Changes for 2010

With the dust barely settled on 2009, it looks to be another eventful year in Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley. Here, in no particular order, are 10 stories to watch for in the coming 12 months:

The race for City Council

The Huntington Beach City Council will change its face in November with four of the seven seats open.

Mayor Cathy Green and council members Jill Hardy and Gil Coerper will be termed out, while Councilman Joe Carchio is eligible for reelection.

Hopefuls have until Aug. 6 to file papers to run, but already a dozen candidates have thrown in their hats.

Planning commissioners, former public works commissioners, small business owners and Realtors are vying for the seats.

Gregg DeLong, a small-business owner and first-time candidate; Joe Shaw, a former planning and public works commissioner; Norm Westwell, president of the Ocean View School District’s Board of Trustees; John Von Holle, former president of the city’s Municipal Employees Assn.; and Dan Kalmick, a small business owner and onetime congressional candidate, are running for a City Council seat.

Planning Commissioners Barbara Delgleize, Blair Farley and Fred Speaker; Realtor Bruce Brandt; Heather Grow, an after-school instructor for special-needs children at YMCA of Orange County; and first-time candidates Erik Peterson and Bill Rorick are also in the race.

The city’s general election will take place Nov. 2.

A new day for Sunset Beach

The Sunset Beach Community Assn. is awaiting the recommendation of a private consultant before deciding whether to forge ahead with plans to incorporate as a city.

Greg Griffin, the association’s president, said his group hired a consultant in November from Willdan Financial Services to determine if the seaside community could foot the costs of operating as a city. Griffin said he expected the recommendation to come back in April and that the consultant’s opinion will likely determine whether Sunset Beach pushes forward with incorporation plans.

The Orange County Local Agency Formation Committee put the community under Huntington Beach’s sphere of influence in July.

Soon after, Griffin’s group filed a notice of intent to petition with the Formation Committee — the first step toward incorporating.

Griffin and others are now circulating petitions in hopes of getting at least 25% of Sunset’s landowners or registered voters to support incorporation. If enough residents sign the petition, it could prevent Huntington Beach from starting the annexation process.

The senior center fight continues

Whether or not seniors will ever get a new center — and if they do, where it will be built — looks to be an interesting journey.

The city approved building a new $22-million senior center in Huntington Central Park and decided to appeal a court decision that stopped the project in its tracks. The appeal was filed today, but no court date has been set.

Orange County Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez found the city to be in violation of its general plan and two state environmental acts and ruled it couldn’t use the entire $22 million on the project.

Makar Properties was going to develop the project instead of creating new open space for its Pacific City project, a 31-acre multiuse development. The judge ruled using all the money meant for creating new open space violated the state Quimby Act.

The judge also ruled the city had to look into alternative locations, but what the appeal will change, if anything, remains to be seen.

The 45,000-square-foot, one-story center would have replaced the existing Michael E. Rodgers Seniors’ Center on Orange Avenue and given residents twice as much space, dedicated dance and group fitness rooms and a new fitness center and computer lab.

Here she comes, Miss Fountain Valley

The next winner of the Miss Fountain Valley Scholarship Pageant might not have been born the last time the contest was held.

Amy Hart, the president of From the Hart Modeling, is leading a coalition of politicians and business leaders to bring the pageant back to town for the first time since 1991. If it all works out, the contestants will take the stage March 13, with the competition’s winner to head to Miss California in Fresno.

So far, Hart and her allies — who include Mayor Larry Crandall, former Huntington Beach Mayor Dave Garofalo and the Fountain Valley Chamber of Commerce — have garnered two corporate sponsors and three applicants, but Hart said the team plans to campaign hard in the coming weeks. Contestants must be between the ages of 17 and 24 and live, work or go to school in Fountain Valley.

Downtown plan reopened

Trying to bring additional revenue into the city might seem innocuous, but residents have come out in force to oppose plans to update the downtown area.

Residents opposed the Downtown Specific Plan as it went through the approval process with rallies and a petition and spoke out during meetings. The object of so much controversy is a long-range planning document that dictates building and parking specification and design guidelines to increase development over the next 20 years.

