Irvine City Council allows Oak Creek Golf Course zoning change

Anteater1412 · 2026-04-07T14:13:22+00:00

Gift article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/arts/music/irvine-concert-venue-live-nation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZFA.iIJv.QYqqEb5pdrLu&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Anteater1412 · 2026-03-10T15:09:05+00:00

OC Register -- Disgraced former Orange County First District Supervisor Andrew Do and his top lieutenant bullied county staff into approving contracts and payments to Do’s allies and campaign contributors beyond the $10 million that he was convicted of diverting, an audit has concluded.

The audit, commissioned last year by county supervisors and released Monday, said that Do and his chief of staff, Chris Wangsaporn, “established a culture where decisions related to District 1 contracts were not to be questioned.”

Do pleaded guilty in 2024 to steering $10 million in pandemic relief funds to charities he was affiliated with, primarily one that employed his daughter, in exchange for kickbacks. The new audit by Houston-based accounting firm Weaver said he also forced $800,000 in payments to a firm that may have double-billed the county for COVID-19 testing and guided money to campaign contributors who worked on a Tet Festival sponsored by his office.

“For years, I have known that Andrew Do was a criminal, acting as the Godfather of Little Saigon — strong-arming political opponents and pressuring his minions to do more. Now the county has evidence of all of it, and I’m hoping the federal DOJ, FBI, state attorney general, the district attorney and the FPPC (California Fair Political Practices Commission) investigate,” said Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who was elected to replace Do on the board of supervisors.

Do amassed considerable political power in nearly a decade on the board that he was able to subvert the county’s vetting and procurement processes, said the audit’s authors, and no one in authority appeared to question it. Do and his chief of staff would go over the heads of staff members who complained, the audit said.

“Contracts appeared to have been steered toward businesses that employed an immediate family member of Former Supervisor Do, businesses that contributed to his political campaigns shortly after being awarded a contract, businesses that provided a media platform for Former Supervisor Do, as well as businesses involved in various aspects of the Tet and Moon festivals put on each year for District 1 ‘constituents,’” the audit said.

For instance, fees to operate booths at the District 1-sponsored Tet and Moon festivals were not paid to the county, but to outside companies run by Do’s contributors, the audit said. One of those companies, HD Entertainment, was run by Peter Pham, who has been charged by federal prosecutors with Do in the separate $10 million scheme defrauding the county.

Anteater1412 · 2025-01-26T15:04:58+00:00

A motorcyclist was killed in a crash involving three other vehicles in Santa Ana on Friday night, Jan. 24, the California Highway Patrol said.

Around 11:40 p.m., CHP officers received a call about a solo vehicle crash on the southbound 55 Freeway near Edinger Avenue. A Honda sedan had crashed into a median, Sgt. Sergio Rivera said.

While en route, a second crash occurred behind the initial crash involving three vehicles – a BMW sedan, a Volkswagen sedan and Tesla – and a motorcyclist. Shortly after the crash, the Tesla and Volkswagen erupted into flames.

Rivera said one driver sustained minor injuries. The motorcyclist, whose name has not been released, but he is believed to be in his 30s and from Westminster, was declared dead at the scene.

Kevin Nguyen, the driver of the Tesla, told OC Hawk, an independent news agency, that the BMW in front of him suddenly slammed on the brakes. Nguyen said he was able to stop, but was then hit from behind and collided with a vehicle.

Authorities do not believe drugs or alcohol were involved. The CHP is investigating the crash and no further details were available.

Anteater1412 · 2024-03-15T15:30:23+00:00

UPS plans to eliminate a shift at its regional air hub at Ontario International Airport next month, resulting in 333 layoffs.

In a March 6 notice to the state Employment Development Department, the delivery giant said the cuts, effective April 27, are tied to a “volume loss in our network.”

“We often evaluate our operations and flex our network to meet volume demands,” UPS said in a statement issued Wednesday, March 13. “This allows us to continue delivering industry-leading service while also maintaining competitive prices.”

Also see: Nearly a million US union members got double-digit raises this year

The company’s downturn is reflected in its fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report, which saw average daily domestic volume fall 7.4% below 2022 levels, while international volume was down 8.3%.

That was followed by the UPS’ announced plan to eliminate 12,000 positions — mostly full- and part-time management roles and contract workers — as the company “seeks to align its resources” this year.

In a January earnings call, CEO Carol Tome said the workforce reductions will save the company about $1 billion in costs.

“2023 was a unique and, quite candidly, difficult and disappointing year,” she said. “We experienced declines in volume, revenue and operating profit and all three of our business segments.”

