TOP 10 STORIES OF THE YEAR:

1City Hall

Lead City Hall in the Park proponent Bill Ficker has proved you can fight city hall, or at least have a say in where the next one should be built.

After Newport Beach City Council members rejected his suggestions on building the next city hall on a parcel of city-owned land next to the municipal library on Avocado Avenue, he went out with petitions for a ballot measure and came back in August with more than 15,000 signatures, representing nearly a quarter of the city’s registered voters.

Opponents question Ficker’s single-mindedness about the site, arguing the land, which was once promised as a park, shouldn’t be thrown away when there are other viable locations for a city hall.

Measure B, which would amend the city charter to require the next city hall to be built next to the library, will go to a vote of the people Feb. 5. The measure has led to heated public battles in the editorial pages of the Daily Pilot and a lawsuit questioning the legality of the ballot initiative.

2Immigration

From January to December, immigration issues managed to persistently bubble to the top of the fold this political season.

Indeed, controversy started at the get-go of 2007, with Costa Mesa City Council members authorizing the placement of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in the city jail — vested with the powers of deporting any illegal immigrants under his purview. In the first year of the policy, 520 non-citizens were identified by the agent, and 360 deported. Of those deported, 12 were arrested in Costa Mesa again in 2007.

Local leaders took their politics to the national stage as well, with some Costa Mesa City Council members sending a letter to the White House, urging President Bush to enforce existing immigration laws and reject a Senate bill offering some such immigrants a path to citizenship.

“My concern is that the president is walking away from his duty and hasn’t been enforcing the existing laws,” Councilman Eric Bever said at the time.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher also had some words of his own for Bush’s immigration reform, saying the plan would “increase the overall flow of immigrants, both legal and illegal,” and described it as a “a declaration of war on America’s middle class.”

Rohrabacher also raised his national visibility as he took on the cause of two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, accused of shooting an alleged drug smuggler in the buttocks as he fled from the men. Rohrabacher has called on Bush to pardon the men from what he characterizes as “excessive” sentencing.

Who, too, could forget the controversy that swirled around Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor’s revelation that he was declared an honorary member of immigration reform organization, the Minutemen?

“People give me honors. I simply say, ‘Thank you,’” Mansoor testified during the trial of Benito Acosta who was accused of disrupting a City Council meeting on the mayor’s plan to train Costa Mesa police to enforce immigration laws. “They wanted to make me an honorary Minutemen, I simply said, ‘Thank you.’ I don’t participate in any of their activities.”

3Rehab homes

Balboa Peninsula residents claim drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers in their neighborhoods create problems with traffic, trash, second-hand smoke and loud swearing from recovering addicts. The residents believe there is an over-concentration of rehabilitation centers on the peninsula and have threatened Newport Beach city officials with a lawsuit if the city doesn’t begin cracking down on the rehab homes.

After spending hundreds of hours on new regulations for group homes, the city elected to hire new outside legal counsel earlier this year to address the issue. The council will consider new regulations to govern rehabilitation homes in January.

The city is not alone in its concerns about drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers and other kinds of group homes in residential areas. About 300 people, including representatives of more than 100 California cities, came to a Newport Beach-sponsored conference on residential recovery facilities in March. The problem Newport Beach and other cities run in to is that facilities for recovering drug addicts are protected by federal fair-housing laws. That’s because addicts — if they’re no longer using — are classified as disabled and afforded the same protections against discrimination.

4Benito Acosta

The case against Benito Acosta, who also goes by the name Coyotl Tezcatlipoca, was dismissed by Orange County Superior Court Judge Kelly MacEachern this October, following the revelation that City Prosecutor Dan Peelman was not sworn in as prosecutor.

While constitutional scholars debated the merits of the decision, it was clear how the city felt:

“The decision of the court this afternoon had nothing to do with the merits of the case,” Peelman said.

“The issue is well-established,” ACLU defense attorney and Acosta’s representative Kwaku Duren shot back, calling the city’s plans to appeal the decision “meritless.”

