TOP 10 STORIES OF THE YEAR: Politics make headlines

Editor’s note: The following are the top 10 stories in Newport-Mesa in 2008, as judged by Daily Pilot editors.

1 Measure B: Newport Beach voters approved a controversial ballot measure in February that requires the next Newport Beach City Hall to be built on a 12.8-acre parcel of city-owned land next to the central library on Avocado Avenue. Opponents of the measure wanted the entire site preserved as a park. The measure divided Newporters over the issue of preserving open space in the community. Allan Beek, a local activist, filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the measure and City Council members sparred openly on the subject. Jack Croul, a wealthy retired paint manufacturer, made things interesting when he donated $680,000 in support of the measure.

Now plans are moving ahead to build a new $60-million municipal complex on the site that will include a park and a parking structure. The Newport Beach City Council in January will discuss approving a contract with the San Francisco-based architect Bohlin Cywinski Jackson to design the new city hall.

2 Economy: The nationwide recession walloped Orange County this year, and the Newport-Mesa area was by no means immune.

Local financial institutions and real estate developers tanked, nonprofits hit the skids and cities were forced to make tough budgetary decisions as a result of the economic downturn.

Lines of investors stood for hours in the parking lot of the Costa Mesa branch of IndyMac Bank when they heard it was being taken over by federal regulators in July. It was unclear whether deposits over a certain amount would be covered by insurance, and a crowd of frightened area residents waited to hear the news.

Meanwhile, the Orange County Performing Arts Center lost more than $13 million when its expensive bond insurance policy, which was thought to be virtually risk free, had to be written off. And Opera Pacific, the county’s decades-old theater company, canceled the remainder of its season in November after its first production because it couldn’t get enough money from donors.

Costa Mesa also had to tighten its belt. Executives from all city departments shaved money from their budgets by not hiring people to fill empty positions while road improvement projects were delayed, and city vehicles and buildings went without scheduled repairs. Recently, the police department disbanded its narcotics unit to save additional cash.

Newport Beach-based Downey Savings and Loan, the county’s largest independent thrift, was seized in November as housing prices continued to drop and foreclosures became more and more prevalent. And the Irvine Company laid off a significant portion of its staff in an unprecedented move in September.

3 Elections: This past year will be remembered nationwide as a year elections dominated the news, and both Newport Beach and Costa Mesa had plenty of political action all year long.

It wasn’t just local candidates who swung through the area, either. During the long primary season, presidential hopefuls on both sides made stops in Newport Beach to tap the wealthy donor network that has long made it famous.

Later on in the general election, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin drew particular attention to one such fundraiser when she accused Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists” — one of the first times she ever leveled the charge in a speech.

When November rolled around at last, incumbents held the day locally: Rep. Dana Rohrabacher held off a stiff challenge from Huntington Beach’s then-Mayor Debbie Cook; Rep. John Campbell beat out Democratic challenger Steve Young. In Costa Mesa’s City Council race, incumbents all secured victories, and even the one open seat was filled by Gary Monahan, who had been on the council before. In Newport Beach, City Council incumbents Keith Curry and Steve Rosansky easily captured new terms.

When the dust had settled, Democratic President-elect Barack Obama won far more votes than usual in Republican Orange County — winning Costa Mesa by 7% — even as Republicans down-ticket held on to their seats. While local Democrats saw a change in the wind in their favor, bringing hope for them in 2010, GOP officials called the results a fluke — one they plan to reverse.

4 Rehab home ordinance: Balboa Peninsula and West Newport residents urged Newport Beach City officials in 2008 to do something about numerous drug and alcohol rehabilitation homes in the city. Residents complained that recovering addicts who seek treatment in Newport’s beachfront environs bring crime and second-hand smoke into the community. The city reacted by passing an ordinance in January 2008 that requires most homes to get use permits to remain open and subjects the homes to a public hearing process to gain approval. The ordinance prompted a few rehabilitation homes to sue the city over claims of discrimination against recovering addicts. A federal judge in May ruled in favor of Newport Beach, allowing the bulk of the city’s ordinance to stand.

The rehabilitation home activist group Concerned Citizens of Newport Beach filed a $250-million lawsuit against the city of Newport Beach and several rehabilitation homes operators in the city, claiming the rehab homes diminished property values in the city. The lawsuit fizzled, and the group eventually settled or dropped its claims against most of the entities named in the suit.

Several rehabilitation homes have already shut their doors in Newport Beach. Narconon, the single largest rehabilitation home in the city, has agreed to leave Newport Beach in 2010. Neighbors of the Narconon drug and alcohol recovery home at 1810 W. Oceanfront have complained to city officials for years about noise, trash and second-hand smoke around the facility.

5 Rampage Jackson: Why, as police allege, did a former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight title holder race his lifted, customized pickup truck down the median of the southbound 55 Freeway hitting two cars and colliding with another when police tried to pull him over on Newport Boulevard?

That’s what people inside and outside the fighting world wondered when Quinton “Rampage” Jackson was arrested mid-July after prosecutors said he led authorities on a chase through Costa Mesa and into Newport Beach, dodging pedestrians, into oncoming traffic all while on his cellphone and with a flat tire.

Authorities said one of the cars Jackson hit was driven by a pregnant woman, who had a miscarriage weeks later. There was no evidence to support the claim that the accident caused the miscarriage, prosecutors said. Jackson was not charged for it.

Jackson had lost his heavyweight belt fewer than two weeks earlier in an upset in Las Vegas. Had he just snapped?

