Case of mistaken identity leads to a unique way to raise funds in support of O.C. homeless families, individuals
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Good morning. It’s Wednesday, May 28. I’m Carol Cormaci, bringing you this week’s TimesOC newsletter with a look at some of the latest local news and events from around the county.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s that everyone we meet has an interesting story to tell. News outlets do their best to identify — often via tips — willing subjects who have found themselves in the middle of a unique situation and don’t mind sharing the details publicly.
In Sunday’s Daily Pilot & TimesOC edition, my colleague Matt Szabo reported on an incident he came across, about an artist carrying his baby in a sling while out on a walk and was mistaken for a homeless man by someone in his own Huntington Beach neighborhood. This neighbor called the police on him.
To my mind, it’s a gem of a tale, because it led to a more positive outcome than one might have expected. Also because it seems this 32-year-old dad, Chapman Hamborg, has a heart as toasty as they come.
His appearance that day was decidedly casual — and wearing a Patagonia jacket. His long hair was pulled back in a bun, the clothes he’d put on were worn and one of his slippers had a hole in it. The babe in his arms is the youngest of four, so he has a busy household. The neighbor actually followed him as he strolled back to his home that April day so she could tell law enforcement where he could be found. Perhaps if you use Instagram you saw Hamborg’s viral reel of the policeman coming to his door and his surprised response.
“When he explained what happened, that someone had called the cops on me thinking I was a homeless person then had followed me back to my house, I was shocked,” Hamborg told Szabo. “I couldn’t believe it at first. I was trying to laugh it off, I guess, and then he asked for my ID. I came inside, and that’s when I started recording the video, when I was looking for my ID and telling my wife what was going on.”
As of last Friday, that video had received nearly two million views and more than 32,000 comments. Surely some of those views were generated by an article on the incident by People magazine, who beat us to this story. But hey, it’s one worth repeating.
Hamborg holds no ill will against the neighbor who called the cops, but he’s looking to turn the experience into something positive. “He wants to talk to her, not to scold her but partially to thank her for her vigilance,” Szabo writes.
“She’s a neighbor concerned for the safety of the baby and the neighborhood, but also, it’s crazy for people who are dealing with homelessness to have to deal with this kind of stuff,” he said. “What if it was a great parent who is trying to get their baby to sleep but they happen to be unhoused? Why should the cops be called on them? Just because they’re experiencing homelessness doesn’t mean that the baby is in danger, or that the mom is a bad mom or the dad is a bad dad.”
So, it occurred to Hamborg that a self-portrait he had completed before the incident, in which he is depicted dressed similarly and with a child on his back, might be used to raise funds to help support people experiencing homelessness.
“It looks like this beautiful scene, but there’s kind of this darker undertone to it, at least to me personally,” he said. “When this whole experience happened, I thought that painting and those aspects about it are even more true for unhoused families, which I was mistaken for being. The imagery and the meaning behind the painting already lined up, and I wanted to connect it to the story and the conversation that was already happening from the video around people experiencing homelessness.”
To that end, he’s selling limited edition prints of his original painting, “Unseen Paths,” with 20% of the proceeds going to Orange County United Way’s United to End Homelessness initiative.
“Chapman’s curiosity around homelessness has been something so wonderful to engage with,” said Becks Heyhoe-Khalil, executive director of the program. “Getting to know Chapman and just the beautiful heart that he has and the compassion that he has, the desire to use this for the greater good, it fit beautifully with the mission we have at United to End Homelessness at United Way. It’s been a really natural way to collaborate.”
Hamborg and Heyhoe-Khalil will be guests at an Orange County Museum of Art “Conversations with Artists” event on June 4 at 4 p.m., hosted by Heidi Zuckerman, OCMA’s chief executive and director. No registration is needed. They’ll also host a livestream event titled “Art and Advocacy: A Studio Conversation with Chapman Hamborg,” on June 21 at 9 a.m., from his Hamborg Academy of Art studio in Huntington Beach.