The plan was approved by the Planning Commission and the City Council, but was reopened at the request of Mayor Cathy Green to lower her vote on density allowances. The plan is expected to be reopened Jan. 19. It must also gain the approval of the California Coastal Commission.

Now that the plan has been approved, a citizen’s group has filed a lawsuit claiming the city violated state environmental laws. Seeing what the future holds for the downtown and what the court decides on the lawsuit will be something watch in the months to come.

More change at Bolsa Chica

The long-awaited delivery of the pedestrian land bridge at the Bolsa Chica Mesa next week is the start of what looks to be another eventful year for one of Southern California’s most contested wildlife areas.

The Bolsa Chica Land Trust hopes to start work on a restoration nursery that is expected to produce more than 60,000 native plants over the next 10 years. The project is awaiting permits from the Department of Fish and Game and California Coastal Commission.

Meanwhile, the Bolsa Chica Conservancy plans to hold another public workshop Jan. 19 to get ideas for its upcoming Education and Restoration Center in the Harriett M. Wieder Regional Park.

Development on parts of the site should continue throughout 2010, as Hearthside Homes has already broken ground on the Brightwater project and Shea Homes awaits Coastal Commission approval for the Parkside Estates development.

Officer’s case goes to court

An investigation by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County district attorney led to charging a Huntington Beach police officer with 17 felony counts for abusing his wife and girlfriend.

James Roberts III pleaded not guilty to eight felony counts of false imprisonment by violence or deceit, three counts of criminal threats, two counts of domestic battery with corporeal injury, two counts of aggravated assault and one count each of dissuading a witness and vandalism. The charges hold a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Roberts is accused of a series of physical abuses against his wife and threatening to kill her. Roberts is also suspected of assaulting his girlfriend. He has been out on $250,000 bail and is expected to begin pretrial Monday.

His wife also filed a lawsuit against the city claiming officials, including those in the Police Department, were conspiring with Roberts to cover up the alleged transgressions. The lawsuit names several officers, including Chief Ken Small. No court date is set yet for the civil lawsuit.

Church of the Red Onion

Calvary Chapel of the Harbour may not operate out of a shoe box much longer.

The only church in Sunset Beach — and, many believe, the only one in the community’s history — has operated since 2003 in a rented space at the Sunset Beach Women’s Club, and the congregation has swelled to the point where nearly every Sunday service has a standing overflow crowd. Pastor Joe Pedick and his wife, Kathleen, have leased a space at Peter’s Landing Marina and hope to move the church this year.

The Huntington Beach Planning Commission gave the Pedicks a conditional use permit in December to move into the space once occupied by the Red Onion restaurant. If the Coastal Commission also gives the green light, Calvary Chapel may enjoy something it hasn’t had since its first small congregation seven years ago: a Sunday service where everyone can sit down.

Trial continues for Williams suspect

The disappearance of 23-year-old Dane Williams went unsolved for nearly two years, but now a suspect has been identified.

San Diego resident Philong Huynh, 39, was charged with one count of murder and one count of sexual assault for allegedly drugging and raping Williams and an additional count of sexual assault for a separate case.

Williams left a nightclub in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter on Jan. 26, 2008, and wasn’t seen again for three days until his body was found in a neighborhood alley. The autopsy didn’t provide any leads, and it wasn’t until September that officials put together the pieces and arrested Huynh.

Huynh’s pretrial began last month for the other victim and will continue in Feb. 23 in San Diego for the portion of the case relating to Williams.

Poseidon plant seeks approval

The furor over Poseidon Resources’ planned desalination plant in Huntington Beach has raged for the better part of a decade, and the debate shows no signs of letting up this year.

The Connecticut-based company needs approval from the State Lands Commission and Coastal Commission before it can break ground on the facility by the AES power plant on Newland Street. Spokesman Brian Lochrie said he expected the Lands Commission to rule on the project in the last quarter of the year, with the Coastal Commission likely to follow soon after.

If those approvals come through, Lochrie said, the Poseidon plant should break ground at the start of 2011. Still, it appears unlikely that Poseidon’s longtime opponents — including the grass-roots group Residents for Responsible Desalination — will go without a fight, which could make 2010 another tumultuous year for the long-awaited project.