To mark fire prevention month, Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue is inviting the public to an open house this Saturday Oct. 6 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Fire Station No. 4.

Members of the public can meet local firefighters and department staff, observe the operations of front-line fire equipment and take part in a fire ground challenge event for adults and kids.

Free parking is available at Estancia High School (south lot).

For more details click here to see the flier.

Fire Station No. 4 is located at 2300 Placentia Ave.

To satisfy a federal court requirement to find a community shelter, the City of Costa Mesa has been aggressively searching to identify appropriate locations throughout the city for potential purchase and development.

The city’s commitment with any location will be to design the highest quality facility that is securely operated and free of loitering or neighborhood disruptions and any impacts to the greater Costa Mesa community will be minimized.

When we open our community shelter, the city will avoid further litigation and regain the ability to enforce the city’s anti-camping laws. These laws ensure the safety and well-being of residents, business owners and visitors.

Click here to read our Fact Sheet on the court’s requirement.

The city is seeking the community’s help as the process moves forward. Members of the public who have ideas about potential properties or locations for the community shelter are urged to call Public Information Officer Tony Dodero at 714-754-5288 or via email at citynews@costamesaca.gov.

Costa Mesa officially re-opened Fire Station No. 1 with an emotion-packed ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday Sept. 29 that was well attended by both high-ranking dignitaries, elected city leaders, city staff and several hundred members of the general public.

Attending the event was Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and State Sen. John Moorlach, both of whom gave presentations to the city, along with a representative from Assembly Member Matt Harper’s office.

The event began with comments from City Manager Tom Hatch along with Costa Mesa Mayor Sandy Genis, Mayor Pro-Tem Allan Mansoor, Council Members Katrina Foley, Jim Righeimer and John Stephens.

“This was a phenomenal event for the entire community,” Fire Chief Dan Stefano said. “Our fire family is grateful and honored to have this extraordinary resource for our residents and firefighters. We look forward to having this serve as our flagship fire station for decades to come.”

Also speaking at the event was Public Services Director Raja Sethuraman, who credited his team and others for building the new station at 1570 Adams Ave., which is an 11,740-square-foot facility that comes equipped with the latest in fire services technology and daily amenities.

The new facility replaces the original Station 1 that was built in 1961.

This new building is a $10 million city investment that came in $350,000 under budget and is LEED Gold Certified. It has a new public lobby, three fire offices, rooms for laundry, communications, exercise and training. There is also is a kitchen and dining room and 10 bedrooms and five restrooms. This is the first fire station built in Costa Mesa since Station No. 6 was built over 25 years ago in 1993.

Saturday’s festivities also included a color guard presentation, plaque unveiling and a flag raising as well as opportunities for the public to take guided tours of the station. Children, some dressed as firefighters, climbed on fire equipment and trucks and the Maltese Cross was also unveiled. The Maltese Cross dates backs hundreds of years.  It is a symbol of protection and means that a firefighter is willing to lay down his/her life and works in courage.

City Manager Tom Hatch presented Maintenance Supervisor Ruben Salas with the September City Manager Leadership Award at the monthly Meet and Greet celebration on Thursday Sept. 27.

“Ruben sets a great example to all of his team members with his dedication and hard work,” City Manager Hatch said. “Ensuring the city’s fleet of vehicles are in great shape is an important job and Ruben and his team consistently rise to that challenge. I appreciate all he does for Costa Mesa.”

As the supervisor, Salas is charged with purchasing vehicles, monitoring contracts and overseeing the daily challenges associated with running a successful municipal fleet.

Hired by the City of Costa Mesa in April 2006 as an Equipment Mechanic III, Salas has a diverse background. He spent 17 years working as a mechanic for OCTA and prior to that served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Salas is an ASE Certified Master Mechanic with certificates in Automotive and Heavy Truck Repairs. He is a state certified Fire Mechanic and was recently awarded the 25-year Master Automotive Service Excellence medallion.

His hobbies include weightlifting, basketball and martial arts. He is an assistant instructor at the South Orange County Martial Arts Academy under Master Frank Ebrahimi. He has been a student of Kung Fu for over 26 years and holds the rank of 6th degree black belt in Kung Fu.

In addition to honoring Salas, City Manager Hatch welcomed several new employees and one for a promotion.

New to the city are Jeff Trujillo, a video production coordinator for the Communications and Marketing Division. Also new in Parks and Community Services are Nicholas Kinnart, Recreation Leader II and Getsemani Orozco Ceja Recreation Leader I.

In Public Services, Elena Polyakova White is the new Engineering Division Intern, and Hatch honored longtime city employee Bruce Lindemann for his promotion to Maintenance Services Manager.

OCTA Crews will close the northbound lanes of I-405 between Fairview Road and Harbor Boulevard at 11 p.m. Friday to remove a sign structure as part of the I-405 Improvement Project.

The sign structure, which must come down to allow crews to start constructing the new outside lanes as part of the freeway widening, spans the northbound lanes. The northbound lanes of the freeway must be closed to safely remove the sign. Two lanes on southbound I-405 also will be closed for the activity.

Motorists on northbound I-405 will be detoured to the Fairview Road off-ramp, then directly back onto northbound I-405 at the Fairview on-ramp. Motorists on northbound State Route 73 also will exit at the Fairview off-ramp and be directed to northbound I-405 at the Fairview on-ramp.

Up-to-date closure and construction information is available on the project’s interactive map at www.octa.net/405map.

Reminder: Full I-405 Closure Begins Saturday Night in Fountain Valley

Drivers and nearby residents are also reminded that, the next night, a full closure of the I-405 in Fountain Valley is scheduled. That closure, which will close all lanes of I-405 between Brookhurst and Magnolia streets, is set to begin Saturday, Sept. 29, lasting from approximately 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. Sunday, to safely demolish the Slater Avenue bridge.

The remaining work on the Slater bridge will be done during a second full closure on Saturday, Oct. 6, also from approximately 11 p.m. to 8 a.m.

The Slater bridge is the second of more than 18 bridges to be built, widened or replaced as part of the project, which will speed up travel times on I-405 between Costa Mesa and the Los Angeles County line, an area traveled by more than 370,000 vehicles a day. The McFadden Avenue bridge was demolished last month.

During the freeway closures, northbound drivers will be detoured off the freeway at Brookhurst Street, and southbound motorists will be detoured off the freeway at Magnolia Street.

Nighttime lane closures on I-405 are also expected during the weeks of Oct. 15 and Oct. 22 for additional demolition activities, but those will not require the freeway to be fully closed.

Drivers should expect nighttime delays in the area and are encouraged to use alternate routes if possible.

The $1.9 billion I-405 Improvement Project will add one regular lane in each direction between SR-73 and I-605 and a second lane in each direction in the center of the freeway that will combine with the existing carpool lanes to form the 405 Express Lanes.

This 16-mile segment of I-405 is one of the most heavily traveled stretches of highway in the nation, and both the regular lanes and carpool lanes are heavily congested during rush hour and on weekends. The project is critical to accommodate expected employment, population and housing growth throughout the region.

People are encouraged to visit the project website at www.octa.net/405improvement to sign up for construction alerts via automated call, text message or email.

The City of Costa Mesa will officially open a new fire station for the first time in 25 years this Saturday morning Sept. 29 as the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly rebuilt Fire Station No. 1 takes place.

“This is a proud moment for the City of Costa Mesa and all of our residents,” Mayor Sandy Genis said. “Congratulations to Public Services Director Raja Sethuraman and Fire Chief Dan Stefano and their teams who worked hard to make this vision a reality and continue the legacy of excellence we have all come to expect.”

Fire Chief Stefano said he is also proud to open this new state-of-the-art facility.

“Our fire family is grateful and honored to have this rare opportunity to open a new station for our Costa Mesa community,” Chief Dan Stefano said. “In addition to being a picturesque and contemporary facility, it will be an extraordinary resource for our residents and firefighters. It will clearly serve as our flagship fire station for decades to come.”

The new station at 1570 Adams Ave. is an 11,740-square-foot facility that comes equipped with the latest in fire services technology and daily amenities.

This multi-year endeavor is a joint effort between the Fire & Rescue and Public Services departments and began in March of 2017 with the razing of the original Station 1 that was built in 1961. That building was outdated and obsolete and was in critical need of replacement.

This new building is a $10 million city investment that came in $350,000 under budget and is LEED Gold Certified. It has a new public lobby, three fire offices, rooms for laundry, communications, exercise and training. There is also is a kitchen and dining room and 10 bedrooms and five restrooms.

This is the first fire station built in Costa Mesa since Station No. 6 was built over 25 years ago in 1993.

The event will take place at 10 a.m. and will include comments by City Council members, City Manager Tom Hatch, Fire Chief Stefano and Public Services Director Sethuraman.

The festivities will also include a color guard presentation, plaque unveiling and a flag raising as well as opportunities for the public to take guided tours of the station. Children will be offered kid-friendly activities and fire equipment will be on display. Refreshments will also be available.

• The City of Costa Mesa has been a county leader in finding creative solutions to help individuals experiencing homelessness, while at the same time appropriately conducting enforcement efforts to ensure the safety and well-being of residents, business owners and visitors.

• The City provides support and resources to aide Costa Mesa’s homeless population through the city’s Network for Homeless Solutions, which housed nearly 300 people in five years and reconnected more than 120 individuals with family and loved ones outside of Costa Mesa.

• And while the City and community of Costa Mesa is committed to doing its fair share, a federal court has now established a new expectation that each agency in this lawsuit (Anaheim, Orange, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and the County of Orange) contributes emergency shelter beds.

• In the future, the court indicated that other and/or all cities in Orange County may be expected to do the same.

• To avoid further litigation, satisfy the court and allow Costa Mesa to enforce its laws, the city will need to provide emergency shelter beds equal to 60% of the last official count of unsheltered homeless in the city, which was 103 individuals. 60% of 103 equals 62 beds.

• Costa Mesa has already begun working on a solution and recently approved an application from College Hospital, a longtime and respected provider of mental health and medical treatment in the community, to create 12 new emergency beds at the hospital to treat those who are in mental health crisis.

• With the availability of these beds, our law enforcement officers and firefighters will be able to quickly refer people they encounter on the streets who are a threat to themselves or the community to this emergency unit. This will result in fewer individuals with mental health issues on Costa Mesa streets, which will make the community safer.

• The availability of this emergency unit reduces the number of beds needed in Costa Mesa from 62 to 50.

• Finding 50 emergency shelter beds in Costa Mesa or by partnering with surrounding cities is going to take a tremendous amount of civic engagement and support by elected leaders and the greater Costa Mesa community as the city’s goal will be to ensure any impacts are minimized. Costa Mesa city staff is in the early stages of working with the Network for Homeless Solutions and other non profits as it seeks to fulfill the court’s request and balance that with the wider Costa Mesa community input and feedback.

• Costa Mesa continues to have its outreach team, more than 100 volunteers and over 50 social service providers and agencies make daily contact with 60 to 80 people each week (more than 3,000 a year) and assist park rangers, police officers and residents who encounter homeless individuals seeking assistance.

• The city partners with the Lighthouse Church of the Nazarene, which serves as a homeless service center and inclement weather shelter for extremely vulnerable individuals, as well as Trellis and The Crossing Church to provide a check-in center with 63 bins to safely story materials for homeless individuals and keep it out of public streets and parks.

• For more information on the city’s efforts and to provide feedback contact Public Information Officer Tony Dodero at 714-754-5288 or via email at citynews@costamesaca.gov.

Due to the observation of the Labor Day holiday on Monday, Sept. 3, there will be no residential street sweeping through Friday Sept. 7.

This coincides with the Costa Mesa Sanitary District, which also observes this holiday by pushing trash collection back one day.

This results in residential gutter lines being cluttered with trash cans making it impossible for street sweeper operators to do an efficient job. There should be no parking citations issued during this time.

Street sweeping will resume back to normal schedule the week of Sept. 10.

In lieu of sweeping streets, the following are a list of task that clean streets operators will be conducting next week.

• City wide alley street sweeping
• Sweeping of park parking lots and other city owned facilities
• Accident call outs and special request
• Night route sweeping on all arterial streets

For more information, residents can call the city’s street sweeping hotline at (714) 327-7471, which has been updated with this information.

The City of Costa Mesa recently awarded a construction contract to Copp Contracting Inc. to reconstruct and place approximately 5,400 tons of new asphalt on Pomona Avenue from 18th to 16th Street.

Construction started on Monday Aug. 27 and is anticipated for completion by mid-November. This Federally Funded Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) street improvement project involves removal and reconstruction of the asphalt pavement and concrete storm drain, sidewalk, curb, gutter, and access ramps.

The city has worked with Newport Mesa Unified School District to relocate the school bus pick up/drop off of Shalimar Drive to now stop at the 18th Street and Wallace Avenue bus-stop.

On Friday, Aug. 24, 2018, the Costa Mesa Police Department (CMPD) and Code Enforcement, along with the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), the Department of Consumer Affairs’ Division of Investigation-Cannabis Enforcement Unit (DOI-CEU), California Department of Taxes and Fee Administration, and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office (OCDA) arrested a man, who was unlawfully operating a marijuana dispensary in Costa Mesa.

Omid Delkash, 47, Newport Beach, was charged today with four misdemeanor counts of unlawful transportation, sale, and furnishing marijuana. He is currently in custody and is being held on $150,000 bail. He was arraigned today and is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing on Aug. 31, 2018, at 8:30 a.m., Department C-5, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.

Measure X

In the City of Costa Mesa, Measure X prohibits any type of retail sales of marijuana and/or marijuana products within the city boundaries. Under this ordinance, medical marijuana businesses may not conduct retail activity of any type. It is permissible to conduct wholesale medical marijuana distributing, manufacturing, processing, and transporting, and to establish a laboratory for research and development; however, one must apply for a business license and be approved by the City.