“One of the things I love about what Chapman is doing is helping open people’s eyes, ask questions and challenging assumptions,” Heyhoe-Khalil said. “Many of the people who have watched the video online have said, ‘You do look like you’re homeless.’ The flip side of that is that they’re walking past people, driving past people every day who don’t look like they’re experiencing homelessness but who are, and they have no idea.”
The prints of “Unseen Paths” are available at Hamborg’s website, chapmanhamborg.com.
MORE NEWS
• As reported for some time now, Huntington Beach voters will be asked to decide two ballot measures, A and B, during a special election set for June 10. Both measures are related to the public library and are opposed by the Huntington Beach City Council (perhaps you’ll remember the flap caused by a council member forming his own political action committee and posting signs around town telling people to vote no and alleging there is porn in the library). Well, the Ocean View School District Board of Trustees unanimously endorsed both measures on May 13. One week later, the City Council voted (also unanimously) to investigate the legality of the school board passing such a resolution. We’re waiting to find out what the next volley will be in this battle.
• It’s been almost 30 years since conservationists began looking into how they might transform the former Banning Ranch oil field at the border of Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach into one of the largest protected green spaces in O.C. The initial plans describing what Randall Preserve will eventually look like have been made public and more input is welcome. Those interested in helping shape the future of preserve have until July 14 to formally submit questions, comments and suggestions. More information can be found here.
• Dr. Mark Linskey, a board-certified neurosurgeon and former chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery at UC Irvine, this month was awarded $5.8 million in damages by an Orange County jury, bringing a close to a whistleblower lawsuit that maintained university officials retaliated against him for filing a grievance regarding risks to patient safety, abuse of power and economic waste. “The May 9 verdict covers retaliatory acts from November 2015 to the present date, a second phase of litigation,” my Daily Pilot colleague Sara Cardine wrote in her article about the jury’s decision. “Linskey was previously awarded $2 million in 2019 for actions that occurred prior to the conclusion of a university-level investigation.”
• A civil lawsuit that got underway last week against the county, filed by former senior assistant Dist. Atty. Tracy Miller, accuses Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer and others of retaliation and trying to force Miller out of her job after she questioned Spitzer’s actions as D.A. Among her allegations is that she was retaliated against for protecting female subordinates who had reported sexual misconduct by a male superior, Gary LoGalbo, who is since deceased. LoGalbo was once Spitzer’s roommate and had served as best man at his wedding. The county is also facing eight sexual harassment lawsuits involving allegations against the late LoGalbo.
• Looking at a $154-million budget deficit and declining enrollment, which is tied to funding, the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Trustees voted 4-1 to lay off 262 employees. “We are no longer a school district of over 50,000 students,” Board President Hector Bustos said. “We are a school district of 34,000 students. We are no longer the second largest school district in Orange County. We are now the fourth [largest].”
• The San Clemente City Council is considering the merits of forming a local committee to work on logistics, economic opportunity and host city duties ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games, when the the surfing competition will be held at Lower Trestles Beach.
PUBLIC SAFETY & CRIME
• Continuing a long tradition, several Laguna Beach Police Department leaders earlier this month traveled to Washington, D.C. for Police Week, during which they remembered one of their own with a wreath-laying ceremony for a fallen officer at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This year the Laguna Beach wreath was a memorial tribute to motor officer Jon Coutchie, whose end of watch was on Sept. 21, 2013.
• Tragedy struck Laguna Beach Monday afternoon when a local father took his 15-year-old daughter to a parking lot in town to practice driving under her learner’s permit. Police are still investigating the cause, according to a spokesperson, but one theory is that the teen stepped on the accelerator when she wanted to hit the brakes, sending their convertible Volkswagen over a 40-foot cliff and landing upside down on Coast Highway. The father, 64-year-old James Politoski, did not survive the crash.
• While responding police investigated a traffic fatality in Fountain Valley Sunday night that involved a pedestrian who was struck down by a vehicle near the intersection of Warner Avenue and Los Jardines Street, a different motorist, who was allegedly driving under the influence, crashed into that same scene, hit a police car and was arrested. The 17-year-old driver who hit the pedestrian remained at the scene and cooperated with officers. The person he fatally hit was 35-year-old Alexandra Payerli of Santa Ana. Anyone with information regarding the fatal collision is encouraged to contact the FVPD Traffic Bureau at (714) 593-4481 and reference incident No. 25-16166.
