In the city’s recent settlement agreement with Solid Landings, the rehab home operator was to close 15 of 33 facilities within 30 days of the settlement agreement date.

City Code Enforcement staff has verified that Solid Landings has closed (left the location/lease) and or sold these locations.

During the monitoring of these locations, code enforcement staff identified four new operations in Solid Landings previously leased locations.

These operators were noticed and cited for running facilities without City approvals.

They were required to terminate their operation within 30 days.

Three of the four facilities agreed to cease their operations and paid the fines.

Only one of the four contested their fines and in a recent citation appeal hearing, the City’s fine was upheld by a third party hearing officer.

The operator was found liable for the violation.

Code Enforcement staff will be following up with all these locations, which includes additional fines and possible civil action if these locations are not in compliance

City CEO Tom Hatch presented Costa Mesa Police Officer Lance Healey with the June CEO Leadership Award at the monthly meet and greet on Thursday June 23.

Healey joined the Costa Mesa Police Department in 2005 after a lengthy and distinguished 20-year career in the Marine Corps, where he held the titles of Team Leader, Platoon Sergeant, Platoon Commander and Chief Instructor at Camp Pendleton’s Scout Sniper Basic Course.

Officer Healey currently serves as the Sniper Team Leader for the department’s SWAT team and is responsible for the section’s monthly training. His involvement in the Training Bureau includes serving as a Firearms Instructor, development and execution of the new 16 hour POST-mandated firearms course, and development and administration of the Pre-Academy, as the Lead Instructor, preparing recruits from multiple agencies for the Sheriff’s Academy.  Lance is instrumental in ensuring the success of our Academy recruits.

He also hopes to reestablish Costa Mesa’s K9 program and develop a new standard of excellence to ensure the program’s long-term success.

In addition, Hatch honored seven newly hired employees, namely McKenna Ewing from the CEO’s Office, Victoria Chavez, Ana Cordova, Rohan Ronvelia and Quinn Harter from Parks and Community Services and Kevin Suy and June Jeong from the Police Department. Jeong, the newest police recruit, graduated top of the class from the Orange County Sheriff’s Academy.

Also honored was Bart Mejia from Public Services who was recently promoted to City Engineer.

Since 2006, the home at 276 E. 19th Street had been cited for trash and debris promoting calls to Code Enforcement and several court hearings taking place to address the problem.

Some of the issues were resolved at the time, but in 2013, Code Enforcement Officer Mike Brumbaugh was assigned the case following reports of people living in the home while the ceiling was falling in. After speaking to neighbors and inspecting the property he could see it was in substandard condition.

The city tried to contact the owner to do a walk-through. All of the city’s requests were ignored and walk-through was never scheduled. The city attorney’s office then went to court for an inspections warrant, which was granted. Police and fire personnel accompanied code enforcement on the inspections, where the home was discovered to be unlivable due to health and safety issues.

Ultimately, the home was red-tagged and boarded up. After it was put into receivership, trash and debris was removed. The case was extended by the courts for several years until recently when the home was leveled and is now just a dirt lot. The lot will be sold and money will be divvied up between the receiver and owner.

Costa Mesa native America Arias recently was the recipient of her second Emmy Award winning the Best Newscast-Evening Larger Markets at the 45th Annual Northern California Area Emmy Awards ceremony.

Arias, a news producer for KCRA 3 News in Sacramento, was honored along with anchors Gulstan Dart, Edie Lambert and Anchors reporters Melinda Meza, Kevin Oliver for their coverage of two major wildfires that triggered massive evacuations and left many Northern California communities in ruins.

The news crews covered three counties, looking into evacuations, the emergency response, and the fire’s rapid growth.

This is Arias’s second Emmy Award. She also won an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Daytime Newscast while working for KFSN-TV ABC 30 in Fresno.

“I feel incredibly blessed and proud to work with a talented and passionate team at KCRA-TV,” said Arias, who grew up on Costa Mesa’s Westside and attended Newport Harbor High School. “Thanks to everyone in front of the camera and behind the scenes who made this possible. It’s an honor to produce a show alongside so many talented people who worked tirelessly to create a smart, polished and award-winning newscast.” 

Click the links here to see the winning newscast and her acceptance speech.

Interim Recreation Manager Justin Martin has been named as the city’s new Recreation Manger.

Assistant Chief Executive Officer Tamara Letourneau announced that the vacant Recreation Manager position would be filled by Martin. Serving as Interim Recreation Manager for the past several months and with extensive knowledge in youth programming, teen programming, camps, contract classes, recreation needs and parks, Martin is the perfect candidate.

