Turbulent times bring out O.C. protesters while sending others into hiding
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Good morning. It’s Wednesday, June 18. 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.
Perhaps in part bolstered by the knowledge there were plenty of like-minded people willing to join them, legions of Orange County residents turned out Saturday afternoon to take part in the nationwide “No Kings” protest, a coordinated act of defiance timed to coincide with the day the President Trump-ordered military parade was taking place in Washington, D.C. to mark the Army’s 250th anniversary and his 79th birthday.
Daily Pilot reporter Andrew Turner, the only staffer working Saturday, was dispatched to cover the protest in Laguna Beach. He seemed a little taken aback by the magnitude of the effort when he was greeted by throngs packed along the South Coast Highway sidewalk in the heart of downtown. “This is no small gathering,” was the understated text he sent me on his arrival, as if he’d expected maybe 50-60 souls demonstrating. Instead, there were more than 2,000 protesters armed with signs expressing their displeasure with the current administration.
Similarly, our contributing freelance writer/photographer Susan Hoffman, a Newport Beach resident, was wondering to herself how she could possibly provide us with an estimated crowd size she encountered when she ventured out to Coast Highway and Jamboree Road on our behalf. “There were way too many to count,” she told me later.
Both described the local demonstrations as peaceful, consistent with media reports from around the nation. Susan’s text to me Saturday afternoon, just after she sent Andrew her contribution to fold into this account of the coordinated proves that he was writing for us: “I have to say the [Newport Beach protesters] were extremely positive, kind, very nice to talk to... the kind you want to know better.”
In Huntington Beach, where the crowd was likely much larger, given the fact Surf City has more than twice the number of residents as does Newport and about seven or eight times the number of Laguna, things became a bit more competitive, shall we say, as there was a counter-protest in support of the president, The Times reported.
Also, according to Huntington Beach police, a felon with active arrest warrants who was carrying a loaded handgun was taken into custody during the event. He had allegedly threatened to knock someone out in the middle of the street at about 3:30 p.m., a few blocks from the pier. The gun was discovered as they were making the arrest.
The day of protest, planned more than a month ahead last week’s ICE raids in Los Angeles and Orange counties, may have drawn more people than it otherwise might have, those who were disturbed by the pace of the actions and reports of how they were carried out, the federalization of the National Guard and the decision to bring out a show of even more force in the form of Marines. Indeed, according to the photos we saw, plenty of the protest signs carried references to all of the above.
We’ve been keeping an eye on ICE activity in Orange County. One incident, which also happened to be reported by Andrew Turner, took place just over a week ago at a car wash in Fountain Valley. According to the manager there, without showing a warrant or a list of people they were hunting for, uniformed individuals, their faces covered, just walked in at 9:30 a.m. on a Monday, rustled up seven of the nine workers on site and hauled them off.
“They don’t ask any questions,” the car wash manager said. “They only grab, grab, grab the guys, take them to the van. They don’t give you a chance to speak. They don’t have a chance to say, ‘Oh, let me see [if] I got my papers.’ … They only grab the guys and take them. No questions. It’s not fair.”
Also last week, rumors spread that ICE agents were questioning workers and guests at Disneyland. Reporter Gabriel San Román looked into that for this story that appeared in Sunday’s Daily Pilot/TimesOC. Officials with the amusement park and the city discounted those rumors. However, he reported, “the city acknowledged cellphone videos of an SUV pursuing a man two miles down the street [from Disneyland] at Pearson Park the following morning was credible evidence of federal immigration enforcement.”
Pearson Park, the reporter noted, is in a Latino neighborhood, which suggests racial profiling. He interviewed Anaheim Councilmember Natalie Rubalcava, who told him she “saw the Pearson Park video on Instagram, got dressed and headed out to vet the claim. She spoke to a young Latino who recounted how federal agents dressed in black with their faces covered approached him and another man at the park.”
“They asked him for identification,” Rubalcava told San Román. “When he told them he was born in the U.S., they told him ‘prove it.’” Lucky for him, he had his Social Security card on him.
San Román reports that Orange County Rapid Response Network’s hotline has been receiving tips of ICE activities.
‘Sandra De Anda, the group’s network coordinator, emphasizes a ‘salute’ method for its team of volunteer ICE watchers to assess the ‘size, action, location, uniform, time and equipment’ details of a raid in confirming it,” according to his report.
The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that immigrant-owned Mexican supermarket chains and food merchants, noticing customers’ fears of being targeted by ICE agents, are standing up for them. That includes the popular Northgate, a company that had its very beginnings in Anaheim in 1980, as well as Vallarta Supermarkets.