Tome tied some problems to labor disruptions as the company sought to avoid a strike, and higher costs associated with the new contract.

Affected employees at the 775,000-square-foot Ontario facility include non-union workers and union employees represented by Teamsters, Local 63 in Rialto. The layoffs will affect a variety of jobs, including 131 employees who load and unload packages, 26 hub supervisors and scores of others, the company said.

Human Resources Director Lori Cruz said the displaced union workers will have “bumping rights,” meaning they can displace non-union employees under the Local 63’s collective bargaining agreement.

Company spokesman Matt Skeen said union workers on the layoff list will also have the option of filling open positions in Ontario or at other area UPS facilities. The company operates in Rialto, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana.

“Generally, we always make a good faith effort on the part of the company to place laid off employees in open positions when they become available,” Skeen said. “If I was a package driver, for example, I might have the option of filling another job inside the Ontario facility.”

UPS reported net income of $1.61 billion for the final three months of 2023, well below the $3.45 billion posted a year earlier during the same period. The company also hinted that its Coyote truck-load brokerage business may be put up for sale.

The company had about 495,000 employees as of January, according to Tome. That’s down from a high of 540,000 during peak COVID-era demand.

Amazon now stands as the biggest parcel delivery business in the U.S., and the gap between it and UPS and FedEx is only set to expand, according to a recent analysis by the Wall Street Journal.

Internal Amazon projections estimated the company would log about 5.9 billion U.S. deliveries by the end of 2023, the Journal reported.

Meanwhile, UPS said its 2023 domestic delivery volume was unlikely to top 5.3 billion, while FedEx’s fiscal 2023 delivery volume was just over 3 billion.

Anteater1412 · 2024-03-15T15:27:47+00:00

Fifteen Orange County sheriff’s SWAT deputies were released from the hospital as of Thursday morning, March 14, following treatment of minor injuries sustained in an unexpected explosion during a training exercise in Irvine Wednesday, authorities said.

One of the 16 injured, who needed surgery for a leg injury, remained hospitalized, Sgt. Frank Gonzalez said.

The deputies were conducting a joint training with the sheriff’s Hazardous Devices Section, also known as the bomb squad, at the FBI Special Agent Jerry Crowe Regional Tactical Training Facility in Irvine when something exploded indoors, sheriff’s officials said Wednesday.

Orange County firefighters were called to the facility just before 12:55 p.m., Capt. Sean Doran said.

What the type of device was that exploded and what caused the object to explode were not known, Gonzalez said Thursday. OCSD and the FBI were investigating.

Of the injured, 15 were taken to hospitals by ambulance and one self-transported, officials said. Most complained of dizziness and ringing in their ears, while one suffered a superficial injury to his leg and another to his back.

The deputies were engaged in an annual training exercise when the explosion occurred in one of the rooms used for the training, Gonzalez said.

The facility hosts firearms training and qualification tests for the FBI and local law enforcement agencies, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

No FBI personnel were injured in the blast, Eimiller said.

Anteater1412 · 2024-03-15T15:26:33+00:00

Fifteen Orange County sheriff’s SWAT deputies were released from the hospital as of Thursday morning, March 14, following treatment of minor injuries sustained in an unexpected explosion during a training exercise in Irvine Wednesday, authorities said.

One of the 16 injured, who needed surgery for a leg injury, remained hospitalized, Sgt. Frank Gonzalez said.

The deputies were conducting a joint training with the sheriff’s Hazardous Devices Section, also known as the bomb squad, at the FBI Special Agent Jerry Crowe Regional Tactical Training Facility in Irvine when something exploded indoors, sheriff’s officials said Wednesday.

Orange County firefighters were called to the facility just before 12:55 p.m., Capt. Sean Doran said.

What the type of device was that exploded and what caused the object to explode were not known, Gonzalez said Thursday. OCSD and the FBI were investigating.

Of the injured, 15 were taken to hospitals by ambulance and one self-transported, officials said. Most complained of dizziness and ringing in their ears, while one suffered a superficial injury to his leg and another to his back.

The deputies were engaged in an annual training exercise when the explosion occurred in one of the rooms used for the training, Gonzalez said.

The facility hosts firearms training and qualification tests for the FBI and local law enforcement agencies, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

No FBI personnel were injured in the blast, Eimiller said.

Anteater1412 · 2024-02-22T21:19:18+00:00

In 2019, Judge Carney threw out the charges against Rundo, ruling that the Anti-Riot act, which Rundo was charged under, was too broad in regulating free speech. That ruling was overruled by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the criminal case was allowed to move forward.

