Week in Review

NEWPORT BEACH

O.C. Grand Jury report criticizes harbor policies

The Orange County Grand Jury on Thursday issued a report saying the city should tighten up the policies and review the fees charged for the roughly 1,200 moorings in the harbor. The report criticized the fact that although it’s illegal to sell moorings, boat owners and brokers get around this by selling a boat and transferring the mooring permit with it.

City harbor officials already have been studying the issue raised in the report and may bring forward changes in the next six months. One likely result is that mooring permit fees will be raised to market rates.

Known for his unswerving conservatism, Ferguson always stuck to his beliefs during his varied careers, friends said. The longtime Newport Beach resident also founded a popular political club, Principles Over Politics, and wrote, edited and published its newsletter himself.

The legislator will be remembered at a memorial service at 10 a.m. May 19 at Newport Harbor Lutheran Church, 798 Dover Drive, Newport Beach.

Proponents must gather about 9,000 signatures to qualify for the February ballot. Councilman Keith Curry called the effort a “diversion” that won’t stop the council from considering a site down the street from the library.

Jawor called animal control officers, but they couldn’t remove the cat from the car. She then contacted Crevier BMW, and its roadside assistance service dispatched mechanic Josh Sorenson.

Sorenson, who is allergic to cats, freed the feline by removing the “belly pan” from under the BMW’s engine, and despite suffering an allergic reaction, secured the cat in a crate before he left.

The cat was checked out at the Cat Clinic of Orange County in Costa Mesa, where it was identified and returned to its owner.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Police dog subdues man who had replica gun

A man was taken down by a police dog Sunday after he reached for a replica handgun in his waistband, Costa Mesa police said.

Officers responding to a suspicious-persons call in the 200 block of Fairview Road, pulled over a vehicle and found Manuel Lopez and Salvador Orantes Gomez, both 31-year-old Costa Mesa residents, inside, Sgt. Bob Ciszek said.

Lopez allegedly ignored the officer’s commands to keep his hands above his head and went for what appeared to be a gun, which was tucked into his pants.

The officers sent a police dog after Lopez that bit his arm and pulled him to ground, Ciszek said. Lopez was treated for minor injuries and booked at Costa Mesa Jail, police said.

Temperatures decreased slowly over the rest of the week, and fog rolled in by Wednesday night.

Southern California has seen one of its driest years in history. Only 2.2 inches of precipitation have been recorded since July 1, 2006.

COSTA MESA

Council seeks more information on fire station

City Council members have asked staff to weigh the advantages of building a seventh fire station or simply rebuilding the oldest of the existing six stations, on Royal Palm Drive. A recent report from a consultant determined that if the city rebuilds the Royal Palm station, the best place to relocate it is along Harbor Boulevard between Baker Street and the San Diego Freeway (405).

City officials initially said a seventh station may not be needed, but council members want more information before they decide. The report also showed city firefighters respond to far more medical calls than fires.

POLITICS

County supervisor’s plan for annexations is revealed

Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach on Wednesday revealed a plan to resolve a host of annexation issues between Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, but he asked for two more months to work out the details. The plan would annex unincorporated West Santa Ana Heights to Newport Beach, while the Santa Ana Country Club and a neighborhood south of Mesa Drive would go to Costa Mesa.

Each city likely would get part of the 412-acre Banning Ranch, but it’s not clear how the land would be divided. But residents of unincorporated areas that would go to Costa Mesa may block a comprehensive deal with a protest vote. The Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission takes up the issue again in July.

EDUCATION

Teachers union, school district reach agreement

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District reached a tentative agreement Tuesday with its teachers union, following six months of negotiations during which teachers held out for higher pay. Under the agreement, teachers would get a 2% retroactive pay increase for the current school year and 17% more over the next three years.

Union President Jim Rogers said that within three years, the agreement would likely make Newport-Mesa the third-highest-paying unified district in Orange County. A number of teachers, however, expressed disappointment with the agreement, saying the union could not accurately predict how other districts would boost salaries.

The teachers union’s contract set a goal in 1999 of bringing Newport-Mesa’s teacher salaries between the mean and the 75th percentile among unified districts in Orange County. According to the union’s and district’s projections, the agreement wouldn’t bring Newport-Mesa above the mean until the 2008-09 school year, and some teachers found the progress too slow.

“I think what the ideal is is to get us at least at the mean this year,” said TeWinkle Middle School teacher Todd Eversgerd. “That’s what we were looking for initially.”

Teachers are set to vote on the agreement later this month.

NOTABLE QUOTABLES

“It’s like bragging rights; it’s a source of pride for people.”

— Gail Rose Lam

“All the filter-feeding fish create conditions ripe for a massive die out.”

— Dennis Kelly

“Swings are great because they don’t need to be plugged in, and they are always there. No matter how old you are, you are going to jump on a swing and have fun.”

— Charles Rollins

“All three of us really enjoy music and were lamenting the fact that we were only singing nursery rhymes. We’re really doing this to have fun, not to be professional musicians, though that would be the gravy.”

— Allyson Sonenshine

“I’ve been using words like ‘incredible,’ ‘amazing’ and ‘surreal’ a lot. I’ve had a smile on my face this entire week. It has probably been the best week of my life, and it will be for a while, until I have my first child or something. But, hopefully, that’s a ways away.”

— Brian Thornton

“Gil Ferguson was politically incorrect before it was cool to be politically incorrect — and he was proud of it.”

— Mark Petracca