Around Town: Sawdust Festival teaches art at elementary school

For the eighth consecutive year, the Sawdust Art Festival in Laguna Beach taught an art lesson to children at Kinoshita Elementary School in San Juan Capistrano.

About 120 kindergartners and first-graders received the instruction Jan. 17.

According to a news release, the classes were influenced by artist Wassily Kandinsky and his color study, “Squares with Concentric Circles.”

Huntington Beach hires community services director

The city of Huntington Beach has hired Marie Knight as its new director of community services.

She comes to Surf City after working for the city of Long Beach’s parks, recreation and marine director. She also worked for the city of Orange.

“Marie was the top candidate from the interview process and comes highly recommended from all her previous employers,” Huntington Beach City Manager Fred Wilson said in a statement. “We are fortunate to have someone of Marie’s caliber coming to the city.”

Tenant rights workshop coming to Costa Mesa

The Fair Housing Foundation will hold a free public workshop in Costa Mesa on Wednesday to provide information on housing laws, the rights and responsibilities of tenants and how to handle tenant-landlord disputes.

The workshop will be from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Sierra Room at the Balearic Community Center, 1975 Balearic Drive. A housing counselor will be present to answer questions from participants.

Huntington Beach HR worker receives Mayor’s Award

Huntington Beach Mayor Mike Posey honored JoAnn Diaz with January’s Mayor’s Award.

Diaz is the city’s principal human-resources analyst. She has been with the city for nine years.

Her duties include labor relations, investigation and classification and compensation. The Huntington Beach resident is a graduate of Cal State Los Angeles.

Boys & Girls Club honors board members

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley recently honored some of its board members and others for their service to the club.

Recipients included board member and Huntington Beach Police Chief Robert Handy (Man & Youth Award) and board member and Hyatt Regency employee Nancy Monte-Frye (Woman & Youth Award).

John Rich, a retired attorney and board member, received the From the Heart Award.

Project underway to install new emergency generators in Costa Mesa

Work is starting on a project to install new emergency generators at three locations in Costa Mesa: the police station, Fire Station No. 4 and the city corporation yard.

The generators will provide power at the facilities in case of an electrical outage.

City officials say the current generators are aging and difficult and costly to maintain and repair.

The new generators cost about $502,000, and the price to install them is $255,000, according to city spokesman Tony Dodero. The project is expected to be complete by summer.