On October 9, 2011 a statue was dedicated in Newport Beach, CA to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan. Similair events have taken place around the country and across the world.
The striking statue likeness of President Reagan in Newport Beach was created by sculptor Miriam Baker of Balboa Island, CA. A long-time resident and artist based in the city.
WATCH AND LISTEN:
Yesterday the statue was vandalized in an attempt to steal or destroy it. Police are still investigating the case. No suspects have been arrested. If you have any information concerning this case contact the Newport Beach Police Department.
The Newport Beach Police Department released this informaiton concerning the case:
"On Sunday, November 6, at approximately 5:30 a.m. officers responded to a vandalism in progress at Bonita Canyon Sports Park. A witness observed a suspect attaching what appeared to be a chain or rope to the Ronald Reagan statue. The chain was secured to the suspect's vehicle and he was attempting to pull the statue down. Officers searched the area for the suspect however he was not located. The suspect was last seen fleeing into the Port Streets neighborhood. Anyone with information regarding this crime is asked to contact the Newport Beach Police Department at (949) 644-3717."
- Suspect Description: Male, wearing dark clothing - Suspect Vehicle: Tan pickup truck (unk model), extended cab, early 2000's model year
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ALSO CONTACT:
NEWPORT BEACH NOW with any tips or information concerning this case. Any information provided be will be reviewed by 20-year veteran national-award winning investigative journalist Eric Longabardi.
EMAIL: newstips@theenterprisereport.com
* ALL INFORMATION WILL BE TREATED WITH COMPLETE CONFIDENTIALITY *
Last month I took my annual jaunt down to the harbor to take in the American Legion Yacht Club's wooden boat festival. An event I've enjoyed for many years.
In addition to the wide varieties of wooden boats on display, the highlight for me was taking a tour of the tall brigantine ship, 'Irving Johnson'. The 'Irving Johnson' and the 'Exy Johnson' later raced off Newport Beach between the Newport and Balboa piers.
The "Exy" as it is known prevailed according to a few 'sea-tales' I later heard.
Once you watch the video below you will see the Captain of the 'Irving Johnson' may be without a crew today because of a bet he made with me!
As official investigations continue into why a large tree on Irvine Avenue, on the border of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa fell last killing Haeyoon Miller, 29 of Tustin, CA. A new video has surfaced showing the rescue attempt at the scene shortly after the tree fell.
The video shows rescue efforts underway at the scene as well as when the giant tree was finally lifted off the car.
This past Sunday I had the honor of attending a fundraiser for the family of Navy SEAL Stephen "Matt" Mills. The event, a benefit tennis tournament was held at the Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach on August 28th.
As a small token to Matt Mills and his family, I offer this video tribute to Matt and his family's courage, dedication, sacrifice and honor in fighting for and unfortunately dying for what he believed in as an American. Your son Cash should always know who is dad was and what he did. It was an honor to have been able to walk for only a moment in your immense shadow last Sunday.
I also dedicate this short video to those like you who have and continue to put their lives on the line each and every day to protect and defend this great nation of ours from enemies wherever they may be.
Tonight the Newport Beach City Council will decide whether or not to provide funding to a variety of special events that take place in Newport Beach each year. These are not direct City sponsored events, these are private events that are held in the city and are operated by others for profit and sometimes for charity.
A staff report recently prepared by the City recommends that Newport the City provide the Newport Beach Film festival with nearly $75,000 in funding from the City coffers. Last year the Newport Beach Film Festival received $100,000 in funding from the City
The reason for doing so can be boiled down to its essence. The City believes it is helping promote and foster events that help promote the city and bring people and money to it. Or more precisely what the application for support clearly states the City is looking for is events that should "advance the City of Newport Beach as an exciting place to live, play, learn, work, and visit." I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it was #1 on the City listing of of what the City claims it is looking for from applicants seeking city money and support.
I've been a film goer for a long time. I even went to TV/film school and graduated long ago with a college degree somehow. I even manage to still own a 16mm film camera named a K-3 (made by the Russians, that's short for Kransnogorsk-3) although I've never actually used it. I'm more of TV/video kind of guy. But I've loaned it out a few times to budding filmmakers. I've also worked in the 'media-storytelling' business for a long time myself.
Despite all that, when I decide to go see a movie I have to pay for a ticket and I bet you do too. Unless of course I'm doing my job as a working reporter on something related to the film business or a film festival. In that case I have to request a press credential. If I end up getting one, I can then cover the events without having to spring for the tickets out of my own pocket to see something that requires a paid ticket to get in.
For the rest of you, me included, when it's non-work related, I have to buy a ticket or be left out in the cold waiting for the next show!
Like you I might be able to get a discount by attending a matinee, or buying tickets in bulk at Costco or online somewhere else if I decide to make the effort. I never seem to do so, most the time I end up plucking down the full price, which is about 12 bucks these days. Either way, you and I have to pay to go see our favorite movie-de-jour. I was even paid to see "Joe vs. The Volcano" and walked out and didn't get a cent back!
