A little help from the fair

Alicia Robinson

If you’re struck by an epidemic of anthrax or a weird new virus, help

may be close at hand.

The Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa will be used to deploy

vaccines, drugs and medical supplies from the Strategic National

Stockpile in the event of a terrorist attack, weather-related

disaster or other public health threats.

While residents won’t go to the fairgrounds for help, the property

will be used as a staging and distribution center if the stockpile is

needed, Orange County Fair chief executive Becky Bailey-Findley said.

The fair board signed an agreement last week with the California

Department of Health Services to designate the fairgrounds as a

stockpile site.

The property already has been used as a staging area for horses

and other animals rescued from fires in the San Bernardino mountains

in 2003, and it’s a designated evacuation site in case of a nuclear

leak at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, Bailey-Findley said.

“The fairgrounds is on different emergency plans,” she said. “This

one just happens to be a federal/state plan.”

BILL DEADLINE LOOMS

UP IN SACRAMENTO

Friday is the last day for state legislators to get this year’s

bills passed by their own house -- either the Assembly or Senate --

or the bills die. Costa Mesa Assemblyman Van Tran has tied up most

loose ends, with eight of his 20 bills already through the Assembly,

11 bills effectively dead and just one bill pending in the

Appropriations Committee, Tran spokesman Paul Hegyi said.

Newport Beach Assemblyman Chuck DeVore isn’t sweating the

deadline, because four of his 17 bills this year have gone on to the

Senate, three are two-year bills that can be brought back for later

consideration, and the rest were killed, said DeVore spokesman Brian

O’Neel.

Members of the Assembly are allowed to write 40 bills per session,

so DeVore can put forward up to 23 bills in 2006, and Tran will have

half of his allotment left.

WESTSIDE PLAN GETS PROFESSIONAL KUDOS

It took years to create a plan to improve Costa Mesa’s Westside,

but the latest efforts have paid off, both with City Council approval

of the plan and now recognition of the work that went into it.

The Orange County section of the American Planning Assn., a

professional organization including planners from the public and

private sectors, last week gave the city’s Westside Revitalization

Oversight Committee its Education Award of Merit.

The association chose the Westside committee because its work

helped educate the public about the planning process, and that’s

shown by the fact that the committee reached consensus on its

recommendations, said Alice Angus, one of five judges who chose award

recipients.

Some in the community thought the City Council’s decision to

broaden the area recommended for new zoning flouted the committee’s

hard-won consensus. But the zoning area was a minor issue that

doesn’t detract from the Westside committee’s overall success,

chairman Ralph Ronquillo said.

“The [zoning] overlay issue really seems to be the only one that’s

caught in anybody’s craw, so I think you could say the effort of the

group was definitely worth the recognition [of the American Planning

Assn.],” he said.

SO YOU’D LIKE TO BE A

CITY COUNCIL MEMBER?

The city of Newport Beach is still taking applications to fill the

fifth City Council district seat that Mayor Steve Bromberg will

vacate June 17. Bromberg was recently appointed a judge in Orange

County Superior Court and will resign from the council.

Applicants must live in the fifth district, which includes Balboa

Island, Newport Center, Irvine Terrace and Lower Newport Bay, and

they must apply by June 10.

The remainder of the council will interview applicants and appoint

a new member June 21.

For information or an application, visit the clerk’s office at

City Hall, 3300 Newport Blvd., or call (949)644-3005. Applications

also can be found on the city website at

https://www.city.newport-beach.ca.us.