Balboa

A drumline and cheerleaders welcomed six visiting Japanese exchange students to Corona del Mar Middle School on Friday. An assembly in a packed gymnasium recognized the visitors from Okazaki. The Japanese students are taking their turn in the U.S. after hosting Newport Beach students over the summer. They leave on Monday for San Francisco. The visiting delegation wrote in calligraphy, shared their dreams and performed traditional dance. Japanese student Yuta Ohura sang the U.S. national anthem for the first time.

Despite cries from equestrians and their supporters, the Newport Beach City Council voted this week to delay building a planned multiuse trail in Santa Ana Heights. Some homeowners on Mesa Drive on Tuesday protested the proposed trail, claiming it would devalue their property and that riders have enough trails already. The conflict stretches back years and stems from when the city annexed the area, inheriting a trail plan from the county. The trail's public right of way today is filled with landscaping and other encroachments from private estates overlooking Upper Newport Bay, which rides contend is unfair.

The year was 1975. Mary Tyler Moore was starring in one of America's most watched situation comedies. After a year of knocking on doors in Hollywood and trying to land any kind of job, I was hired at CBS-Television City and sent into a windowless basement office. It had concrete walls and metal shelves overflowing with letters from fans requesting tickets to be in the studio audience to attend a filming of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show. " It was my first job in television, and it paid the princely after-tax sum of $80 per week.

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 dredging company this week sheared a sewage line, spilling thousands of gallons of bacteria-filled matter into Newport Bay. The area will be closed to swimmers through at least the weekend. Orange County Health Care Agency officials said they will need to see two consecutive days of clean samples from the water off the east edge of Newport Harbor, from Bayside Drive at Balboa Island to the edge of the Harbor Patrol headquarters to the south, before they reopen it. In the meantime, city workers and crews from RE Staite, the dredging company that broke the line, will investigate the break and figure out how to fix it. About 11 p.m. Wednesday, a dredging vessel broke off a 3-foot piece of an 8-inch wide main sewer line between the island and the mainland at Bayside Drive, spilling about 2,800 gallons of raw sewage into the water.

Max Dillman June 3, 1925 - Aug. 5, 2012 Beloved father, grandfather, great-grandfather and friend, Max was a Balboa resident for over 55 years. Originally born in Alhambra, Max made many long lasting friends who he continued to stay in touch with over the years. There were no strangers in Max's life, only friends he hadn't met yet. He served in the US Navy during WWII on a PBY Catalina in the South Pacific. A baseball player and fan all his life, he played catcher for the Reno Silver Sox in 1947.

As the waters in Newport Beach slowly rise, the City Council decided it could wait a little longer to replace the Balboa Island seawalls. Councilman Ed Selich, who represents the island, asked that the council delay its scheduled vote Tuesday on a contract to design new seawalls and prepare construction documents. After the council meeting, he said he had dozens of questions about the project, but generally supported it. Balboa and Little Balboa islands, which are four feet above sea level in some spots, have 1930s-era seawalls that are cracking in places.

It may still be another year before city officials can begin construction on Marina Park, the planned Balboa Peninsula community center. Although the California Coastal Commission approved the plans in June, the city of Newport Beach still has to obtain a coastal development permit, settle issues relating to a faux lighthouse, and budget for the $20-million project, said Public Works Director Steve Badum. Badum and Senior Civil Engineer Iris Lee presented the latest Marina Park plans Wednesday during a Speak Up Newport meeting.

The Newport Beach Harbor Commission will review a plan Wednesday for about $100 million worth of projects. The projects range from more dredging in Newport Harbor to replacing Balboa Island's seawalls. Maintenance of Newport's tidelands, areas including the beaches, bays and marshes, is partially paid by fees levied on harbor users and businesses, but city leaders say the needs far exceed that budget. This list, produced by the Tidelands Management Committee, is an effort to quantify all of the projected costs.

The Newport Beach City Council voted Tuesday to allocate an additional $3.9 million to dredging the harbor's shallowest spots, bringing the total project to $10.4 million, including federal funds. Some of the remaining sediment is contaminated with chemicals that cannot be sunk in the open ocean. The city has been dumping some similar material at the Port of Long Beach, which is using the dirt for a construction project. But the port recently told the city that it is full at the moment.