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Irvine City Councilman Jeffrey Lalloway last week launched a new website designed to give locals a glimpse into the inner workings of city government. "It's a way for me to encourage the people of Irvine to get more involved with their local government as issues come up," Lalloway said. "Local government has the greatest impact on our daily lives, and I think people need to be knowledgeable about what happens so that when things come up they can voice their support or opposition, or even just understand it. " Lalloway is the first Irvine council member to use a blog to connect with the community.

On the Web and seeking community responses since Oct. 31, city-run site has yet to receive a comment. Newport's technology leader says city is ahead of the curve.The city of Newport Beach has launched its first blog in the hope of eliciting more community feedback about proposals for the Marinapark property. The blog, the brainchild of Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff, was created about two weeks ago but is so far bare of any suggestions or complaints. The City Council has been debating what to do with the city-owned Marinapark property for years.

It’s no secret the news business is in a state of flux. Every news outlet I can think of is trying to grapple with this beast we call “the net,” as in the Internet. And for a simple reason: More and more, that’s where readers are migrating — for free information about their communities, their states, their nations and the world at large. We at the Daily Pilot have made exhaustive efforts to make our website as interesting and relevant as possible, all in the name of drawing eyeballs to our hyper-local — “if it doesn’t happen in Newport Beach or Costa Mesa, it’s not news to us” — product.

Children at Mariners Christian School are learning Spanish with a 21st-century twist: Reading the blog of a former student studying Spanish in Uruguay. Dozens of second-graders were reading portions of a blog sent to them by Lauren Johnson, a Newport Beach resident studying in Montevideo through Abilene Christian University in Texas. Johnson, 20, decided to share her cultural journey with a younger generation. Johnson, whose blog is called Tráigame Uruguay , or Bring Me Uruguay, gives the students first-hand information on the culture, people and food.

CORONA DEL MAR — Jenny Flake can't wait for the holidays. "This is the baking season," she said. "I love it. " For Flake, the baking and cooking season is pretty much year-round. When she's not inventing recipes in her home kitchen, or winning national cooking and baking contests, Flake writes the Picky Palate blog, which includes recipes as well as news about her food-blogging travels. Flake, a former dental hygienist, describes herself as a self-taught cook who became inspired by television cooking shows.

The Village Inn that exists in Balboa Island resident Ken Edward’s head is populated with an uppity South Bayfront resident named Olga Renderklott who has appointed herself the unofficial spokeswoman of the “YES on underground utilities” movement and a female bartender whose alter ego wears a beehive hairdo and goes by the name Trixie Louise. The real Village Inn, Balboa Island’s only full bar, a red brick tavern on the corner of Marine and Park avenues, has more beer on tap than intrigue, but it’s just as homey, Edwards said.

R ecently I've learned something about addiction. I've learned how easy it is to become hooked on something and how painful it can be when that is taken from you. My addiction is the "comments" feature on the Daily Pilot online. Last week, in the middle of the morning, the Daily Pilot changed horses, so to speak. The paper abandoned its old purveyor of online content, Town News, and began using the Tribune Co.'s platform — the same one that the Los Angeles Times uses. Unfortunately, some features were lost during the transition, although we've been told those will soon be up and running again.

Like most residents of Newport-Mesa, this week I read with great distress the articles reporting the beating administered to a young female Horace Ensign Middle School student by two freshman girls from Newport Harbor High School — an event that was recorded by another girl while a fourth stood and watched the beating. The video of the event apparently was uploaded to YouTube and advertised on MySpace. I’ve read the blog comments in this newspaper and others, most of which call for extreme penalties for the girls in question, including the two who recorded the event and didn’t try to stop it. Others called for sanctions on the parents of the girls.

Candidates for U.S. House seat count their fundraising totals; Marinapark blog generates some interest; Chuck DeVore's wife posts her pumpkin pie recipe to much acclaim. As families around the 48th Congressional District prepare to carve their birds and fill their bellies, candidates for the open U.S. House seat are preparing to count their cash. In the last two weeks, Republican state Sen. John Campbell, Democratic candidate Steve Young and American Independent Party candidate Jim Gilchrist have all held fundraisers to help pay for that last mailer or ad before the Dec. 6 election.

As I was reading the Daily Pilot online late Monday I had to stop and chuckle when I got to the Forum page and found three letters to the editor. Two of them were very critical of the recent website design change — understandably so. The new online design, while much sharper and very clean looking, is incomplete, and it's that element that most readers just don't like. They can't find old familiar sections, no matter how hard they try. One reader, Erin Jackson, writing from Ferndale, Mich.

