Courts

Art Hernandez is ready to hold court. It's something he's become accustomed to. The former UC Irvine standout has several national senior tennis titles to his credit — seven to be exact — and will attempt to add another this weekend by defending a championship he won last year in his own backyard: a doubles title at the Huntington Beach Open. Pacific Sands Cabana Club in Huntington Beach is hosting the annual event, which is holding its 50th anniversary tournament that began Friday at various tennis venues in the city.

COSTA MESA — The state appellate court has agreed to extend the Orange County Fairgrounds hearing to give Gov. Jerry Brown time to review the case, according to court records. The hearing date has not been set yet, but it's no longer taking place Feb. 8. The Department of General Services, which is in charge of selling the fairgrounds, asked the court and the parties involved in the lawsuit opposing the sale of the property to give the new governor 30 days to review the case and determine how he wishes to proceed.

The sign on the gate of the 12 tennis courts at OCC reads, “The OCC Tennis Facility is reserved for scheduled physical education classes, team events and approved rentals. The court is therefore subject to closure during these times.” I take that to mean that if it isn’t one of those times, the courts will be open for use by the public. Often they are, but often they’re not. Last week I ran into a coach while hitting a tennis ball against the wall on one of the three remaining handball courts.

State Sen. Tom Harman agrees with a state appellate court’s decision to allow children to be home schooled by parents who may not have a teaching credential, he said in a news release Friday. The court’s decision is a reversal from its stance earlier this year, when the California’s 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals effectively prohibited parents statewide from home schooling their children, affecting an estimated 166,000 children, if they did not have a teaching credential.

RICK DEVEREUX There is a reality TV show where contestants see the best plastic surgeons, cosmetic dentists and therapists in hopes of turning an ugly duckling into a swan. While never an ugly duckling, the Mesa Verde Tennis Club might win if it was a contestant considering all of the changes taking place and being planned. To begin with, all 10 tennis courts were resurfaced with Plexipave, the same surface used at Flushing Meadows in New York. The process started May 3 and people were swinging racquets on the new courts May 14. Randy Meyers, director of tennis, said using the same surface as the one used at the U.S. Open was no coincidence.

Costa Mesa resident Reese Stalder won a boys' 14 doubles title Tuesday at a USTA national tournament at Woodbridge Tennis Club in Irvine. Stalder won with his partner, Rafael Lenhard of Carlsbad. The No. 2 seeds defeated No. 7-seeded Max Pham of Newport Coast and Ryan Cheng of San Marino, 8-6, in the championship match. Stalder is ranked No. 3 in Southern California in boys' 14 doubles. He will be a freshman at Newport Harbor High in the fall. His older sister Samantha, who will be a junior at Harbor, is in the semifinals of the Chapman tournament this weekend.

On Jan. 21, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to overturn limits that had been in place for a century on how much money corporations could spend on influencing voters in federal elections. The court’s conservative bloc ruled that corporations have the same right to free speech as do individuals, so the government cannot place limits on how much corporations spend on helping out their preferred candidates. Democrats and the Obama administration criticized the court’s decision, saying it was a victory for big-money special interest groups that allows such interests to spend freely in federal campaigns and "drown out the voices of everyday Americans."

June Casagrande NEWPORT BEACH -- Many remember her from the days when there was little more than four tennis courts and a card table. She remembers when there was nothing there at all. After 36 years as one of Newport Beach Tennis Club's most central characters, Carole Johnson, is retiring. Amid hundreds of members and well-wishers, the club co-founder and longtime employee said her goodbyes this week over salad and iced tea. "We'll really miss you," Cathie Hall told Johnson at the well-attended, casual goodbye luncheon Thursday.

The Mesa Verde Tennis Club is starting to catch up with the Mesa Verde Country Club in terms of redesign and renovation. Last March the golf clubhouse received an $8.1 million renovation. This May the tennis courts were resurfaced with Plexipave, the same surface used at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., for the U.S. Open. But between the beautiful courts and the pristine clubhouse lies the tennis clubhouse. "It was a temporary building when it was built 40 years ago," said Rolf Jaeger, chairman of the tennis committee.

Retired tennis great Andre Agassi is coming to Newport Beach this summer as part of the World TeamTennis tour, league officials announced Thursday. The league pits former and current tennis champions from John McEnroe to Serena Williams against each other in coed matches played on multicolored courts. Agassi retired from the professional tennis circuit a few years ago as one of the oldest premier tennis players on tour, having earned eight grand slam titles. He played World TeamTennis before from 2002 to 2004.