Martin has been the city’s Recreation Supervisor since December 2014 and filled the roll of Interim Recreation Manger over the last few months with a seamless transition.

“Justin brings many years of experience in recreation to this position,” Letourneau said. “He has shown the ability to create a vision and lead a team to accomplish that vision with the utmost professionalism, integrity and creativity.”

With his extensive knowledge of the community and programming, Martin will continue to shape the city and it’s recreation needs through his new role.

With the  departure of Public Services Director Ernesto Munoz, CEO Tom Hatch has brought aboard public services veteran James G. Ross as the interim director.

Ross, who started working with the city on Monday June 13, has supported municipalities and public agencies at an executive management level for the past 34 years, specializing in public works and water departments.

He has managed staffs of more than 400 people and oversaw capital improvement program budgets of $200 million. He has served on the board of directors and has been president of the Public Works Institute for the League of California Cities.

Ross has previously been the Executive Director of Public Works for the City of Santa Ana, the Principal Projects Manager of the city of Irvine, Associate Engineer for the City of Costa Mesa and engineer jobs for the Port and City of Los Angeles.

Mayor Steve Mensinger, on behalf of the City Council, has sent a sharply worded letter to two high ranking legislative leaders announcing the city’s opposition to a proposal by Gov. Jerry Brown that would eliminate city regulations and review of specific affordable housing developments.

The city is asking Assembly Member Adrin Nazarian, chair of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee and state Sen. Richard Roth, chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee, to put the brakes on any legislative action that would pass the governor’s proposal, saying it undermines local government and public engagement and will increase the public’s distrust of government.

“The City of Costa Mesa is supportive of efforts to increase affordable housing opportunities for California’s residents, especially in Orange County,” Mayor Mensinger wrote. “However, your proposed language to streamline affordable housing weakens the ability for local governments to review or approve projects in their communities.”

To see the full text of the letter click here.

The Public Services Engineering Division received news that longtime fellow employee, Bart Mejia, has been promoted to City Engineer.

Chief Executive Officer Tom Hatch, alongside Public Service Director Ernesto Munoz, announced earlier today that the vacant City Engineer position would be filled by Mejia. With more than 28 years of professional experience in engineering and project management, including the past 25 years of dedicated service to the City of Costa Mesa, Mejia will make a smooth transition into his new role.

“His soft but firm personality, professionalism and dedication make Bart an ideal choice to lead the Engineering Division of our Department,” Munoz said. “He has been intimately involved with the development of the Fairview Park Master Plan and managed the construction of many of the Plan’s elements.”

Mejia is a registered engineer in the State of California and a graduate from California State University Long Beach, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering. Mejia has also completed post baccalaureate courses from the Water Resources Specialization in the Master of Science in Civil Engineering Program.

With his already active role in many of the city’s public works projects, Mejia will continue to shape the city through his vision.

As part of the city’s outreach to residents regarding the voting district measure on the November ballot, there will be two more Community Meetings on Wednesday June 15 and Saturday June 18 with Demographer David Ely.

Further, citizens who are interested in submitting their own district maps can do so online here at the city’s Voting District Formation web page. Once you click on the link, scroll to the bottom of the page under Distributing Kit and click on the link that says Instruction on drawing your own map.

Below are the dates, times and locations where the meetings will take place:

On Tuesday June 7, Costa Mesa Mayor Steve Mensinger honored longtime resident Kirk McIntosh with the Mayor’s Award for his years of involvement as the director of the annual Pilot Cup soccer tournament.

“You’re one the people who make our city special,” Mensinger said, noting that the event had 213 teams competing this year. “For Kirk and his legion of volunteers to pull off a tournament of this magnitude every year is extraordinary.”

The Pilot Cup started 17 years ago and was the brainchild of McIntosh, a father of five soccer playing girls. He presented his idea to Daily Pilot editors and publisher Tom Johnson and the rest is history.

McIntosh, who attended the meeting with his wife Sue as well as some of his children and grandchildren, said the event wouldn’t be possible without volunteers.

“As we all know it’s nice to be recognized and I wish I could bring some others up here as this event requires a lot of volunteer participation.,” he said. “But there is a lot of happy kids and happy families. I thank you for this award and I’ll share it with the other folks who should also be up here.”

The Pilot Cup originally started with only 500 players but has grown to 2,500 players from third to sixth grade and every school in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District competes as well as local private schools.

Less than 24 hours after yesterday’s mainline break, the line is repaired and Fairview is open

Fire Department Management Analyst Alma Reyes was the recipient of May’s CEO Leadership Award.

Our video team spent some time with Reyes to get an idea of what her workday is like.