That's not the case if you work for the City of Newport Beach.
I'm sure there's a perfectly legitimate reason why the employees of the City of Newport Beach received just over $9000 dollars of free tickets to the Newport Beach Film Festival in 2010 alone. And in 2011 nearly $4,000 dollars worth of free tickets. Back in 2009 it was but a paltry (by comparison to more recent years) $2,010. That's $15K worth of movies! And it should be noted that the festival has been around for at least 10 years so who knows how far back this giveaway has been going on.
On top of that, it's not just movie screening tickets were talking about. In this case it's tickets to the swanky festival parties that open and close the event. In 2010, 51 tickets at $125 a piece were handed out to city employees just to attend the glitzy Newport Beach Film Festival opening party held at Fashion Island that kicks off the film festival.
Now, I do understand that some of the tickets were given out to Newport Beach City Council members like Keith Curry (former Mayor), Rush Hill, Mike Henn (current Mayor) and other City Council members, who's job it is to attend events like these and to promote the City in the process. I have no problem with that, as long as the freebie isn't abused. From the records I've reviewed it looks like the City Council has been very honorable on this issue, only taking a few tickets here and there.
But according to disclosures mandated by the Fair Political Practices Commision, a state agency that overseas gift giving to government officials, the free ticket giveaway may have got a little out of hand in 2010 with others at Newport's City Hall. The City is required under state law to file the forms, called 802s, disclosing what free tickets they receive every year and what they do with them.
In 2010 according to the disclosure forms, 51 tickets at $125 each were handed out to everybody from the City Council to city employees who I'm really confident don't have anything in their job description that requires them to attend swanky film festival parties to promote the city.
People like the Dustin Burnside of the Utilities Dept. and Susan Seviane of the City's Administrative Services. Nothing against these two City employees, I just randomly picked them out of the list disclosed by the City. Sorry if I ruined your day. Nothing personal, your bosses are the one's that set the ethics policies so I won't be too hard on you.
Now it may seem like nit-picking to some people in a city as affluent as Newport Beach, but just that one-night event in 2010 totaled nearly $6,400 dollars of free party tickets.
I did a little quick math and found out according to the City's mandated disclosures for 2009, 2010 and 2011, that Newport Beach has doled out nearly $15,000 in free tickets to City employees in just the past three years.
In 2010 alone, two Newport Beach Art Commissioners, Rita Goldberg and Wendy Brooks snatched up 14 and 18 free general admission screening tickets by themselves. The cost: $384 combined. Now I know that's not going to balance the national debt or fund the City's new Civic Center by any means, but nearly $400 worth of free movie tickets sure is a nice perk!
But I can tell you that in the wake of the city cutting a number of special events for children, like the well attended Easter Egg Hunt at Bonita Canyon Park and other events like the Police/Fire Open house and it seems the always packed Christmas time "Winterwonderland" event, city employee time could be much better spend finding ways to raise the needed funds for events like these or find ways to spend taxpayer money more wisely so events like these wouldn't have to be cut in the first place.
Now I don't know for sure if all these free perks over the years have anything to do with the Newport Beach Film Festival scoring the second highest in a new method of determining who gets the City's money -- most likely another $75,000 in City support this year, but a recent staff report recommend just that. If I was a betting man i'd have to say there are a lot of people in City Hall who would approve and support just that. Last year the city gave the Newport film festival $100,000. I guess in some circles the reduction might be called "belt-tightening".
Nevertheless, I think most taxpayers in this City would agree with me that City employees who want to attend the Newport Beach Film Festival should pay for their own tickets just like everybody else does.
Send the Mayor and a few City Council members to be a part of the events if need be, but don't perpetuate yet another example of why people are so fed up with public officials and their free spending entitlement based mentality that has voters and taxpayers outraged in Newport Beach and elsewhere around the county.
One thing I found refreshing in all of this is current Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff. He's been on the job since mid-2009 and didn't take any free tickets according to the City's own reporting. I guess either he's a not a movie buff or just didn't have the time, who knows? Maybe Kiff thinks it's beneath a highly paid public servant (Kiff makes nearly $300K yearly salary compensation) paid with taxpayer dollars to stoop to such a low level. I tried to ask Kiff about all this, but he didn't get back to me today. So I am hoping it's my latter guess as to why he didn't get take any freebies.
As for the rest of of City employees who took the tickets and enjoyed the perks with little public scrutiny until now I have one thing to say. Buy your own movie tickets will you please! This just doesn't pass the smell test on any level. This kind of stuff is what really pisses off taxpayers and rightfully so in my opinion.
If you would like to read all the facts and figures for yourself they are on the City of Newport Beach's website. They are not exactly easy to find, so here's the direct link.
Back in January of this year I wrote extensively about the case of Dennis Holland and his dispute with the City of Newport Beach. The case really isn't that complicated, Dennis believes that he has the right to do what he wants on his own property as long as he's not hurting anybody else.