Newport Beach's city attorney said Monday that the city plans to ask a judge this week to close seven recovery homes found to be operating outside of the law. The proposal comes after an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that Morningside Recovery in Lido Village operates in violation of a city ordinance barring commercial recovery centers in residential areas. Morningside Chief Executive Mary Helen Beatificato did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

South Coast Plaza played host to a recent letter-writing campaign that organizers believe broke a world record for most cards written for the troops in a single afternoon. The children who participated in the April 27 "Letters from Home" campaign at the Costa Mesa shopping center wrote 507 letters within a four-hour window, according to a news release. The Festival of Children Foundation, a Costa Mesa-based nonprofit, and the Irvine-based Team Kids organized the effort, which took place in the center's Carousel Court.

After private discussions with an Orange County Superior Court judge, the attorney for the Newport Beach Dock Owners Assn. agreed Friday to drop a request for a temporary restraining order that would have kept the city from collecting contested residential pier rent increases. In exchange, the city of Newport Beach will notify the court 15 days before taking any action to revoke pier permits for failure to pay. The hearing with Judge Luis A. Rodriguez was part of the association's lawsuit alleging that the city violated state transparency laws, or Ralph M. Brown Act, in the process to adopt the fee increases.

Newport Beach announced Thursday that it can begin construction of Sunset Ridge Park in West Newport following a state Supreme Court decision not to hear an appeal trying to stop it. The decision ends a three-year legal battle between the city and the Banning Ranch Conservancy, which is seeking to block the proposed residential and commercial development of old oil fields on the border of Newport and Costa Mesa. The conservancy maintained that the city's environmental impact report should have included the adjacent Banning Ranch, which the group sees as an area intermingled with the park.

An appellate court has reduced the prison sentence of a man who raped two women and sexually assaulted a third as she slept in a limousine parked in Costa Mesa. Justices shaved five years from Ali Achekzai's 61-years-to-life sentence. The 4th Appellate District Division 3 issued its ruling on Monday. The three-judge panel said in its decision that Achekzai, 35, was punished twice for a sentencing enhancement of inflicting great bodily harm. He will now serve 56 years to life in prison.

The UC Irvine men's basketball team will play host to High Point University of North Carolina in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Crawford Court. The Anteaters (20-15), who lost to Pacific in the title game of the Big West Conference Tournament on Saturday, are making their first postseason appearance since 2002, when they appeared in the NIT. High Point (17-13) is making its first postseason appearance as an NCAA Division I program.

Its no fluke that UC Irvine senior Adam Folker is a marketing whiz who has already organized and overseen a handful of companies and dozens of employees. He is, after all, a master at maximizing opportunity. In five years with the Anteaters men's basketball program, Folker has evolved from a offensively challenged, banged-around, then banged-up banger, into a productive, polished and inspirational performer on both sides of the floor. A 6-foot-9, 225-pound post player from Markham, Ontario, Canada - a Toronto suburb known more for slap shots than jump hooks - Folker has also taken advantage of several opportunities off the floor.

Criminal and traffic cases from Costa Mesa will soon be heard in Westminster court, officials said Tuesday. Newport Beach's Harbor Justice Center will handle Costa Mesa misdemeanor and felony cases filed before March 18. The West Justice Center, at 8141 13th St. in Westminster, will hear cases filed after that date, according to an announcement from the Orange County Superior Court. All Costa Mesa traffic cases, regardless of when they were filed, will move to the West Justice Center on May 6. The Orange County Superior Court said state budget cuts and the closure of Laguna Hills' traffic operations contributed to the change.

UC Irvine law students will write a new constitution this weekend. Starting Friday, about 60 of them will attend the second annual Global Justice Summit and participate in a mock constitutional convention. By the end of the conference Saturday, the fictional countries of Ruja and Miliana will get a new structure of government, courts and some enumerated rights. The UCI law student who created the summit last year said he needed a brief break from the grind of law. So he created a utopian thought experiment - breaking away from the standard extracurricular activities like mock trials and law review.

An Orange County city that found itself in the eye of a political firestorm after it explored whether to lay off nearly half of its workforce and replace it with private-sector employees is one step closer to repairing a fissure between workers and elected officials. Superior Court Judge Luis A. Rodriguez terminated an 18-month-old court order blocking Costa Mesa from outsourcing some of its services. The injunction took effect not long after an organized labor group, the Costa Mesa Employees Assn., sued the city to block some 200 layoff notices.