2005 was marked by division

A look back at the year 2005 in Newport-Mesa includes loudly ridiculous and the substantive and precedent-setting. It also shows the year to be one marked most notably by divisiveness, particularly when it comes to the community’s most important story of the year: Costa Mesa’s grappling with illegal immigration.

The City Council first turned its attention on the issue in March, when members voted to close the city’s 17-year-old Job Center. The center on the city’s Westside shut officially Saturday, but not before the council stepped far deeper into the immigration issue. Earlier in December, Mayor Allan Mansoor proposed that city police officers be trained to enforce immigration laws.

The council -- in a typically divided, 3-2 vote -- approved a modified version that will have it working with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. The vote made it the first city in the country to do so. As result, and regardless of how any in the community feel about the issue, Costa Mesa is now going to be a proving ground for what appears to be a growing battle over illegal immigration. It likely will be the story of the year in 2006 too.

Divisiveness in Newport Beach involved both church and state.

The proposed expansion of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, which ended up whittled down by more than 50%, led neighbors to mount a months-long, highly vocal opposition. For much of the year, anti-expansion signs dotted yards in Cliffhaven and Newport Heights. St. Andrew’s church, long a pillar of the community, was pilloried unlike any religious group in recent memory. In the end, church leaders decided to add a new youth and family center without expanding the complex’s size.

St. Andrew’s leaders could have made an even more controversial decision than they did, had they proposed Newport Beach build a new city hall. Instead it was the City Council wading into a plan to build a $48-million civic center complex.

The style of the building came under fire. The city’s proposed method to finance the construction, which would not require a citywide vote, drew even more brutal condemnation, not to mention a possible ballot measure later this year that could change city laws.

Like Costa Mesa’s enforcement of immigration laws, Newport’s new city hall is a story still unfolding.

The one issue on which the community did come together was the $282-million school bond, Measure F, which voters narrowly approved in November. School leaders promise that the money will help make the Newport-Mesa Unified School District a leader when it comes to innovative, up-to-date, and technologically advanced campuses.

Of course, it wouldn’t have been a complete year without an irrelevant story that the national and international media latched onto for a few glorious days.

This year’s winner was the roaring sea lions that bothered harbor businesses and residents. Somehow, in keeping with 2005, even that story divided the community.

The new year couldn’t have started too soon.