New City Hall

Sheriff: O.C. Jail immigration check is enough Last month, the Orange County Sheriff's Department received approval for approximately 20 sworn sheriff's deputies who work in the Orange County Jail to perform immigration investigations. Some know this plan as the Cross-Designation Program. Once these deputies are trained, we plan to check the immigration status of all foreign nationals who are booked into our jail. This means that every foreign national arrested anywhere in Orange County and sent to our O.C. Jail will be screened for deportation, including every previously deported felon apprehended anywhere in Orange County.

Newport Beach voters will be busy over the next four weeks trying to figure out whom to vote into the unprecedented six council seats that are up for election. Those are important choices because the City Council, which for years has gained a reputation among a growing number of residents as a divisive group that was unresponsive to their needs, is at a possible turning point. We believe it is important that the council does become friendlier and more attuned to the community's needs.

I believe that there are universal truths. That the most precious things in life are free is one of them. I always treasure the view of Catalina Island, the coast and the blue Pacific as I accelerate out of the stoplight at San Miguel and MacArthur on my way home down the hill into Corona del Mar. I can't be the only person in town who has a heart that skips a beat when he sees this beautiful sight. The thought of this open space covered by buildings, no matter how honorable the cause, is more than I can bear.

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR During my more than seven years at the Daily Pilot, there have been a stream of hot-button issues in the community: Greenlight; the El Toro airport; how to develop the Westside; Home Ranch; the closing of El Morro and Crystal Cove; Costa Mesa's immigration proposal; and the list goes on. All of these issues have generated scores of letters, e-mails and calls to the paper. But nothing has unleashed such response in such a short period of time ? to one story and one question, in fact ?

Last week, I had a fairly lengthy phone conversation with a reader regarding Costa Mesa's planned enforcement of immigration laws. This caller ? I'm not sure calling him a reader is correct because at one point he said he planned essentially to boycott the paper, though he sounded less sure of that position when we hung up ? particularly was incensed by a couple of Joseph N. Bell columns on the issue. The crucial piece to the debate, he argued, is not race but strict enforcement of the law. I'll acknowledge there is an enforcement component to this debate, though there's no way to argue that immigration rules are the only laws that don't get strict, by-the-book attention.

It should come as no surprise that the land where Newport Beach's City Hall now stands is worth a tidy sum of money. But $23 million? Surely that is enough to make the City Council give serious consideration to putting the land up for sale and building a new civic center elsewhere in the city. That figure, provided this week by Councilman Ed Selich, is the latest ? and arguably greatest ? twist in the nearly yearlong discussion about building a new home for the city's government.

A quick journalism lesson. One of the main elements of what makes something news can be found in the word itself: new. Beyond that, and beyond the basic elements of civic import (whether a debate about a new city hall or a policy on policing immigration), the unusual, the strange ("man bites dog") and even the quirky make the cut. OK, so there may be no explaining a story last week in the Pilot, "O.C. ranks third in count of most U.S. millionaires." After all, we all knew that, right?

A Newport Beach citizens group that wants a public vote on major city borrowing on Monday moved its ballot proposal a step closer to qualifying for the November election, filing petitions with more than 7,400 signatures of support. Newporters for Responsible Government filed the petitions with the city clerk Monday. The ballot measure would require voter approval before the city could pay for public improvements using Certificates of Participation if they would take longer than two years to repay or cost more than $3 million.