WEEK IN REVIEW

PUBLIC SAFETY

Woman faces charges of lewd conduct with teen

A Newport Beach woman faces two charges of sexual misconduct after she was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy, police said. Mary Hamilton was charged with lewd conduct with a minor. She was arrested Oct. 23.

Her arraignment is scheduled for Dec. 7.

 Newport Beach firefighters battled two blazes Wednesday that broke out within hours of each other.

The first was reported just after 5 a.m. in a duplex in the 3500 block of Seashore Drive Damage to the home was estimated at $75,000.

Four hours later, another blaze started in an office building behind the Crab Cooker restaurant on the Balboa Peninsula.

 Newport Beach firefighters have commissioned a study to examine how effective goats could be at preventing wildfires by gobbling up brush in Buck Gully and Morning Canyon in Corona del Mar. The fire department recently hired environmental consulting group Dudek & Associates Inc. to investigate whether goats could be part of the solution.

 Gabriel Aguirre Reyes, 31, of Costa Mesa was arrested in connection with a hit-and-run collision that sent a motorcyclist to the hospital with critical injuries, authorities said.

Reyes allegedly ran a red light before striking Gerardo Oliveras, 35, of Riverside, who was heading through a green light, witnesses told police.

 A Newport Beach man critically injured in a crash on Nov. 11 along Newport Boulevard near Hospital Road may have been driving under the influence, police said.

Joseph Dorando, 43, allegedly crashed a 1997 Jaguar convertible into a minivan, sending it into a roll, police said.

 Newport Beach police won an online auction for a stolen solar panel and when they showed up to collect their “prize” they arrested the seller for possession of stolen property.

Detectives arrested Nathan Tyrone Mitchell, 25, on Tuesday in Santa Monica while picking up the panel they bought for $100, police said. They found eight of the nine panels, estimated at $1,485 each, in Mitchell’s apartment, police said

BUSINESS

Brewing Co. sues city, council members

The Newport Beach Brewing Co. sued Newport Beach, the City Council and five council members after a recent council vote to modify the popular restaurant’s use permit. Stephen Miles, the Brewing Co.’s attorney, said the modifications had hurt business at the restaurant and sought at least $1 million in damages.

The lawsuit, filed with Orange County Superior Court, also seeks to rescind all the new conditions the council imposed on the restaurant, including restricting the available dining space before 5 p.m. on weekends and requiring hourly records for food and liquor sales.

NEWPORT BEACH

Council listens to arguments about water fluoridation

The Newport Beach City Council held a study session Tuesday about the pending fluoridation of the city’s drinking water, hearing arguments for and against the move by a number of residents and state officials.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has begun putting fluoride in plants throughout the region and is scheduled to do so at the Robert B. Diemer Treatment Plant in Yorba Linda, which provides 18% of Newport Beach’s drinking water, on Nov. 19.  Two factions, for and against a February ballot measure that would require Newport Beach’s city hall to be built next to the city’s central library faced off Wednesday at the Newport Beach Yacht Club. The ballot measure, dubbed Measure B, would rewrite the city charter to specify that city hall must be on a site next to the city’s central library.

Golf tournament for Marines a huge success

Newport Beach hit a hole-in-one on Monday when it hosted the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines for the first golf tournament in the regiment’s honor. The city adopted the unit in December of 2003. Dan Marcheano, owner of Arches restaurant, coordinated the event that drew more than 100 participating organizations.

The event sold out a week in advance before the tee-off with 144 golfers reporting for duty. The fundraiser provided furniture and other amenities for the troops and their families who often return home to an empty house after a tour of duty.

COSTA MESA

Officials will appeal decision to pay $8.7 million to victim

City officials said they would appeal a jury’s verdict that ordered Costa Mesa and Prashanti Patel to pay about $8.7 million to former Orange Coast College tennis coach Glenn Morton who was paralyzed and brain damaged in a car crash at the Adams Avenue overpass.

The city was accused in the lawsuit of not doing enough to safeguard the overpass and Patel was driving a car involved in the 2005 accident. The jury ordered the city to pay $5.7 million and Patel $3.04 million.

 Most of the homeowners on Broadway in Costa Mesa were happy the City Council ignored staff recommendations that a plan for sidewalks in the neighborhood be placed on an inactive status. But some of the homeowners, like Rosalyn Reich, said she was “shaking mad” about the council’s decision to move forward with the project.

Reich and her small group of supporters say that the sidewalk will harm property values. Sidewalk supports say the project will make it safer for pedestrians, but Reich argued that it would be better for city officials to increase traffic enforcement.

EDUCATION

Parents complain about special ed program decision

More than a dozen parents complained to Newport-Mesa school board members that the district’s administrators care more about saving money than picking the appropriate special education program for their children.

Parents complained that they weren’t included in the decision-making process when special education programs were selected for their children.

District officials deny this, but Supt. Jeffrey Hubbard acknowledges improvements need to be made. Newport-Mesa is implementing recommendations of the Goldfinger Report, an evaluation of the district’s special education program three years ago.

The report outlines a long-term plan to increase special education oversight by providing services in-house, rein in spending and maintain the level of education for special education students.

 Orange Coast College recognized a living part of its history when Giles T. Brown, one of the school’s founding faculty members, was honored.

In a luncheon with 35 friends and colleagues, Brown, 91, was congratulated for having the school’s first lecture hall renamed the Giles T. Brown Forum in his honor.

Brown was one of the school’s first faculty members in 1948.