Acosta, a student at OCC, was forcefully ejected from a City Council meeting in which he criticized the placement of an ICE agent in the city jail. He encouraged those in the audience who agreed with him to stand in support, and when Mayor Mansoor disallowed it, he encouraged the audience to do so anyway.

Acosta was arrested by Costa Mesa police, which was recorded in an Internet viral video that brought the controversy to the national stage.

5Erwin Chemerinsky

UCI Chancellor Michael Drake admitted he greatly underestimated the backlash that would come when he unexpectedly rescinded a job offer to nationally respected lawyer Erwin Chemerinsky to head the university’s new law school in September. In a matter of weeks, Drake hired, fired and then re-hired Chemerinsky.

As the story gained traction, attorneys and newspapers nationwide criticized the firing and questioned the school’s academic freedom. Many speculated that outside pressure from local and state conservatives influenced Drake’s decision, an allegation that he denies. It was later revealed that some conservatives, including a state judge, had given Drake their two cents about the university’s choice leading up to his decision to fire Chemerinsky.

Chemerinsky is an accomplished attorney, representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay, former-CIA operative Valerie Plame in her lawsuit against Bush administration officials and Florida voters challenging the 2000 election results. Chemerinsky agreed to be the law school’s founding dean in early September and was fired by Drake a week later. Drake rehired Chemerinsky, whom he originally called “too polarizing,” soon after that. The move quieted calls by faculty members for Drake’s resignation. Effects from the affair’s mishandling are still being felt at UCI. The academic senate, the body elected to represent university faculty, recently concluded its inquiry into Drake’s decision-making at the time. While the educators concluded politics did not influence Drake’s decision, the faculty members concluded Drake could have done a better job communicating with them.

The academic senate has created an ad-hoc committee to work with Drake in 2008 to improve the process in which deans are hired. The committee’s top priority will be to clarify language on when and how the chancellor will discuss dean candidates with faculty members.

6Wildfires

The wildfires that blazed throughout Southern California in October didn’t touch Newport Beach or Costa Mesa — but both cities felt the brunt of the natural disaster. Fire departments stretched themselves thin to send personnel and engines to combat the blaze, while hundreds of evacuees checked into Newport-Mesa hotels and the Orange County Fairgrounds doubled as an animal shelter.

Crystal Cove State Park closed its trails for several days due to the lingering soot in the air. Other locations, including UCI and the Balboa Bay Club, canceled outdoor activities as well. One beneficiary of the fires was the local pharmaceutical industry, as drugstores throughout the area sold out of face masks.

Meanwhile, Newport-Mesa residents turned out in droves to assist the fire victims. Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Katrina Foley started a drive with the Costa Mesa Firefighters Assn. to raise money and supplies for evacuees, while UCI professor Bill Tomlinson and his students launched a website to help displaced residents find housing. The Veggie Grill at UCI and other restaurants donated food to the firefighters.

“I’ve been trying to talk to everyone I see just to find where they’re from and if they have any news, because it’s hard to get up here,” said San Diego County resident Susan Mackay, who checked into the Vagabond Inn in Costa Mesa. “I’ve said hello to everyone I’ve seen and asked, ‘Are you an evacuee?’ Normally, I’m shy, but you can’t be shy on a day like this.”

7Newport-Mesa teachers’ salaries

A January report compiled by Newport-Mesa district and teachers’ union officials found that Newport-Mesa teachers were the lowest paid of Orange County’s 12 unified school districts, sparking a number of protests by teachers to increase their salaries.

The teachers’ fervor driving contract negotiations was fully on display when educators picketed outside a school board meeting in March and at Corona del Mar High School’s open house in April. Later that month, more than 50 teachers called in sick on the same day; teachers’ union officials did not endorse what many perceived to be a protest.

On May 31, district and union officials reached an agreement — teachers received a 19% salary increase over three years and a 3% increase in benefits. The increase, raising teachers’ annual salary from $66,292 to $77,348 by 2009, puts Newport-Mesa teachers above the median pay for teachers in Orange County.

