Surf City’s red tide is set to meet a blue wave as Garcia rolls in
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Good morning! It is Wednesday, Nov. 19. I’m Carol Cormaci, bringing you this week’s look at some of the most recent Orange County news and events.
With the passage this month of Prop. 50, which temporarily redraws congressional districts to give Democrats an advantage in the House of Representatives, the very conservative Huntington Beach will be represented by Democrat Robert Garcia, an openly gay progressive and former mayor of Long Beach who has been a thorn in President Trump’s side.
Although Surf City is currently represented by Dave Min (D-Irvine), Mayor Pat Burns, who has embraced the MAGA movement to the point he has placed a bust of Trump in front of his seat on the City Council dais more than once, and was a member of the council when it overturned a city policy that allowed the rainbow flag to be flown on city-owned property during Pride Month, expressed apprehension at this new turn of events.
“I hope [Garcia] comes in with the intention to represent the people of Huntington Beach and not his leftist agenda,” Burns told Daily Pilot reporter Matt Szabo.
When that comment was made, the mayor was fresh out of a state of the city breakfast event sponsored by the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce, where he’d railed at Sacramento. According to Szabo’s coverage of the 90-minute event, city leaders “played hardball against state policies they consider to be at odds with the conservative Huntington Beach City Council, such as housing mandates and voter identification laws.”
Burns had been blunt during the breakfast about his distaste for Gov. Newsom and the Democrat-heavy state Legislature.
“The state, I make no bones about it — I hate Sacramento,” Burns told the audience at the Huntington Beach Senior Center. “I think they’re pieces of crap, I think their intent is definitely party before people. Their agenda is before service, and I think it’s a dangerous existence in any level of government.” He added that the city’s elected leaders are “dialed in to serve the people the best we can, and we don’t need Sacramento to sit there and come up with crap. In every session, they come up with more and more stuff to invade us on local control.”
(Szabo did not ask the mayor if his vitriol extended to his former council colleague and current state Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican, but I think we can safely assume not.)
So, back to just how uncomfortable Burns is with the scenario of having Garcia represent Huntington Beach in Congress under the Prop. 50 redistricting, he told Szabo that “the left has gone so radical, so crazy, with a leftist, progressive, party-first [ideology]. ... Their overreach has made self-governance so difficult.”
For his part, Garcia told Szabo, “I have a lot of respect for [Burns] He’s a [retired] Long Beach police officer. I have a great relationship with Long Beach PD. They supported me in every campaign I ever ran in, including when I ran for Congress. I honor his service. We may have disagreements, but I look forward to working with him.”
If the White House has its way, the two men might not be working together. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice joined a lawsuit brought by California Republicans seeking to block the new House of Representatives map from going into effect.
MORE NEWS
• Days after he announced his resignation from the U.S. Department of Justice (following roughly 10 months of service) and his intentions to rejoin the city attorney’s office in Huntington Beach, Michael Gates was back in the news when the Orange County Register reported he had not, in fact, resigned but had been fired from the DOJ position, according to an anonymous source. Gates maintained in an interview with the Daily Pilot he was not fired and would be seeking the services of a defamation attorney. The city, which welcomed him back on staff, announced it was launching an investigation into the allegations.
• The Westminster City Council decreed last Wednesday that henceforth Oct. 14, will be observed in the city as Charlie Kirk Day, in honor of the recently slain conservative political activist who was born that date, and that the city’s All American Way will be redesignated with street signs bearing Kirk’s name. The Kirk commemorations were put forth by Mayor Charlie Chi Nguyen and Councilmember Amy Phan West, both Republicans who hope to unseat Rep. Derek Tran (D-45th District) in the 2026 elections.
• O.C. Supervisor Janet Nguyen held a news conference last week calling attention to the shoddy construction of a Vietnam War memorial in Fountain Valley’s Mile Square Park and laid the blame at the foot of disgraced former Supervisor Andrew Do, currently serving time in federal prison on a bribery charge. Do had allocated $1 million for the work to the Viet America Society, where one of his daughters was an executive, to design and construct the memorial. It’s already falling apart and because of the cost of repairing, etching in the names of local fallen soldiers and meeting ADA requirements would cost well north of $1 million, Nguyen is calling for it to be torn down entirely. She proposed building a new one, perhaps somewhere else in the county.
• The city of Newport Beach has been considering revitalizing the business corridor in Corona del Mar, a mile-long stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, and to that end a study has been underway since last year. A report heard by the City Council earlier this month revealed the strip attracts roughly three million people annually, about 40% of whom are locals, according to this article by Gabriel San Román, which also outlines the recommendations made by city staff. One of them is to allow for more food and beverage purveyors than are currently doing business there because they encourage more frequent and longer stays.