A local mom took a beef with school officials to the Internet last week after her son was sent to the vice principal's office for having in his lunch a glass bottle of fermented Kombucha tea, which contains small amounts of alcohol. Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials said administrators followed standard protocol in a situation possibly involving banned substances after the Ensign Intermediate School seventh-grader was overheard telling other students he had alcohol. But the 11-year-old boy's mother was "irate" over the school's response.

A federal judge has ruled partially in favor of the Liberal OC blog in a lawsuit against the former editor of another well-read political site, the Orange Juice Blog. U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter awarded $30,000 in damages for cybersquatting in a partial summary judgment to Thinking Liberally Media, Liberal OC's owner, and Irvine-based Madison Alexander PR, according to court records. The court has previously ordered the Orange Juice Blog to pay $17,000 in damages.

The Orange County Fair & Events Center will launch its own blog Friday at ocfair.com, officials announced at Thursday's Fair Board meeting. As part of a broader public outreach effort by fair officials following record-setting attendance at the summer's event, Chief Executive Steven Beazley will submit the blog's first entry. He will discuss the 2012 fair's theme, "Home Sweet Home," and how he selected it. Besides the blog, the Fair Board also plans on holding a public information night in January where residents can discuss the future of the fair, the Pacific Amphitheatre and any other questions or concerns they may have.

COSTA MESA - When you're done reading this article, real estate insider Holly Schwartz has 365 ideas for what to do with the rest of your day. As author of 365 Things to Do in Costa Mesa, a Torelli Realty blog that highlights local events, places and activities, Schwartz is the unofficial expert on what residents love most about the city. "There's so much going on here," said Schwartz, Torelli Realty's vice president of media and marketing. "Costa Mesa really is a small city with a big-town heart.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This obituary originally appeared on a blog, "A Bubbling Cauldron," and was reprinted with permission . COSTA MESA — After a week filled with sadness in Costa Mesa, I must report that my friend Bruce Garlich, a former Costa Mesa Planning Commissioner who twice ran for City Council, has died. He died of cancer Tuesday evening, after a brief stay in hospice care. He was 74. As many Costa Mesans will know, Bruce was a pillar of our community.

Irvine City Councilman Jeffrey Lalloway last week launched a new website designed to give locals a glimpse into the inner workings of city government. "It's a way for me to encourage the people of Irvine to get more involved with their local government as issues come up," Lalloway said. "Local government has the greatest impact on our daily lives, and I think people need to be knowledgeable about what happens so that when things come up they can voice their support or opposition, or even just understand it. " Lalloway is the first Irvine council member to use a blog to connect with the community.

CORONA DEL MAR — A varsity soccer player in her freshman year at Corona del Mar High School, Kirsten Morehouse can now add paid Nordstrom fashion blogger to her resume. The 14-year-old is no stranger to the Web. She started a fashion blog at 13 with friend Nina Nelson called InBTeen , for young adults who feel in between teen and adult fashions. The pair wrote age-appropriate online style guides on trends. When she started high school this year, she was at Nordstrom with her mother and noticed a board in the dressing room of the juniors department, Brass Plum.

CORONA DEL MAR — Jenny Flake can't wait for the holidays. "This is the baking season," she said. "I love it. " For Flake, the baking and cooking season is pretty much year-round. When she's not inventing recipes in her home kitchen, or winning national cooking and baking contests, Flake writes the Picky Palate blog, which includes recipes as well as news about her food-blogging travels. Flake, a former dental hygienist, describes herself as a self-taught cook who became inspired by television cooking shows.

As I was reading the Daily Pilot online late Monday I had to stop and chuckle when I got to the Forum page and found three letters to the editor. Two of them were very critical of the recent website design change — understandably so. The new online design, while much sharper and very clean looking, is incomplete, and it's that element that most readers just don't like. They can't find old familiar sections, no matter how hard they try. One reader, Erin Jackson, writing from Ferndale, Mich.

R ecently I've learned something about addiction. I've learned how easy it is to become hooked on something and how painful it can be when that is taken from you. My addiction is the "comments" feature on the Daily Pilot online. Last week, in the middle of the morning, the Daily Pilot changed horses, so to speak. The paper abandoned its old purveyor of online content, Town News, and began using the Tribune Co.'s platform — the same one that the Los Angeles Times uses. Unfortunately, some features were lost during the transition, although we've been told those will soon be up and running again.