“We’re really afraid of what’s happening, and just being able to at least give [customers] a smile,” Lizette Gomez, Vallarta’s director of marketing, told the Times reporter about the chain’s efforts to qualm fears. “As long as we’re there to at least give them some sort of hope — that it’s really dark right now, but it’ll hopefully be good at the end.”
MORE NEWS
• The Zinn Education Project’s #TeachTruth campaign made its way to the Laguna Beach farmers market on June 7 (the fifth annual organized Teach Truth Day of Action), according to this article by my colleague Andrew Turner. To explain the reason behind the campaign, the Project’s website says, “...across the country, legislatures, the president, and corporate power are pushing laws and policies to criminalize teaching honestly about U.S. history and to restrict students’ ability to ask questions and engage in critical thinking.” To counter such actions, people are asked to set up booths at public spaces to educate others “about the chilling effect of these laws and how they threaten any chance of an informed and engaged democracy.” In Laguna, the reporter spoke to Heather Hanson, a European history teacher at Laguna Beach High whose informational table also offered farmers market patrons a look at some of the books that have been banned, including George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five.”
• Speaking of reading, library-related Measures A and B on the June 10 ballot put before Huntington Beach voters both passed. People in favor of bringing to a halt the City Council’s intentions to set up a 21-member review board to approve children’s books for the public library, Measure A, prevailed on a vote of 34,758 to 24,760. The second measure, which would require both the Huntington Beach City Council and a majority of Surf City voters to approve any outsourcing of library operations, won, 36,002 to 23,466.
• Also included in the June 10 election was the race to fill a seat on the Newport-Mesa Unified school board that pitted the woman who had been appointed to the board on a 4-2 vote in January, Kirstin Walsh, against Andrea McElroy, whose supporters were behind a petition drive that overturned Walsh’s appointment and forced an election. McElroy’s GOP-backed campaign was successful; according to the county registrar she garnered 2,815 of the votes to Walsh’s tally of 2,423. Anyone interested in watching YouTube video of the January meeting when McElroy, Walsh and one other candidate were interviewed can find it here.
• The countdown has begun for this year’s Orange County Fair, which gets underway July 18. Just in time for the big event, the OC Fair & Event Center’s board has named a successor to the retiring Michele Richards, who served as CEO. James Canfield, who was most recently the general manager of an Alabama convention complex, will step into Richards’ shoes on July 1. Canfield has held similar roles in Palm Springs, Pasadena and Long Beach.
PUBLIC SAFETY & CRIME
• Disbarred Newport Beach attorney Michael Avenatti, who gained fame representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels in her litigation against President Donald Trump, was sentenced Thursday to 95 months in federal prison for stealing millions of dollars from his former clients. It was a re-sentencing for Avenatti, who in 2022 been given 14 years, a ruling that was overturned by an appellate court. Avenatti was seeking 78 months, with 39 of those months having already been served.
• More than 100 fire personnel battled a blaze on the 3500 block of Cadillac Avenue in Costa Mesa that was reported at 5:15 p.m. Sunday and left a structure that houses three businesses so heavily damaged it was red-tagged to prevent people from entering it.
• After someone reported a leaf blower had been stolen from a gardener’s truck, Huntington Beach police chased down and arrested a wanted felon, a 27-year-old Florida man, and his accomplice in the alleged theft on Friday. The search forced a shelter-in-place order at Dwyer Middle and Smith Elementary schools.
Life & Leisure
• Carl and Alice Obert, 98 and 96-years-old, respectively, celebrated a remarkable 77 years of marriage earlier this month with cupcakes and Champagne. According to the Daily Pilot story about this milestone event in their lives, experts estimate that only about 1,000 couples in the United States at any given time have been married 75 years or longer. The Oberts, wed on June 5, 1948, still live in the Huntington Beach home they purchased in 1963.
CALENDAR THIS
• The eclectic L.A.-based band Ozomatli, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year with a “30 Revolutions” tour, will be playing a free concert at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley on Thursday at 6 p.m. to kick off the OC Parks Summer Concert Series. The band will return to Orange County on Aug. 3 for an OC Fair show at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, along with X and Los Lobos.
• Lions Park and Luke Davis Field in Costa Mesa will again be the venue for the 79th annual Fish Fry and Carnival put on by the Costa Mesa Newport Harbor Lions Club that starts the evening of Friday, June 27 and runs through Sunday, June 29. Guests can enjoy fish and chip dinners, carnival rides and games, blues and rock bands, a beer and wine garden, vendor booths and more. Admission is free; fish dinners are $15. Hours are 5 to 10 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
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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