Balboa Island

County health officials have removed signs near Balboa Island that warned people to stay out of the water on Tuesday after the second sewage spill in the area, according to Corona del Mar Today . The warnings were lifted at 2:30 p.m. Friday, according to the Ocean Water Protection Program  website . The warnings were issued Tuesday afternoon following a small sewage spill that occurred while workers were testing a line they were repairing...

A local woman will sculpt the statue of President Ronald Reagan that the Newport Beach City Council commissioned, now that the city manager has selected her among a group of artists. Miriam Baker, a Balboa Island resident, already sculpted a Reagan statue at Chapman University and was best qualified among the dozen or so artists who applied, officials said. "She's very well-respected and an esteemed artist-sculptor in our area," said Robyn Grant, chair of the city Arts Commission, which recommended that City Manager Dave Kiff choose Baker.

A private construction crew sheared a gas line behind a home on Balboa Island on Tuesday, forcing firefighters to evacuate more than a dozen residents in the area, officials said. About 3:17 p.m., a crew doing construction on a home in the 800 block of South Bay Front was cutting concrete when they also cut a natural gas line, said Newport Beach Fire Department spokeswoman Jennifer Schulz. Firefighters asked 16 residents in the 100 block of Sapphire Avenue to leave the area until it was under control, she said.

A Newport Beach man was found dead in the waters off Balboa Island, county coroner officials said Tuesday evening. The body of Robert LeGallee, 73, was found near North Bay Front and Collins Avenue, according to a coroner press release. Earlier that afternoon, Newport firefighters and lifeguards had responded to that location after receiving a call about a possible drowning, said Jennifer Schulz, Fire Department spokeswoman. A swimmer reported seeing a man in the water between a boat and dock.

I ran into George Yardley at the doctor's office, both of us waiting for our regular checkup, and it reminded me that one part of our city has made a significant contribution to professional sports. Not many places the size of Balboa Island can boast of having had two nationally known professional athletes. Oh, professional athletes might congregate in some desirable place they can now afford. The notorious Dennis Rodman has a home on the peninsula, and a number of other former professionals live in the area, but the idea of having two athletes who were good enough to become professionals actually come from a place as small as Balboa Island is rather amazing.

I have often accused early Balboa Island of being a stodgy place in comparison to old Balboa. Balboa had bootleggers, gamblers, rum runners and their ilk. Balboa Island had ... residents. However, in fairness, I must point out that Balboa Island was at one time the scene of a criminal case that made national and maybe even international headlines. The case was People vs. Spreckels, and it occurred about 50 years ago in quiet, peaceful, boring Balboa Island. I suppose that today, the name Spreckels doesn't mean too much, but in its day, the name ranked right up there in newsworthiness with Rockefeller, Ford or Carnegie.

Lolita Harper William Keith drove 200 miles to visit the neighborhood in which he and his late wife once enjoyed years of happiness and creativity. He reminisces about his former jewelry store -- Keith's Jewelry -- once located in the heart of Balboa Island, and thinks of the keepsake he created in tribute of the quaint community. It was back in the day when smoking was the rage and men carried silver cigarette cases in the fold of their jacket.

Susan McCormack COSTA MESA -- Msgr. Joseph Sharpe, longtime priest, educator and adventurer, died of cancer Tuesday night. He was 85. Sharpe was best known in the Newport-Mesa area for his straightforward sermons at St. John The Baptist Church in Costa Mesa, where he presided from 1976-78, and at St. John Vianney Chapel on Balboa Island, where he presided for 20 years until 1998. As monsignor at St. Vianney, Sharpe led major efforts in 1996 to renovate the church, complete with a redecorated interior, a new stained-glass mural above the main doorway and a new electric organ.

Noaki Schwartz BALBOA ISLAND -- After a dozen long years, the little island community under threat by towering utility poles will finally have its wires and cables moved underground. "It really shouldn't have taken so long," said community leader Steve Bromberg, who's participated in the effort as the Little Balboa Island Property Assn's president until he recently stepped down. He added that the delay was partly because they had to gather petitions and study the project, then faced the recession, followed by some lagging organization.

On Balboa Island, residents take pride in their quaint shops, rival banana stands and picturesque ferry service. But the watery channel that cuts through it, called the Grand Canal, doesn't quite fit that image. Sure, the water still reaches high levels - perhaps even higher than in decades past, one resident says - but much of the sand lining the waterway has sloughed away, leaving a beach of what looks more like slimy mud than fluffy grains. The canal's name hearkens back to the way things once were, when children scoured the canal's shores for seashells or paddled up and down the water on wooden boards, said resident Mike Buettell.

