Orange County has not been the focus of most of the protests that have been taking place all over Southern California over the past week or so. Tomorrow that will change. Costa Mesa, where a fight with immigrants has been brewing for a while, will play host to the next large protest.

All week long, students have been walking out of classes, even forcing some school districts to shut down entirely. Yesterday I was at the Fontana City Hall for work and there was a protest involving several hundred students out in front of the building. While watching these protests I got the feeling that many of the students didn’t really know why they were there. They were “protesting nothing in particular, just protesting cause it’s Saturday and there’s nothing else to do,” as King Missile would say.

That is not to say they don’t have a reason to protest, but I don’t believe many of the students have a real understanding of what those reasons are. The protest I saw yesterday was more of a Mexican Pride rally than a political protest. This is turning into an us against them issue which it shouldn’t be. If this continues it wouldn’t surprise me if we would see the same thing here as France saw a few months ago. (If you want to read a good explanation of the difference between the most recent protests in Paris and the ones a few months ago in the Parisian suburbs check out this post on the Affordable Housing Institute blog.)

The reason Costa Mesa will be the site of the next large protest is that the city has agreed to use its police to enforce national immigration laws. This might not sound like a bad idea on the surface, they are laws and the police are there to enforce the laws. However, using the city’s police to enforce these laws means that illegal immigrants won’t call the police when they need to. Illegal immigrants will become the targets of crime since predators know they will not go to the police. This will lead to illegal immigrants finding other ways to protect themselves, which normally means more gangs. So while having local police enforce immigration laws might sound like a good idea, it will only lead to more crime and a worse neighborhood for the cities that adopt these practices.

While protests have been going on for a while against these policies in Costa Mesa, the protests against national immigration reform have brought more attention to the issue. If you would like to join in on the protests tomorrow, they will be at 10AM at the Costa Mesa City Hall (77 Fair Dr. and Fairview Ave.) That is, of course, if you aren’t already planning on going to the 8th Annual Cesar Chavez Walk in LA.

Talk about a FUBAR attempt by Moreno to hold out for more money in the Angels broadcast television deal. According to the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register (OK, I know, spare me the LA v. Anaheim name issue for a second) the Angels will only have 30 games on television and most away games will not be televised on Fox Sports Net.

Whoops!

According to the Register the Anaheim Angels (See, I’m still sticking to my editorial policy) may pursue deals with KCOP 13 to broadcast 50 Angels games and the rest to be televised on local KDOC (Yes, an Orange County TV Station). The caveat is that KDOC is not received by people who live in northern Los Angels County and I’m sure that’s the market that Arte was gunning for when he went with the crazy moniker of a name.

Meanwhile, the other baseball team to the north has all but three of their 162 game season televised on KCAL, FSN Prime Ticket (Another name change shuffle), and ESPN/Fox National telecast.

The question still on the table is if Moreno will resort to launching his own regional sports television network? Disney almost took this route when they owned the Angels as they wanted to launch ESPN West (the channel would have been the exclusive home of the Angels) but they experienced push back from cable operators who didn’t want to host another ESPN channel. In Baltimore, where the team was in the same market as the Nationals, the Orioles sued as the Nats infrigned on their broadcast rights in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area.

As mentioned over at Blogging.la this week, Indie 103.1 morning show personality and frontman for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Dicky Barrett, was fired from his hosting gig this week, for a variety of reasons. LA Voice has a copy of Dicky’s press release on the situation.

I hate hearing about things like this, both as a fan of LA radio and someone who had his own show (in another radio market) for two years. It’s the business, but it still sucks. My friend and co-host on my radio show, Beth, has drafted the following to Michael Steele, Indie’s Program Director. If this is something you care about, we encourage you to write something similar to him at msteele@entravision.com.

(more…)

While Orange County is not experiencing the level of walkouts and protest that our counterparts in Los Angeles have gone through, we still have had our share of protest over the Immigration Bill that is being hashed out in committee as we speak.

In Santa Ana, Police had to call in backup as students walked out and protested the Immigration Bill by marching to the County Hall of Administration. There were reports of rocks and bottles being thrown at police officers. Nine other law enforcement agencies in Orange County responded to the call for assistance. About 1,000 protesters dispersed into smaller groups of 20 to 100. However, the groups still continued to protest by staging sit-ins in various intersections of the city.

Anaheim had a protest of 600 students who marched from Disneyland to the steps of Anaheim City Hall. The groups were mostly comprised of students from the Anaheim Joint Union High School District and the city of Garden Grove.

P.S: Just a word of advice to the protesters; If you have to protest, please don’t shut down the freeway that will only hurt your cause (especially when you want to get home and you already have to sit in really bad traffic).

Politics in Orange County can quickly become a full contact sport. Tom Umberg is suing to remove Lou Correa from the ballot, the failed bid to get the Republican Party endorsement by 1 vote for Sheriff Michael Carona, and the ongoing battle over voter registration numbers in Orange County shows just how fast Party Politics in the OC can get ugly.

I thought this would all be the least of our worries, but it just keeps getting better, and we are not even at the primaries yet!

Fired Assistant Sheriff George Jamillio stood at a press conference today and threatened to release evidence of Sheriff Carona’s misuse of the Sheriff Department’s Helicopter fleet for personal use. No doubt his sudden revelation was timed to show just how battered Carona is and how he has a lot of explaining to do to the voters before the primary. Jamillio even went so far as to argue that Carona should be prosecuted under the same charges that he is facing.

