Editorial:

The year 2009, as with all years, has had its highs and lows.

It opened with the inauguration of the nation’s first black president. Barack Obama vowed on the campaign trail to change Washington and lift the country out of its economic doldrums. He also inherited two foreign wars, and closed out the year by announcing his decision to increase the level of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

It may be too soon to tell whether the president’s economic stimulus program is working. Signs of a slow improvement have trickled through lately. On Dec. 18, the state Employment Development Department announced that California’s unemployment rate dipped to 12.3% in November from 12.5% in October, a post-World War II record. Although 2.25 million Californians remain jobless, that translates into 45,000 people coming off the unemployment rolls.

Closer to home, 2009 brought with it stories that caused bitterness and divisiveness in Newport-Mesa. Two stories in particular challenged community unity. First, the poisonous debate around activist Benito Acosta’s federal lawsuit trial against Costa Mesa, which he lost. And second, the local acrimony that followed the state’s move to put the Orange County Fairgrounds up for sale.

But perhaps the low point of 2009 was the nastiness that unfolded at Corona del Mar High School and stained its reputation, when a small group of male students posted a video on Facebook. In their hate-filled video, they allegedly threatened to kill and rape a fellow student, Hail Ketchum, who had starred in the school’s controversial production of the gay-friendly musical “Rent.”

The boys never were criminally charged or expelled, although Newport-Mesa Unified District has a zero-tolerance policy on threats of that kind.

Despite the lows, the last six or so weeks on the calendar — as ever — proved that that there are many good things happening in the community, and that it is full of people with big hearts. Because this newspaper gets inundated with requests to cover local charity drives during the holiday season, we cannot tell all their stories.

So we have had to be selective. We concentrated on producing features, which were rooted in hard news, on some of the local people and nonprofits reaching out to help others. For example, from late November to mid-December, we ran a series of anonymous descriptions of families in need. They were being adopted for the holidays through Share Our Selves, a local charity that enlisted schools and other organizations to help provide hundreds of less fortunate families — identified only by numbers — with clothes, food and toys.

We commend the efforts of SOS and other local folks, like Newport Beach eye surgeon Gregg Feinerman. On Tuesday, the doctor operated on Peggy Parsons, of Costa Mesa, removing a cataract from her right eye. The surgery took a few minutes but changed Parsons’ life, granting her the wish that she couldn’t “wait to see Christmas lights.”

It was the first of five free surgeries that Feinerman will perform on people who lack medical insurance.

This doctor is the anti-Scrooge. Five years ago, the surgeon founded a nonprofit, Operation In-Sight, which provides free eye operations in developing countries. Feinerman, who has traveled to Vietnam and other countries to perform some of those surgeries at no-charge, felt it was time to help fix the eyes of people back home suffering in the economy that President Obama vowed to repair.

Five days from today, we’ll turn the page on 2009. The year will be history. And while we have no way to tell exactly how the new year will pan out in Newport-Mesa, The Daily Pilot can predict that 2010 will bring a whole new set of highs and lows.