• Bikes, e-bikes, motorized scooters and pedicabs were recently banned from the sands at Newport Beach by a unanimous vote of the City Council, according to this Daily Pilot story. Those cited for riding on the sand may face a fine of up to $100 on their first offense, and up to $200 if they are caught doing it again. Subsequent violations of the new ordinance after that will come with a $500 fine.
• Jonathan Reyes, 28, who was convicted Feb. 19 of fracturing the skull of his 2-week-old son in Santa Ana more than four years ago, has been sentenced to nine years in prison.
• Following up on an item that appeared in this section last week, Santa Ana resident Alejandro Oliveros Acosta, 46, the alleged cat killer who was charged May 19 with two felony counts of cruelty to animals, one felony count of grand theft of a companion animal and one misdemeanor count of possession of a controlled substance, did not show up for his arraignment on Wednesday and an arrest warrant was put out on him.
• Tammy Kim, Irvine’s former vice mayor, has been charged by the Orange County district attorney’s office with 10 felonies related to allegedly lying about her residency during her City Council tenure and while campaigning for mayor last fall. If convicted on all counts, Kim could spend up to 11 years and two months in state prison and county jail, according to the TimesOC report on the charges.
LIFE & LEISURE
• Barbara “Corki” Rawlings has announced that at the end of next month she will close her Newport Beach shop, Corki’s Embroidery, where she and two other seamstresses personalize all types of items. Yacht clubs have remained some of the shop’s most loyal customers over Rawlings’ 59 years in business, as have local fire and police departments, rowing teams and other aquatics programs at practically every high school in coastal Orange County. She told the Daily Pilot for this feature story on her shop’s closure that when she settles into retirement (she’s 90), she’ll take her favorite vintage Singer 401A Slant-O-Matic from the store workshop to her desk at home. It sounds like she plans to keep her sewing skill sharp.
• Wild Rivers at 1000 Great Park Blvd. in Irvine is open for the season, and TimesOC reporter Sarah Mosqueda was there for opening day, taking note of its attractions for this feature story. General admission starts at $79.99 and junior admission (under 48″ tall) starts at $54.99. Children age 2 and under are admitted free. Private cabanas, discounted tickets and season passes are available at wildrivers.com
CALENDAR THIS
• Fullerton’s Airport Day is this Saturday, May 31, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It’s a free, open house designed to let families and individuals see the workings of the municipal airport and possibly inspire future careers in aviation, along with educating about other city departments. Food will be available for purchase, as will airplane and helicopter rides. The airport is located at 4011 W. Commonwealth Ave.
• Also this Saturday, the Orange County fairgrounds’ Heroes Hall Museum invites the public to attend a free Speaker Series talk, from 2 to 4 p.m., titled “Beyond the Battlefield: Navigating the Journey of Veterans with PTSD.” The event begins with a viewing of the documentary film “The Volunteer,” which documents the journey of veteran Bruce Nakashima as he searches for and reconnects with a fellow Army Ranger and friend who saved his life in Vietnam.
• Four of Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre works, “The Cask of Amontillado,” “Annabel Lee,” “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” will be served up with cocktails themed to match them during the Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy set for June 5-7 at Fairhaven Memorial Park & Mortuary in Santa Ana. “As a lifelong Poe enthusiast, I’ve always wanted to create a unique experience that combines libations with literature. These are two of my favorite things. I’ve felt for a long time that there is a void for an event like this,” TimesOC learned from Julia Tirinnanzi, who came up with the idea for the unique experience. The Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy is for guests 21 years and up. For more information, including tickets, visit this site.
Until next Wednesday,
Carol
KEEP IN TOUCH
We appreciate your help in making this the best newsletter it can be. Please send news tips, your memory of life in O.C. (photos welcome!) or comments to carol.cormaci@latimes.com.
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