The City of Newport Beach used to agree with him, they don't anymore.
In fact, Dennis had the law on his side in 2006 when he brought a dying old 72-foot ketch named 'Shawnee' to his property on Holiday Road to save it from being destroyed. Back then the City of Newport Beach had no problem with him doing so and assisted him.
That was then and this is now.
The problem now is that restoring a nearly 100 year-old, 72-foot long ketch is no fast process. That is especially true when your 65-years old, doing it on your own dime and fighting prostate cancer at the same time. Some of Holland's neighbors don't like seeing the boat everyday, but others don't mind it one bit.
In 2009, after some of those neighbors convinced their local City Councilman that the City needed to do something about what they considered a problem, the City changed the rules on Mr. Holland. They passed an ordinance directed at him to prohibit exactly what he was already doing and what was perfectly legal to do when he began doing it.
Now they say he's breaking the law and that he lest not mess with City Hall. Well Dennis and a few other neighbors, those who disagree say, not so fast.
NewportBeachNow spoke to Dennis Holland yesterday at his home. We asked him what he thought about this whole dispute with the City of Newport Beach and where it may be heading now:
Now I think and hope everybody in this dispute will agree, playing by the rules in America, is something we try and teach our kids to do, I do. But to me that is not what happened in this case. I think when somebody decides they don't like the rules and get themselves a politician or two, waves money at them and gets their attention by doing so -- although we all know that's how politics in America works these days, that just shouldn't be how it works. It just doesn't pass the smell test in my opinion. When that happens, right or wrong no longer matters. It comes down to how much money you have to influence what you want to happen. As I said in my last column about this story, that is about as rotten as the rotten timbers still barely holding the Shawnee together today.
I did seek the comment of various Newport Beach City Council members who voted to pursue legal action against Mr. Holland. So far three have responded and I'll have more about that part of the story next week. Their responses came to late to incorporate into this column. Rush Hill, the primary focus of my previous column months ago, has yet to respond at all.
Dennis Holland was hailed as a hero for building the 118-foot 'Pilgrim of Newport' in the front yard of his Costa Mesa home in the 1980's. That project took him 12 years. In that case the City of Costa Mesa never bothered Holland and his neighbors mostly supported him.
Now Holland lives in Newport Beach and it seems to me that this story has as much to do about the differences between Newport Beach and Costa Mesa than it does anything else. Maybe Holland should have called his last at-home ship project, the 'Pilgrim of Costa Mesa'. He may be having second thoughts at this point, but knowing Mr. Holland, I doubt that, he never looks back, only forward. Costa Mesa doesn't have a harbor or any yacht clubs, so I have a good idea why he dubbed his boat in the name of Newport Beach. Holland also grew up in the city and is a graduate of Corona Del Mar High School, that alone is enough reason to do so.
As the old saying goes, "money talks and %$@ walks" and that is just not right according to this columnist. Not even in Newport Beach.
NewportBeachNow will have more on this story next week.
The Los Angeles Press Club has named Newport Beach Now a finalist in it's 53rd Annual SoCal Journalism Awards for Online Column/Commentary.
Now since I've only been doing a column/commentary for less than 6 months in a 20-year long journalism career, maybe that's a sign from higher authority that I should give up my "day job" career as a serious journalist.
Forgive me, but I don't consider column writing or opinion "serious journalism". That's no slam on columnists, since I guess I now happen to be one and an award worthy one as well?. But in my "not so humble opinion" (hope you savvy readers caught that tie-in plug!) it's a lot easier to just state an opinion and let the useful facts make their way into your story and let the non-useful ones end up in the trash-bin!
I know I'm so 'old-school' when it comes to that kind of quaint notion, but I was always taught that you keep your opinions and biases out of your work as a journalist as much as possible to be an objective journalist. I didn't even go to journalism school!
Well forget that for now, you're all a bunch of nincompoops and you don't know what you're talking about. That includes you Los Angeles Press Club SoCal Journalism Award judges!.
If I win this award I want to dedicate it to my daughter Sophia in the name of former President Harry S Truman who was given an award by the LA Press Club just for showing up in 1948. The picture caption of the event in The Los Angeles Examiner read "Good for a Good Laugh". Now that's my kind of award!
Why Truman and why now you might ask? Because the award given to President Truman was recently appraised at between $12,000 and $20,000 dollars by PBS 'Antique Roadshow'! Now I don't know what mine might be worth 50 years from now, but if it's worth half that my daughter may have a little extra spending cash decades from now!
The story of Newport Beach businessman Chris Welch and his quest to explore the deepest regions of the earths oceans was big news this week in Newport. Welch is teaming with British billionaire Sir Richard Branson to make the adventure possible. They were both in Newport Beach to announce the project on Tuesday.
You can read more about the story at the Newport Beach Independent: Going Deep
This new video from Virgin Atlantic was just released. Take a look:
