No other words needed.            

Newport Beach’s City Hall is a building which produces no revenue and costs the taxpayers of Newport Beach well over a half-million dollars each and every month simply to pay down the debt created with its construction and payment plan. While the Irvine Company gave us the land for free, we managed to turn the “New City Hall Project” from …

The Jet Packs in the harbor are cool– nobody is denying that.  However, should they be here in our harbor? Many boaters use the channel that they operate in, and some complain that the Jet Packs tend to be in the way, with newbie drivers flying and spraying seawater all over the place– so should they be banned? I think …

Today is the peak of the Big Swell, with the swell pushing in from dead-south, bringing 10-14ft waves to the big beaches and 20ft waves being generated at The Wedge– estimates which many claim are noticeably low. Last night’s swell overtook much of the sandbars in the area north/west of the Balboa Pier, creating a lake-like scene, shown here: The peak today will be …

Did you know that in the Kentucky Derby, “Mr Z”s owner was born and raised in Newport Beach?  He was!  He’s a longshot bet, but it’s really cool having our hometown represented! 🙂 Mr Z now appears to be based out of Indian Wells, California (near Palm Desert) Mr Z is also the most experienced horse on the track! But …

The storm that we’ve been tracking for the last week is finally arriving this weekend– and we aren’t talking about boxing.  This Saturday through Wednesday we will see higher than normal swells, with the Wedge seeing waves up to 20 feet high. Monday or Tuesday will likely be the biggest waves, but we’ll start seeing major increases as early as Sunday morning, …

Saturday April 25th will be the final Balboa Island Garage Sale put on by Carolyn Carr-Kamps.  The tradition begins at 7:30am and will officially end at 3pm– though the ones who sell out of their goods will surely begin to close before that! It seems that everyone has learned the hard way here: Get there early!! Parking will most certainly be problematic so …

Today is Shirley Temple’s birthday.  As the story goes, Shirley Temple was first a local star of Balboa, being named the first “Miss Newport Beach” at the age of 13. The house she used to live in on Balboa Peninsula was in Peninsula Point near M Street, just past the Bartholomew house, at the closest point to the Coast Guard Beach (right …

By now, you’ve heard about the water crisis throughout California.  For many reasons, our water supply is simply too low.  In Orange County, we have a reservoir that we pump most of our water from, but we are only allowed to pull 72% from the OC’s reservoir, meaning still need to import 28% of it from northern water supplies– the same supplies that …

One of the items in Tuesday’s City Council meeting was whether or not to add more police to Newport Beach’s Balboa Peninsula, which councilwoman Dixon has repeatedly referred to as having a  “crime problem”.  This is part of Dixon’s “Lights Out” proposal, and 1,746 signatures were submitted to show public disapproval.  All were summarily ignored by council. First, let’s start with the police …