According to the OC Register, Jamillio’s evidence shows that Carona used the Department’s helicopters a total of 32 times for personal use. They were used for everything from travel to the airport, to his son’s soccer games, and even trips for his “longtime mistress.” An investigation conducted by the Register shows that the helicopters were used a total of 16 times for trips to news interviews, business retreats, and award ceremonies. Those trips cost taxpayers a total of $26,000 in fuel and maintenance.

Jamillio’s press conference can be treated as a desperate attempt by a desperate man to bring down the sheriff or they can be a sign of bigger problems in the Department. But with the race between Carona and Bill Hunt getting a large amount of coverage in the OC Political Blogosphere this is going to increasingly nasty.

When I went shopping on the iTunes Store for some new stuff for my iPod, I came across a show that looked oddly familiar. No, it wasn’t a show about a group of survivors (both the Space-kind and the Middle of the Pacific-kind), it wasn’t the latest Daily Show offering (my personal favorite), nor was it the bracket busting excitement of the Final Four.

It was a show about Orange County. Yikes, another one!

Do we really need another show that proclaims to show the “Real” Orange County? While “The OC” finally brought some geographical identity to a place that is commonly referred to as “South of Los Angeles,” it was set around a group of kids that sure don’t act like anyone I know from the OC. But the producers of Bravo’s “Real Wives of Orange County” think that Cota De Caza must be the perfect representative sample of Housewives in the OC. Give me a break, a Playboy playmate, an ex-communicated (from the gates of Cota De Caza) Divorcee, a Real Estate Agent, and a “Lady of Leisure” (Translation: “Stay at Home Mom”) represent Orange County? That’s like saying the lineup of Team USA at the World Baseball Classic was going to win it all.

I recently received a reply from the OCTA regarding the incident involving Posh on an OCTA bus.

Here is the whole response:

Thank you for your e-mail to Orange County Transportation Authority
(OCTA) stating that a passenger on a bus was cited by an Orange County
Sheriff’s deputy for using headphones on the bus.

The information from your e-mail was forwarded to the Orange County
Sheriff’s Department/Transit Police Services Bureau for review. No one
was cited for wearing headphones on the bus. A verbal warning was
issued, and it was a mistake made by a deputy. The deputy has since
been informed of the correct policy which states that headphones are
allowed on buses as long as the volume is not loud enough to disturb
other passengers or the coach operator.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

Have you seen any flying saucers in Aliso Viejo? If so, you can probably blame it on these guys. They have been making remote controlled flying saucers out of foam core board and tiny electronics.

These things are actually very impressive, they fly up to 40 mph and can do all sorts of tricks. The down side is they cost about $1,000 to make. Which will surely limit the spread of flying saucer reports, but if anybody would like to send me one for free, I will be sure that there are some reports from Fullerton.

Life in the big city will soon becoming to the streets of three cities in the OC. However, each city is trying to go for vertical urban growth each in its own different way.

Anaheim:
Platinum Triangle Project, or as City Councilmember Harry Siduh is quoted as saying “Orange County’s version of Manhattan.” Mayor Pringle’s pet project to grow the city of Anaheim from just a suburb of Los Angeles to a major city has already started construction. The Stadium Lofts is nearly complete and the buildings have been razed for the start of the construction of high rises. Gene Autry Way will be moved and expanded to create an artery connection between The Anaheim Resort District and the Angel Stadium/Pond Area. Anaheim has a head start on both Irvine and Santa Ana as we have two professional sports teams playing with the name Anaheim in front (or in the case of the Angels, still attached at the end), a famous landmark know worldwide: Disneyland, and a large Convention Center which plays hosts to some major conferences every year. The Pond is one of the top concert venues in the World and we have a large amount of hotel space. Anaheim is also contending for either the Democratic or Republican National Convention in 2008, if it succeeds then the quest to be a big city will be won, but the battle over not being called Los Angeles will continue.

Santa Ana:
The city which is mostly in the center of the County and is home to the County Government. Santa Ana has already survived a fight over One Broadway Plaza and hopes to revitalize the area around the County Administrative buildings with urban lofts. Cal State Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Center has attracted some nightlife to the area bringing people back for live concerts and events. The city council for Santa Ana will consider this week a new city motto “Santa Ana – Downtown Orange County.” Santa Ana has a long way to go before the rest of the OC will want to live in the area.

Irvine:
Ah, LarryLand, Home of the “Great Park” and the UC Irvine Campus. The city has started their ambitious downtown renewal with the construction of lofts and apartments surrounding the Irvine Spectrum Center (The place where I’m writing this post). The Great Park will bring a Central Park atmosphere to the city and will provide additional resources for an expanded Cal State Fullerton-Irvine Campus location and museums; it may even have a light rail system connecting the Great Park to the Spectrum area.

With three cities each wanting to develop a downtown experience, it will be interesting to see if all three can manage the increasing needs of transportation, traffic, and infrastructure improvements which will be needed to prevent the type of traffic that plagues the real life Manhattan.

Happy St. Patrick’s day, Orange County! I’m staying in tonight, since I’m old and not the “get pissed drunk at bars” type, but may I recommend the Harp Inn in Costa Mesa…awesome atmosphere, great people, and portable bathrooms in the parking lot.

Erin go braugh!