8Landmarks

It was a bittersweet year for Newport-Mesa historians, as three prominent landmarks — Robins Hall at Newport Harbor High School, the original Arches Restaurant and the sea vessel Pride of Newport — met their ends.

Robins Hall, which housed the famous Newport Harbor High clock tower, closed in 2003 due to interior decay. The Newport-Mesa Unified School District originally intended to fix it under the Measure A school bond, but when that proved too costly, officials opted to demolish it and replace it with a nearly identical building under the subsequent Measure F bond.

“On the one hand, I’m happy to see progress after this building’s been vacant for four years,” Newport Harbor Principal Michael Vossen said when demolition began in August. “It’s a long time to be displaced. But the other side is very upset because you’ve had this icon here since 1930.”

The Arches Restaurant, one of Newport Beach’s most popular restaurants for nearly a century, closed its West Coast Highway location in July and reopened nearby on the Balboa Peninsula. The new location had less seating than the old one, but owner Dan Marcheano quickly took care of that: He opened a second restaurant, Arches on the Water, just around the corner.

Crews dismantled the Pride of Newport, which was built in 1963 and later housed the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum and several restaurants, over the summer before the Pacific Tugboat Service sank it off the coast in September. The boat had outlived its 20-year life span, and many pieces of it were sold and recycled.

9Harris crash and Adams Avenue changes

Huntington Beach resident Sara Noel Harris’ death was a mixture of tragedy and controversy. The 21-year-old Harris died after losing control of a late model Audi and smashing into a pole at Adams Avenue and Mesa Verde Drive.

Controversy entered the equation when it was suspected Harris was driving under the influence. Autopsy reports showed Harris’ blood-alcohol level was .14 and that she had traces of marijuana in her system.

Gabriella Hahn, of Costa Mesa, who didn’t know Harris, received the brunt of the controversy. She tried to hold a memorial for Harris but received a number of negative phone calls and instead canceled the event, electing to wrap pink ribbons around the traffic pole by herself instead.

Since Harris’ accident, the city has made attempts to make the intersection near Adams Avenue and West Mesa Verde Drive safer. Solid white lines were added to prohibit excessive lane-changing. Also, ribs were added across Adams Avenue to slow down the lead-foots.

10 Domoic acid killing marine life

Southern California sea lions, dolphins and coastal birds were poisoned and dying in record numbers earlier this year as a result of domoic acid poisoning.

During the spring, plankton known to produce the neurotoxin was reported by scientists to have been at its highest levels ever recorded in local waters.

Domoic acid poisoning results in short-term memory loss and eventually death to animals and people if they consume the contaminated marine life.

The state Department of Health Services issued an advisory in April warning people not to eat bivalve shellfish, sardines and anchovies they caught themselves, and to avoid the organs of all lobsters and crabs. Commercially caught clams, mussels, scallops and oysters were exempt from the warning because they are tested frequently.

When OCC professor Dennis Kelly took students in his class on a field trip to San Pedro harbor in May, students discovered a thick concentration of a species of plankton known as Pseudo-nitzschia, which is known to produce domoic acid.

The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach treated many of the birds affected by the poisoning.

Lisa Birkle, assistant wildlife director at the center, estimated that thousands of birds were affected.

Of the 166 birds taken in by the center, about 14 survived, she said.

At the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach this spring, 53 sea lions were brought in and treated, and all but six died.

The Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro saw a 34% mortality rate from domoic acid this year, but experts said the final numbers were not representative of the far-reaching effects of the poisonings.

At a news conference at a bird care center in San Pedro in May, USC professor Dennis Caron said many of the surviving animals may suffer from serious brain and nerve damage.

There was, however, some good news to report.

In May, animal care workers from the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center released nine California brown pelicans into the ocean at Big Corona.

Those birds, survivors of the domoic acid poisoning, waddled to the shoreline from their cages and entered the water together.

“It’s just wonderful that these are the fortunate ones that made it,” said Debbie McGuire, wildlife director at the care center.