The Newport Beach City Council set its sights Tuesday on initiatives for sculptures and streets. An Arts Master Plan is underway for the city, as is a draft of the Capital Improvement Plan for fiscal year 2014-15, staff explained during a study session. Richard Stein, executive director of Arts Orange County, a nonprofit countywide arts council, helped to put together methods for developing an arts plan. Under his vision, applauded by council members, the city's Arts Commission would appoint members of a Master Plan Steering Committee.

James Butler Beauchamp of Balboa Island passed away January 6, 2014 of natural causes. He lived 85 terrific years. He is survived by his wife Pam, Sister Helen “Beby” his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Jim was born on Flag Day, June 14, 1928 in Glendale, CA to Dr. Curtis and Eva St. Cee Butler Beauchamp. Jim was the youngest of his four siblings; Betty, Bob, Jean, and Helen “Beby”. Though Jim was born in Glendale, CA and raised in Eagle Rock, CA, he spent his summers as a youngster on Balboa Island.

It's my birthday this week, and I intend to ignore it. I have the right! I'll close my eyes, plug my ears and sing "la la la la la!"  Whoosh!  See. My birthday's gone. Call it denial.  Call it anything you like.  But this birthday isn't going to register on the Carnett Richter Scale of Birthdays.  Not like that momentous first birthday did, way, way back. Or the one 35 years later when my beautiful wife, Hedy, surprised me with a huge birthday bash. Or the 65th when Hedy threw another fête and most of my living friends and relations showed up. But, sorry folks, I'm not into it this year.  It's my intention to let this one glide by without notice.  A freighter in the night.

Getting the go-ahead for major construction on Balboa Island is no easy task, but homeowners may get some relief since a federal agency acknowledged an error in the way it calculated a key flooding threshold. The recalculation could also ease insurance rates for those in the area, a flood plain. Until now, any homeowners who wished to make improvements that cost more than 50% of the value of the home (excluding the property value) also needed to comply with a requirement that the home stand nine feet above sea level.

On Balboa Island, narrow streets and houses built side by side can create parking challenges even before holiday visitors descend. But street sweeping, and the parking enforcement that comes with it, continued largely uninterrupted throughout the holiday season - much to the chagrin of at least one resident who received a $54 parking ticket just after 9 a.m. the day after Christmas. Street sweeping operations occur in Newport Beach every weekday except specific holidays, including Christmas Day, New Year's Day and the days before each, as outlined on the city's website.

This week I took a dinghy cruise around the harbor and a bike ride around the Back Bay with the idea of just taking in the sights, sounds and thoughts of the harbor. I started on the east end of the harbor heading south and navigating under the Balboa Island bridge. It was last Sunday, when there was a slight chill in the air but it wasn't yet cold enough to call winter. The smile on my face was caused by the thought that the days are starting to get longer. My smiled brightened when I noticed Rob and Haden McIntosh.

The sun had long set at the bridge to Balboa Island, where 3-year-old Connor Murphy stared off into the harbor, mumbling the words to "Feliz Navidad," which he had recently learned. Off in the distance, the Orange County Sheriff's Department boat approached, spraying water as it led the charge for the 105th annual Newport Beach Christmas boat parade. "Ready?" asked Connor's dad, Bryan. "Santa's boat is coming!" Boats of all sizes -- about 80 in all -- passed one after another by Murphy's perch, casting sparkling reflections onto the dark water.

Last year around this time, it was an almost ubiquitous news item in Newport Beach: the proposed boycott of the annual Christmas Boat Parade by residents who opposed a new city-imposed fee hike on their docks. The grass-roots group Stop the Dock Tax asked property owners to keep their vessels and homes dark out of protest. City Councilman Mike Henn used the Daily Pilot's opinion page to denounce the "sensationalized threats. " As the furor escalated, the tourism bureau, Visit Newport Beach, ended up putting out a statement clarifying that the parade would go on as planned.

Shirley Pepys still hasn't fully pieced together the history of the house whose 100th birthday she'll celebrate this month. Pepys, the creative director of the Balboa Island Museum & Historical Society, moved in 1995 into the home facing the water at 526 S. Bay Front. She hasn't found documentation of who built the house but has confirmed that Leonora May Collins, the sister-in-law of Balboa Island developer W.S. Collins, bought the land in June 1911. Some of the house's owners may be lost to history as well, but Pepys knows that Charles and Muriel Gay, who owned an African lion attraction in El Monte, lived there around the World War II years.