Citys

The first of three disaster planning workshops this month will be Tuesday, Newport Beach fire officials said. The two-hour workshops focus on the city’s newly completed Hazard Mitigation Plan — the city’s strategy for preparing for unexpected disasters, both natural and man-made. The plan outlines what the city needs to do to protect the city and what they would do should disaster strike. All residents who live or work in Newport Beach are invited to the workshops.

If you’re a Costa Mesa homeowner like I am, getting around to home repairs and improvement projects often falls somewhere behind work, grocery shopping, walking the dogs, vacuuming the house and probably about 100 other things we do in our daily life. Unless it’s a crisis like a plugged toilet, broken gas line or the electrical outlet next to the television set on Super Bowl weekend, it’s easy to set aside needed repairs and maintenance. Costa Mesa officials are offering an incentive for us “I’ll get to it next month” types as well as those who are always on top of their repairs and the latest home improvement.

The leaders of the union representing Costa Mesa’s firefighters fired back at critics of its new contract, saying that increasing pension benefits is in the city’s best interest, not the firefighters’. As part of the city’s recent deal with the union, firefighters will be able to retire with 3% of their annual pay for every year they worked starting at age 50, instead of age 55, which it used to be. For instance, a firefighter who starts at age 20 can now retire at age 50, after 30 years of service, and get 90% of his or her pay (the maximum allowed)

Time Warner representatives will be on hand at the City Council meeting Tuesday night, responding to concerns expressed by residents during a January meeting. Time Warner, the city’s sole provider of cable services, as well as a provider of broadband Internet access and telephone services, has been unpopular with many Costa Mesa residents who say their service and support is sub par. Time Warner became the city’s cable provider in 2006, when it consolidated customers from Adelphia and Comcast.

Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder on Tuesday unveiled a preliminary set of recommendations for spending cuts aimed at closing a projected $9.3-million budget gap. His recommendations include a freeze on filling job vacancies, except for police patrol and sworn firefighter positions; freezing all capital outlay purchases and capital improvement projects; and a freeze on new programs or services, expansion of existing programs and services, as...

The Costa Mesa City Council’s move to form an Orange County Fairgrounds subcommittee during Tuesday’s closed session might have violated the state’s open meeting laws, a critic with knowledge of California meetings laws said. “They should have created the subcommittee in open session because that decision wouldn’t reveal the price and terms of the transaction,” said First Amendment Coalition Executive Director Peter Scheer, an expert on the state’s open-meeting laws.

That zephyr that just blew through here was 2007. It’s gone. Finis. Kaput. Years these days are like teenagers. They have no attention span, and they hang around just long enough to clear out the ice box and empty your wallet. Sigh. So as we send away the two-thousand and seventh year of our Lord to wherever it is consumed time ends up, we stop to noodle on what the next 12 months are likely to deliver to Costa Mesa’s front porch. From where we sit, we’ll sum up the coming year’s programming in one word: Politics.

Changes to Costa Mesa's proposed budget were announced Friday, and they include decreasing Smallwood Park's improvement funding by half - $500,000 to $250,000 - and reallocating that money to help other parks' parking lots and concrete walkways. The City Council will vote on the document Tuesday. City officials are also proposing adding a full-time volunteer coordinator position at a cost of $91,599, giving $78,000 toward an entryway for the Mesa del Mar neighborhood and upgrading the city's broadcasting systems - including those in the council chambers - for as much as $1.25 million.

Irvine's done it again. For the ninth successive year it features on the United States' list of safest cities, the FBI revealed Monday. According to the agency's Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report for 2012, Irvine, with its population of 217,528, demonstrated the lowest per capita violent crime rate in cities with more than 100,000 residents. The Orange County city reported 110 incidents in 2012 - two murders, eight rapes, 29 robberies and 71 aggravated assault offenses.

Regional air-quality regulators floated a compromise this week in the face of fierce debate over the South Coast Air Quality Management District's proposed ban on beach fire rings. An updated rule change proposal released Thursday night softens an earlier iteration of the proposed rule — which would have banned wood-burning fire rings from beaches in Orange and Los Angeles counties — by creating "buffer zones" between fire rings and homes and allowing for greater local control.

In a competitive business environment, Costa Mesa needs to, well, compete. That was the message told to residents this week from a report outlining the city's activities last month at the International Council of Shopping Centers RECon conference in Las Vegas. Mayor Jim Righeimer and Mayor Pro Tem Steve Mensinger - both of whose professional backgrounds are in real estate development and management - city CEO Tom Hatch and three other officials attended the event, which took place May 19 to 22. Their goal was to lure "top-level retail and dining establishments" to the City of the Arts, according to city staff.

The Costa Mesa City Employees Assn. is seeking a temporary restraining order Tuesday morning against an attempt to outsource jobs at the city jail. The proposed contract with G4S Secure Solutions - which is up for a vote of the City Council the same evening - is expected to save the city up to $3.2 million over a five-year period with the firm's "cutting-edge" technology, according to a city news release. No layoffs are projected for city employees under the G4S contract. The workers would be transferred to other positions.

After 30 years with the Newport Beach Police Department, crime prevention specialist Kathy Lowe is retiring Thursday. Lowe joined the department in 1983 as a parking control officer, issuing citations at 19 years old, before becoming the department's first crime prevention specialist in 1997. "I honestly feel so honored to work here," Lowe said. "I have nothing but great memories. It's been an incredibly wonderful journey. " Since 1998, Lowe has helped initiate the Citizens' Police Academy - which aims to help the public understand police operations - neighborhood watch programs throughout the city and several volunteer programs for the department.

The Costa Mesa Planning Commission this week recommended that the City Council adopt an ordinance aimed at fighting problematic properties, such as transient motels and dilapidated homes. The public nuisance abatement ordinance would expand the city's ability to rectify quality-of-life problems, such as crime, hoarding and graffiti. It broadly defines "public nuisances" to include, among other things, a property that is a fire hazard, structurally unsafe, abandoned or dangerous for children, or that has a garage converted into a temporary or permanent living space.

Irvine Mayor Steven Choi believes his city is "one of America's best places in which to have a business. " During his first annual Business Luncheon with the Mayor on Tuesday, he cited a February Orange County Business Journal article that said Irvine's jobs-to-population ratio leads the nation's 100 largest cities at 94.8% and California Employment Development Department findings that local unemployment numbers are at 4.9% - lower than last year's...

Costa Mesa might reconsider which local athletics groups should have greater access to the city's fields and how much they should pay based on whether they compensate their executive staffs or board members. The Parks and Recreation Commission recommended that course of action with a 3-2 vote at its meeting Thursday night. The idea is to draw a distinction between volunteer-based groups and groups that compensate their local officials, commission Chairman Byron de Arakal said before the meeting.

A dredging company reimbursed the city of Newport Beach for $25,000 in damages made to a sewer main, according to city documents. Newport Beach invoiced R.E. Staite Engineering Inc. for damages made Aug. 15 to the main during dredging around the Balboa Yacht Club, 1801 Bayside Drive, according to a city memo. The city received full payment May 17, according to Mary Locey, a city spokeswoman. That payment will cover the repair costs, but does not apply to any future fines that could be imposed by a regulatory agency, according to the city memo.