NEWS
By Emily Foxhall | April 26, 2014
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.
NEWS
By Emily Foxhall | April 9, 2014
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.
NEWS
January 21, 2014
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.
NEWS
By Jim Carnett | January 20, 2014
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.
NEWS
By Emily Foxhall | January 17, 2014
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.
NEWS
By Emily Foxhall | December 30, 2013
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.
NEWS
By Len Bose | December 27, 2013
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.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Emily Foxhall | December 18, 2013
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.
NEWS
By Michael Miller | December 11, 2013
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.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Michael Miller | December 3, 2013
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.