Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
In our exhaustive coverage of the crony-arranged Dog Beach meeting happening on Sept 11th– yes, seriously, they chose that date– we detailed two of the three speakers as being seriously high-paid government employees under Mayor Dixon, therefore carrying the water for her. But we missed one of them: Garry Brown. No, not the former governor of California Jerry Brown, but his evil (eviler?) twin-in-name. Thankfully, an anonymous astute readers sent in plenty of documentation outlying who he is, too. And it ain’t pretty.
So who is Garry Brown?
Well, apparently his history is so darn juicy that the OC Weekly actually did a full-page profile on him– nearly 20 years ago! Needless to say, he’s stacked up plenty of stories since then. Check out their coverage of him (no seriously, you won’t believe it) here: https://ocweekly.com/garry-quite-contrary-6393665/.
No, we don’t know if he paid back the six-figure judgement against him by the Boy Scouts of America, but according to them at the time, he was “asset-proof”, and “did not serve the Boy Scouts well”. I won’t steal the glory of OCWeekly’s coverage here, but this story is nearly-unbelievable. Definitely check it out.
So how has Mr Brown treated himself since the article was launched 19 years ago? Quite well, it appears, because he’s now got an organization called “OC Coast Keepers” which has a pretty interesting tax filing. It appears that half of the “proceeds” (read: settlements and collections) that are earned every year go to “payroll”. To put this into perspective, “good” charities like St Jude only allocate 10% to salaries, and they have far more staff and far more money than OC Coastkeepers.
Now I know what a lot of you are thinking: This must be a shakedown organization that goes into places with big pockets by waterways and demands donations with the threat of lawsuits to follow if they decline, and then the founders live lavishly on ill-gotten funds. Well, I can’t confirm or deny that, but that’s one way to look at it. Attached are the Form 990s that they file with the federal government, showing all the details: https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/330/330847892/330847892_201712_990.pdf
Please note one of the major sponsors of OC Coast Keepers is none-other than the City of Newport Beach– who has Diane Dixon as a mayor.
So this meeting happening tomorrow, Sept 11, at 6pm at the Civic Center Community Room at City Hall will have three speakers: All of them being paid by the city where Diane Dixon is the mayor, and who also happens to be the person behind trying to shut down Dog Beach.
And Speak Up Newport declined allowing myself to speak in favor of Dog Beach (their headlining item), because Dixon is on the board. This is a crony organization, to the core. I encourage people NOT to attend, as the speakers at these events have previously attempted to belittle the crowd as they are the ones with the microphones and therefore the presumption of righteousness. I’ll be there to video tape it, and if you want to watch what they say on YouTube later, I will be sure to upload it.
But make no mistake about it, the fight to keep our 103-year-old Dog Beach has not been concluded– in fact, I was just out there this weekend! More to come on Dog Beach– if you would like to stay up to date on the subject, please sign the petition, here: http://savenewport.com/dogs — and get your friends to, too!