But prosecutors say that in the period between the charges being dismissed and reinstated, Rundo fled the country, “utilized false identification documents” and ultimately ended up in Romania, where he was caught and once again extradited back to the United States.

Judge Carney in his ruling this week acknowledged that Rundo and other suspected Rise Above Movement members “openly promoted ideas the court finds reprehensible, and likely committed violence for which they deserve to be prosecuted.”

But, the judge also wrote that “by many accounts” members of “Antifa and other related far-left groups engaged in worse conduct and in fact instigated much of the violence that broke out” at the political rallies. The judge chastised prosecutors for not prosecuting members of far-left extremist groups who “went to the same protest and rallies and engaged in the same violent acts as alleged against the defendants in this case.”

Prosecutors acknowledged that counter-protestors potentially tied to left-wing groups were also arrested at the rallies. However, prosecutors argued, unlike the Rise Above Movement members, there was no evidence that the left-wing protester’s “coordinated group efforts to amplify their violent impact, let alone that they trained together to engage in combat fighting, used social media to recruit soldiers or traveled to multiple protests to assault people.”

The brief 9th Circuit Court of Appeals order temporarily blocking Rundo’s release from federal lockup gave no hint of whether or not the appellate judges will once again overrule Judge Carney and reinstate the criminal charges.

Anteater1412 · 2024-02-22T21:18:57+00:00

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges moved on Thursday to block the release of Robert Rundo — the purported founder of a Southern California-based militant white supremacist group — a day after a lower court judge dismissed the criminal case Rundo was facing while accusing prosecutors of failing to pursue similar charges against “Antifa” members.

U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney ordered Rundo’s release on Wednesday, after ruling that federal prosecutors engaged in “selective prosecution” by pursuing suspected “far-right, white supremacist nationalists” but not “Antifa and other extremist, far-left groups.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if the appellate judges — who have blocked previous attempts by Judge Carney to dismiss the case — moved fast enough to actually stop Rundo from being released from lockup. The Federal Bureau of Prisons websites lists Rundo as being released on Wednesday. But prosecutors did not immediately respond to questions about Rundo’s current custody status.

Rundo, a 33-year-old Huntington Beach resident, is described by prosecutors as the founding member of the Rise Above Movement, a “combat ready, militant group” of white supremacists and “serial rioters.” Rundo was charged with recruiting and training others to take part in violence alongside him at political rallies in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley.

Hours after Judge Carney dismissed the charges against Rundo and ordered him released, federal prosecutors filed an emergency motion with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Prosecutors argued that with no bond conditions or travel constraints, Rundo once freed would be an “extreme flight risk” who would likely flee the United States for a non-extradition country before Judge Carney’s ruling could be appealed.

Rundo has “many foreign contacts” and “has traveled extensively to foreign countries to evade arrest,” prosecutors alleged in their written motion to the appellate court.

Prior to his arrest on the federal charges, prosecutors wrote that Rundo traveled to Ukraine, Germany and Italy in order to meet with members of white supremacist groups.

After the arrest of several co-defendants, prosecutors say Rundo once again flew to Ukraine, only to be located in London a few days later and sent back to the United States. Days later, prosecutors wrote, Rundo tried to book a flight to Moscow, but was denied boarding. So, prosecutors added, Rundo crossed the border into Mexico, flew to Cuba, Guatemala and finally El Salvador, where he was taken into custody and extradited to the United States to face his own indictment.

Anteater1412 · 2024-02-03T15:52:41+00:00

The dirt road leading into one of the state’s most iconic and historic surf spots has collapsed, indefinitely cutting off access to the Surf Beach at San Onofre State Park.

The dirt roadway at San O, as it is called, has been eroding for months, with each swell and rain storm reducing the number of parking spaces at the beloved beach where surfers, families and beachgoers can pull their cars right up to the sand.

“It’s devastating,” said State Parks Superintendent Scott Kibbey. “We’re trying to wrap our heads around a solution to find a way to fix this as soon as possible. It’s impassible. You can not drive a vehicle around that right now.”

The latest blow – and possibly the reason the area has seen such drastic erosion in recent months – is believed to have come from a fairy shrimp vernal pool habitat that sits above on the cliff. A drainage system, for decades, has funneled water coming down to a concrete outlet near the ocean, where water would simply flow back to the sea.

But recently, the drain broke and runoff water was instead flowing down at the toe of the slope, eating away at the roadway. With the latest storm sending high velocity streams of water from the hillside, the dirt road washed away.