COURTS
• Lugano Jewelry, the Newport Beach-based company founded by Mordechai “Moti Ferder, who fled the country after multiple lawsuits brought to light allegations he had fleeced investors and cooked the company’s books, announced in a news release Sunday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Daily Pilot has the complete story here.
• Orange County-based Hyundai and its related firm, Kia, were targeted by the nonprofit Jobs to Move America, which alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday that the companies engage in unfair labor practices. Both automakers on Monday denied the allegations, which included claims they have exploited labor from children, immigrants and inmates.
PUBLIC SAFETY & CRIME
• Authorities reported Thursday that fentanyl-related deaths are trending down in the county, where 407 deaths related to the synthetic opioid were recorded in 2024, down from 613 in 2023. Such deaths peaked in 2021, when 717 were attributed to fentanyl before the downward trend started.
• A 13-year-old boy was fatally struck by an alleged hit-and-run driver in the vicinity of Dana Point Harbor Drive and Park Lantern in Dana Point Tuesday morning, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. The motorist, a 59-year-old local resident who is suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, was quickly found with the help of witnesses.
• Amber Kristine Calderon, 43, appeared in a Westminster courtroom Thursday, where she pleaded not guilty to three felony hit and run charges stemming from the early morning Oct. 20 crash on Pacific Coast Highway that took the life of a Garden Grove pastor, Eric John Williams, and critically injured two other men he had been accompanying on a bike ride.
• Jason Valentine Esparza, 60, was convicted last Wednesday of molesting two girls and attempting to molest another one in an eight-month sting operation that began in the fall of 2022 and concluded with his arrest in Huntington Beach in April 2023. Esparza had priors: he was convicted of attacking one victim in Sept. 20, 2006 and another one in September 2016.
• A woman who was allegedly walking against a red light at Magnolia and Orangethorpe avenues in Fullerton at around 9 p.m. Sunday was fatally injured when she was struck by two different cars, City News Service reported. Witnesses are encouraged to call investigators at (714) 738-6815.
SPORTS
• With 12 wins and 3 losses so far this season, including Monday night’s overtime victory at Honda Center over the Utah Mammoth, the Anaheim Ducks are at the top of the NHL Western Conference standings. Their next game is tonight versus the Boston Bruins.
• For the first time since 1987, the boys’ water polo teams from Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar on Saturday found themselves facing each other in the CIF Southern Section Open Division finals. The Newport Harbor Sailors blitzed rival Sea Kings at Mt. San Antonio College to earn a 10-3 victory and repeat as Open Division champions. Both teams competed yesterday (results were not available by this newsletter’s deadline) in the CIF State Southern California Regional Division I playoffs.
LIFE & LEISURE
• Nevada resident Amber Miller was on a whale watching tour off the Newport Beach coast Nov. 10 and had just lined up with friends to pose for a group photo when a humpback whale put on quite a show. “As soon as we huddled up together, we heard the whale coming up right behind us,” Miller told the Daily Pilot, adding that her husband, Austin Hassoldt, was right there to take a picture of the three moms. “It was just such a coincidence that was the moment that it came out of the water.”
CALENDAR
• Lace up your running (or strolling) shoes early on Thanksgiving Day: The 48th annual Dana Point Turkey Trot takes place from 7 a.m. to noon Nov. 27 at Dana Point Harbor at 34555 Golden Lantern St. Said to be one of the largest Turkey Trots in the nation, it draws thousands of participants every year. Funds raised via registration fees benefit local nonprofits. To register and to see the full race schedule, visit turkeytrot.com.
• Golden West College’s Theater Arts Department presents a modern, re-imagined take on Shakespeare’s comedy “Much Ado About Nothing,” with shows running through Nov. 23. Performances take place in the Golden West College Mainstage Theater, 15751 Gothard St., Huntington Beach. For showtimes and admission, visit gwctheater.com. A performance with American Sign Language interpretation is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Nov. 22.
• About two dozen tree-lighting ceremonies will be taking place all around OC in coming days, with the earliest and one of the more prominent ones being the Segerstrom family’s 44th Annual Tree Lighting, scheduled for 7 p.m. tomorrow at Town Center Park in front of the Westin Hotel South Coast Plaza. This free event, which we understand draws Santa himself, features live performances by a host of talented groups, including the Pacific Symphony and the Southern California Children’s Chorus.
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.