All commercial cannabis activity in California requires a license from one of the state’s three cannabis-licensing authorities. Selling cannabis goods without a state license is a violation of state law. Enforcement of unlicensed commercial cannabis activity may occur at the state and/or local level.

Investigation

Prior to the arrest, in March 2018, the defendant is accused of opening a business, Church of Peace and Glory, at the 1600 block of Irvine Avenue in Costa Mesa. Due to citizen complaints, the CMPD Special Investigations Unit investigated the location for several months starting in May 2018. Costa Mesa Code Enforcement issued the location two citations for unlawfully operating a marijuana dispensary. On May 9, 2018, and June 5, 2018, Delkash is accused of selling marijuana to customers.

On June 14, 2018, the defendant is accused of having a walk-through with Code Enforcement to show they are in compliance and not operating as a marijuana dispensary. Delkash is accused of commercially selling marijuana on the same day as the walk-through. He is also accused of selling marijuana to customers on July 17, 2018.

Arrest

On Aug. 24, 2018, CMPD, BCC, DOI-CEU, and members of OCDA served a search warrant at the Church of Peach and Glory and placed Delkash under arrest without incident. The agencies executed the search warrant and confiscated marijuana, edibles, and tobacco products.

Reporting Unlawful Dispensaries

To report unlawful dispensaries in Costa Mesa, residents can call the Code Enforcement duty officer at (714) 754-5638, Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Residents can also report via the City’s app “MyCostaMesa,” online or through the mobile version on an Apple or Android device.

To file a complaint regarding an entity licensed by the BCC, click here – Enforcement Online Services. Once the user clicks “File a Complaint,” they will be prompted to select a license type, or they can simply report on unlicensed activity. After filling out the nature of the complaint, the user then reviews and submits the complaint to the BCC for follow up.

Costa Mesa Police Department will participate in a high-visibility national enforcement campaign, “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” through Monday Sept. 3.

During the campaign, which started Aug. 17, Costa Mesa officers, along with the CHP and other local agencies, will increase the number of officers on the road with the mission of mitigating suspected drunk and/or drug impaired drivers.

Motorists caught driving impaired will be pulled over and arrested. CMPD is increasingly trained and poised to act on drug impaired drivers. Motorists taking prescription drugs, particularly those with a driving or operating machinery warning label, may be impaired enough to get a DUI.

Marijuana can also be impairing and result in a DUI, especially in combination with alcohol or other drugs. CMPD will continue these added DUI Saturation Patrols up through the Labor Day weekend, which tends to have some of the highest statistical occurrences of DUI related collisions and fatalities.

City Manager Tom Hatch presented Fairview Park Administrator Cynthia D’Agosta with the City Manager Leadership Award for August at the monthly Meet and Greet on Thursday Aug. 23.

“Cynthia is charged with overseeing one of the city’s most beloved parks,” City Manager Hatch said. “She leads the charge on all aspects of the land management and her role requires her to communicate extensively. She has cultivated strong relationships with community members and additional partner agencies that have ties to Fairview Park. The city is fortunate to have her.”

D’Agosta is also responsible for the Fairview Park Steering Committee, which works to provide the City Council with recommendations on the park, through the assistance of Public Services staff. She has worked to educate the committee on the existing Fairview Park Master Plan, on reviewing all existing and approved Capital Improvement Projects and grants at the park, and to formulate and present a set of recommendations to the City Council specifically related to the implications of Measure AA.

In addition, she coordinates general and special park maintenance, oversees the biological monitoring of all sensitive plant and animal species in the park, communicates with local neighbors and stakeholders and assures compliance with state and federal regulations and organizes nature-based educational and volunteer opportunities.

D’Agosta began with the City in September of 2017 as the Fairview Park Administrator.

Her past work experience includes management and design of regional scale urban open spaces for both non- profits and government entities such as the Los Angeles County Dept. of Parks & Recreation, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the National Parks Service and the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority.

D’Agosta is a native Californian and urban open space planner, landscape architect and artist. She holds a bachelor’s degree in science and fine arts from UC Santa Cruz and a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

In addition to honoring D’Agosta, City Manager Hatch welcomed several new hires and congratulated others on promotions.

New hires include John Begin, who was hired to work as an Outreach Worker on the city’s Network for Homeless Solutions team. Also Ronald Dam moved from part time to full time as the city’s Video Production Specialist.

In the Finance Department, Jennifer King was recognized as the new Assistant Finance Director and Arnold Antonio is the new Fire Department Code Enforcement Officer. In the Parks & Community Services Department Tai Pace is a new Recreation Leader III and in Public Services Hector Soriano is a new Engineering Technician III.

Promotions Include Carlos Henriquez who upgraded to Equipment Mechanic II, Paul Mackinen to Lead Maintenance Worker and Dylan Sickler to Fire Protection Specialist.