of young people all over the

nation and some parts of the world, cast members and producers of Fox

Television’s hit series, “The OC,” came to Newport Beach in October

for a special ceremony where Mayor Tod Ridgeway handed them keys to

the city.

The show is set in Newport Beach, and its protagonists shop at

South Coast Plaza, go out to dinner at Aubergine, eat Balboa Bars and

even read the Daily Pilot. The event was the brainchild of the

Newport Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau.

Producers and cast members were received with great enthusiasm by

their local fans as opposed to a rather lukewarm reception from City

Council members and members of the community who said they didn’t

believe the show appropriately reflected the moral values of the

Newport Beach they live in.