C I T Y L I G H T S NEWS TICKER


Costa Mesa welcomes Chargers Crime and drugs plague their putative new home Chargers honcho Dean Spanos has pledged to soon reveal whether the team is mov- ing to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, an Orange County city infamous for a 33 percent jump in crime last year is at work preparing a warm embrace.


C I T Y L I G H T S By Reader staff writers


Register last January. “It has impaired our ability to keep crimi-


nals locked up and conduct proper enforce- ment. There’s no teeth to the bite in our ability to thwart the rate of recidivism.” Per the Register’s account, “law enforce-


ment officials reported signs of increased and more brazen criminal activity in Costa Mesa even before Prop 47 was passed.” An in-house law-enforcement memo


obtained by the paper said that “conducting criminal activity, especially drug sales/use activity, is more desirable in Costa Mesa now than previous years due to a perceived lower risk of arrest and greater prevalence of drug and related offenders in the community.” The document called out some particu-


Costa Mesa mayor Katrina Foley’s Twitter post lauding the team’s possible move to Orange County


“On behalf of the Costa Mesa City Council


and our entire community, we are elated that the Chargers organization has selected Costa Mesa, the City of the Arts, as their new home if the LA stadium option is exer- cised,” said recently installed mayor Katrina Foley in a December 23 statement on the city’s website. “Costa Mesa is uniquely eclectic with


wonderful neighborhoods, world-class shop- ping, exceptional performing arts venues and fairgrounds, the best restaurants in Southern California, and a thriving tourism industry. Costa Mesa is also known for an edgy, trend-setting apparel industry, qual- ity educational institutions, beautiful open spaces and recreational options, and it is full of friendly and creative people.” Adds Foley, “Costa Mesa is prepared to


graciously welcome [the Spanos] organiza- tion and his family of employees as they make us their home for their new headquar- ters, practice and training facility.” Not that there aren’t a few problems to


take care of at city hall, Foley admitted to the Orange County Register in a December 21 piece about hiring and other problematic municipal issues. “We’re down in nearly every department.


We will not be creating an environment where our staffing is cut so low because we’re not an employer that people want to work for,” she was quoted as saying. As for that festering crime wave, Costa


Mesa chief of police Rob Sharpnack blames Proposition 47, passed by California voters in November 2014, reducing some drug and petty-theft felonies to misdemeanors, among other provisions. “We’re seeing this recycling of criminal offenders in our city,” Sharpnack told the


larly egregious goings-on, including open sales of illegal drugs at a “popular Costa Mesa shopping center,” and “a known Costa Mesa gang member...arrested after driv- ing in broad daylight in a stolen vehicle... in possession of narcotics...[which] would have been traditionally viewed as reckless behavior by a gang member on probation.” Sharpnack also told the paper that “the


influx of sober living homes to the city have brought in young drug addicts, who can become homeless if they fail out of the programs and resort to theft to feed their habit. The city’s cheap motels lining Harbor and Newport boulevards have also attracted drugs and crime.”


Matt Potter


Disbarred and in debt J. Douglass Jennings must pay back fraudulently obtained funds Former tax law attorney J. Douglass Jennings — now officially disbarred, according to State Bar records — cannot discharge a debt that he incurred in bank- ruptcy, the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth District, ruled on December 2nd.


C I T Y L I G H T S


How is it possible to extend the one-time 2012 closure to 2030? The city says, tarps (using less soil), better compaction techniques, and the Zero Waste Plan are all contributing to the projection.


It smells like By Julie Stalmer T


he smell of turkey wasn’t the only thing in the air Thanksgiv-


ing morning in Kim Bustos’s University City neighbor- hood. Bustos called the city at 7:30 a.m. to report a really bad smell coming out of Miramar Landfill. Bustos moved into the neighbor- hood seven months ago (about three miles down- wind of the landfill, when the wind is out of the east). She said there have been four to five times over the past few months when the odor has been overwhelm- ing. Bustos wonders if it has something to do with her husband’s worsening sinus problems. Bustos isn’t alone — hun-


Douglass and Peggy Jennings The bankruptcy court had said he couldn’t


ditch a debt because it was incurred “in fraud or defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity.” Jennings appealed and the Ninth District slapped him down. The bankruptcy court had also refused continued on page 28


dreds of complaints were lodged neighbor-to-neigh- bor, on social media, and to the city and county in 2016. One resident described the odor by saying, “It smells like dead animals.” Lori Saldaña, 2016 may- oral candidate and a Claire-


mont resident, has also com- plained about the land- fill, most recently in early December 2016. Saldaña smelled the odor the day after Thanksgiving while driving east on Highway 52, between 805 and Con- voy Street. “I often smell that distinctive odor when I let the dog out in the yard, around 6:00 a.m.” Saldaña contacted coun-


cilmember Chris Cate in early November. Allen Young from Cate’s office responded that city staff were working on the odor problem. He also provided contact information for Mike Zu Hone of the city’s Environmental Services Department — asking resi- dents to contact him directly with complaints. Janis Deady said the


smell sometimes wakes her up in the middle of the night. Deady has lived in her University City home (about four miles away from the landfill) for more


dead animals Is “Zero Waste” making a stink at the Miramar landfill?


than 20 years. “I have never smelled anything like this before. This didn’t occur until the landfill started to get full. It started about this same time last year. It was very difficult to figure out who we could report it to; everybody passed the buck. It’s absurd. “After months of com-


plaining, the [Air Pollution Control District] finally started sending someone out. The problem is, by the time they get here, the odor was gone.” The Air Pollution Con-


trol District is a county agency responsible for mon- itoring air quality. “Because the landfill is


full,” Deady says, “to save space, instead of covering the trash with dirt, they have started covering it every night with tarp and then the next morning, they uncover it and put in more trash. When the Santa Ana winds are blowing, you can really smell it.” Mahiany P. Luther, chief


of departmental operations for the compliance division of the Air Pollution Control District, said that a citation issued in March 2016 was for violating the nuisance rule [Rule 51], which states that no one can discharge air contaminants that cause a nuisance.


2 San Diego Reader January 5, 2017


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