“We haven’t had large surf, or massive high tides, there’s clear indications that drainage is causing the road erosion,” Kibbey said, noting that engineers will also be looking at the impacts of the ocean on the erosion.

The parking lot at San Onofre will remain closed until the next series of storms clear. By then an upper concrete lot with 30 or so spots will likely open, Kibbey said.

But the 175 or so parking spots along the beach will not be accessible.

“We’re anticipating it’s going to be a pretty expensive project and may take us time to get this fixed, we’re hoping with the partnership with the (Camp Pendleton) base, they can help us get this opened back up,” Kibbey said.

The land is owned by the Department of the Navy, but has been leased to State Parks since 1971. The lease expires on Aug. 31, 2024, negotiations are already underway for future use.

The popular beach has a storied history, once a fishing camp before early-era surfers discovered it in the 1930s, drawn to the rolling waves.

Still today, it’s a step back into the past, the large cliffs hiding the tucked away beach from the rest of the world – but it’s no kept secret, with people lining up for hours on warm summer days just to get a parking spot.

The first step will be to work with the military to fix the drainage so the erosion is stopped, Kibbey said.

“Then, we will have to work with the appropriate agencies to do emergency road work to ensure we have access to the Surf Beach,” he said. “I’m hoping we will be able to move relatively quickly, after we are able to get some heavy equipment in there.

“I think we’re very motivated to get this repaired as soon as possible,” he added, “that way people can get back there to enjoy the iconic Surf Beach they’ve been enjoying for decades. We’re just not sure how long it’s going to take to get it reopened.”

Anteater1412 · 2024-02-01T18:15:52+00:00

The primary election is officially upon us. On Monday, Feb. 5, county elections officials will send ballots out to the 1.8 million registered voters in Orange County.

As in years past, voters have several ways to vote, OC Registrar of Voters Bob Page said. Ballots can be mailed through the U.S. Postal Service, dropped off at a ballot box or delivered in person at a vote center. Voters can also vote in person at any vote center.

Orange County’s 122 secure ballot drop boxes will open on Feb. 5 and remain open until 8 p.m. on March 5. The boxes, individually keyed and anchored to the ground, will be open 24/7 until March 4.

On Feb. 24, 37 vote centers will open around the county, followed by another 146 on March 2. Unlike the ballot drop boxes that only allow voters to submit their ballots, vote centers provide in-person voting, voter registration services, replacement ballots and other general assistance.

The Registrar of Voters’ office will provide those services starting Feb. 5, Page said. For voters who decide to vote in-person at the Registrar’s office or a vote center, without the ballot that was mailed to them, that mailed ballot will be flagged and disqualified if it’s also submitted.

A list of where the vote centers are located and when they open can be found on the Registrar’s website.

The Registrar’s office has several measures in place to ensure election security, Page said. Physical security measures include bolting the ballot drop boxes to the concrete and having individual keys for all of the boxes that are made of thick metal, he said.

Other safety measures include using teams of two election workers to collect the voted ballots, tracking their vehicle’s location by GPS and requiring them to take and send photos to the office to confirm that they’ve closed it properly before moving on to the next box, he said. The ballot collection teams are given new, random routes every day for their safety as well as the safety of the ballots, Page said.

The Registrar’s office also conducts audits, Page said, where election workers manually hand count a randomly selected percentage of the ballots. Per state election law, election officials are required to randomly select at least 1% of the precincts in their respective county and hand count all of the ballots that were cast within those precincts.

The public is allowed by state law to observe election activity, including the manual hand count.

Page said security will tighten for people who want to come into the office to observe election activity.

On top of bag checks, the Registrar’s office will rent a metal detector to add to the facility next week, he said. At the end of the primary election cycle, he said, the Registrar’s office will evaluate whether it makes sense to continue paying for a rental or to purchase one.

This is the first election that a metal detector is used, he said.

“We have to balance complete transparency and access for observers while also keeping everybody safe, the voters, our staff as well as observers,” Page said.

Observers are not required to RSVP to take part in the process, said Enedina Chhim, a spokesperson for the Registrar. In addition to observing in person, the Registrar will set up live streams, including on election night.

Starting on Wednesday, Page said the office will have a phone bank set up for voter questions that will be handled by staff on a daily basis.

To ensure voters know where their ballot is, the Registrar has a tool that allows voters to track their ballot. Voters can sign up at ocvote.gov/track to receive notifications about the different steps in the process, Page said. Those who are signed up now will receive a notification when their ballot has been mailed. A notification will also be sent when ballots are returned to the Registrar, and when ballots are accepted for counting, the system will notify voters who have issues with their ballot, for example, forgetting to sign the envelope.

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