OC Blog News Roundup -- May 15, 2006

Today's top stories from behind the Orange Curtain:

Martin Wisckol's The Buzz: New Majority Shifts Outlook -- OCR
Martin writes about the New Majority.

Three-Way Assessor Race A Taxing Ordeal -- LAT
Incumbent Guillory, challengers Bales and Lebeau face the task of getting voters to grasp what the job is -- and then to care who gets it.

Editorial: Fighting Eminent Domain -- OCR
The Reg opines in favor of Measure A.

Yorba LInda Project Approval Expected -- OCR
Yorba Linda would get its first public high school, more housing if council OKs development.

Housing Tests Dana Point -- OCR
The built-out Dana Point looks for ways to provide affordable homes that the state and the neighbors will both sign off on.

OC Man Among The First Good Shepherd Home Residents -- OCR
Rick Sanders was among the first 19 residents to move into Good Shepherd. Fifty years later, he's still there.

Sea Lions Wreaking Havoc! -- OCR Last week, crews began testing a motion-activated sprinkler in hopes of shooing the sunbathing beasts from their deck-top perches.

Nature Gets A Helping Hand In The Santa Ana Mountains -- OCR
Helping tecate cypress trees.

CUSD To Discuss Wellness Plan -- OCR
The district's proposal restricts sweets sales, but policies for school events are more suggestions than requirements.

Comments

[Hanna]

'We're not building a park, we're growing a park'

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/regstate/articles/2802376.html

Gordon Smith of Copley News Service quotes Ken Smith in The Daily Breeze story about El Toro:

Author and urban historian Joel Kotkin says it's a sign that Orange County is maturing from a collection of suburban tracts into a metropolitan center. Larry Agran, an Irvine city councilman and chairman of the Great Park Corp., a private group overseeing the park's design and development, believes the park is that and more.

[If I only had a brain...]

Seems like I read that Tim Whitaker was arrested trespassing at Scott Baughs office...Did I dream that or did it happen??

[Smiley Doomster]

It's about time the CUSD Trustees started looking out for the kids first. They certainly didn't do it when they stole the children's money and built themselves a $52 million admin building instead of replacing the 200+ portables that are 20-40 years old.

Perhaps some of the CUSD Trustees might want to consider putting the Twinkies down and backing away from the All-You-Can-Eat buffet occasionally if they really want to set an example for the children.

[Ear to the Ground]

If Fleming and the CUSD Trustees really cared about childhood obesity, they wouldn't completely fill up the school yards with portable classrooms. At many schools in CUSD, they are so littered with portables that there simply is no where for the kids to play and exercise.

It's time for Fleming and the CUSD Trustees to go!

[KSA]

"If I only had a brain..." According to Art Pedroza's post on Orange Juice Blog Baugh tried unsucessfully to have Whitacre removed despite the fact that Whitacre had a right to be there. If Whitacre had been arrested I am sure we would be reading a lot more about their dispute.

http://o-juice.blogspot.com/2006/05/oc-gop-chairman-needs-to-step-down.html

According to Scott Baugh, he had seen no record in the minutes that Whitacre had indeed been elected to the Executive Commitee. Given the committee was discussing the lawsuit Whitacre has filed against the OC GOP, I think Scott was perfectly justified in asking Whitacre to leave.

Furthermore, since when is Whitacre exempt from trespassing laws?

Sometimes I think that if Tim said the sky was polka-dot, the Whitacrebots would take it as gospel aqnd attack anyone who disagreed as being a puppet of Jon Fleischman and Mike Schroeder.