Apparently. Friends and his attorney said it was an “episode of delirium” from stress before and after the fight. Those close to him said he had gone days with little sleep and no food, and was running on energy drinks. His attorney said at his arraignment in August, Jackson was seeking treatment with ways to cope with stress.

Jackson is on the comeback trail and won his latest match against Wanderlei “the Axe Murderer” Silva.

6 A couple’s slaying: Both the media and the public were captivated with the trial of Skylar Deleon, the man accused of masterminding the murder of Newport Beach couple Tom and Jackie Hawks in 2004.

The story behind Deleon and the Hawkses has already spawned two books, with a third on the way, along with TV specials on the case and yet another trial likely coming in the spring.

Two things seemed to capture the imaginations of Newport-Mesa readers throughout this case and trial: The innocent trust of Tom and Jackie Hawks, a retired couple who were looking to sell their boat, the Well Deserved, so they could retire and spend time with their new grandchild in Arizona; and Skylar Deleon, a new father from Long Beach in massive debt with his wife and looking to kill the Hawkses, steal their boat and empty their bank accounts.

Prosecutors say Deleon and two accused men secured the couple to an anchor aboard their boat out in the ocean and threw it overboard, sending them into the frigid Pacific Ocean alive never to be seen again.

During his trial, Deleon’s attorney readily admitted his client’s guilt and instead tried to tug on jurors’ heart strings for mercy, arguing he had an abusive and traumatic childhood. The jury convicted Deleon of the murders, along with a third, and recommended the death sentence. Deleon will be sentenced in January and three men accused of helping Deleon with the plot are expected to have separate trials in the first half of the year. Deleon’s ex-wife, Jennifer Henderson, was sentenced to life without parole for her role in the killings last year.

7 Henry Samueli: Responses from the Newport-Mesa community on the case of billionaire Henry Samueli have run the gamut.

Supporters point to Samueli and his wife’s philanthropy throughout Orange County, donating millions to UCI and the Orange County Performing Arts Center, while others point to the criminal acts he’s accused of committing.

Earlier this year federal authorities released an indictment accusing Samueli and his Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry T. Nicholas of coordinating a $2.2-billion, stock-option scheme that rewarded employees with backdated stocks, but defrauded shareholders with inaccurate numbers of how much the company paid in compensation.

Prosecutors also charged Chief Financial Officer William Ruehle in the alleged scheme.

While Nicholas and Ruehle could possibly face years in prison, Samueli’s attorneys are working on a plea agreement with prosecutors. The court rejected an earlier attempt at a plea agreement in September because it was considered too lenient.

“The court cannot accept a plea agreement that gives the impression that justice is for sale,” Judge Cormac Carney wrote in his rejection of the deal. Samueli would have paid $12 million and not had to testify against the other defendants.

A sentencing conference is scheduled for Aug. 3.

8 Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian expansion: Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian ran afoul of its neighbors in 2008 when it asked Newport Beach city officials for permission to shift around some building space to build a new 300,000-square-foot tower on its campus in West Newport.

Residents from the Villa Balboa condominium complex claimed Hoag had not been a good neighbor over the years and wanted the hospital to make amends before the city granted Hoag’s request. The residents claimed a hospital power plant spewed steam and vapor into the air, blocking their ocean views. Other residents complained of a constant barrage of noise from hospital delivery trucks.

The Newport Beach City Council eventually voted to make the hospital reduce its usage of the power plant by one-third during times when weather conditions make hazy plumes the most visible. Hoag also agreed to build a wall to muffle sound from the hospital.

9 Stephen Royds: One of the most talked about stories in 2008 was the tale of Stephen Royds and his girlfriend, Monique Trepp.

Newspapers as far away as Europe and New Zealand wrote about how on one March evening this year Newport Beach police officers searching Royds’ Fairmont Newport Beach hotel room opened up a large plastic bin and found Trepp’s frozen body preserved in dry ice.

Royds, a New Zealand native who also went by the nickname “Kiwi,” was arrested and eventually convicted on various drug charges, but almost everyone wanted to know Trepp’s story.

In the weeks following, it was revealed Trepp was Royds’ longtime girlfriend, an aspiring model, who at different times worked as a stripper and a waitress before eventually overdosing on cocaine in the hotel room she shared with Royds. He had lived there for at least two years, officials said.

According to court documents, Royds told police he had been worried he’d be arrested if Trepp’s body was discovered, so he preserved it in his room, for nearly a year before it was discovered.

Royds was never charged in connection with Trepp’s death and was sentenced to four years in prison for his drug conviction.

10 Janene Johns conviction: Many in the community were touched in 2008 by the case of Janene Johns and Candice Tift.

Johns, an Irvine woman who had lost her husband in July 2006 after an 18-month battle with cancer, was transformed into a villain in many people’s eyes a month later when she fatally struck Tift with her car as Tift rode her bike on the West Coast Highway sidewalk. Others pointed to her contributions to the Irvine community to show another side of Johns.

Both Tift’s and Johns’ family members readily admitted there was nothing in this case that wasn’t tragic. Battling mental issues in August 2006, Johns, under the influence of sleeping pills and a cough suppressant, got behind the wheel of her Lexus to drive herself to the hospital. She never made it. Instead, she hit Tift, an Eastbluff Elementary School teacher and Costa Mesa resident, before she could get there.

During an emotional trial this year, Johns’ kids said their mother’s mental deterioration started after their father’s death, and Tift’s husband, mother and siblings aimed to humanize her. But Johns was found guilty of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. She was sentenced to six years in prison.