2019 in review: Top stories of the year in Costa Mesa
City leadership shuffled, a new library marked the next chapter for a downtown park, a controversial needle-exchange program was struck down and a homeless shelter opened.
The past year in Costa Mesa was as impactful as it was packed. Here are some of the top stories of 2019:
Language campus approved for ex-Trinity Broadcasting site
Trinity Broadcasting Network’s former headquarters will be reborn as an international language school under a proposal the Costa Mesa Planning Commission approved in November.
EF Education First, a privately held company headquartered in Switzerland, plans to redevelop the property at 3150 Bear St. into an English-language-learning school that could serve 1,300 students.
Under the city-approved plans, the company will renovate an existing three-story building on the site, build three new dormitories and add new landscaping and outdoor recreational facilities.
In December, the City Council approved an agreement in which EF Education First will pay $1.8 million over 15 years for infrastructure improvements around the property.
New leaders take the reins at City Hall
Top offices in City Hall changed hands throughout the year.
Lori Ann Farrell Harrison, previously the assistant city manager in Huntington Beach, took over Costa Mesa’s top job in July. She took the reins from Tamara Letourneau, who had filled the role on an interim basis following the sudden departure of former city manager Tom Hatch in November 2018.
Shortly after Farrell Harrison joined the city, Letourneau — who had been Costa Mesa’s assistant city manager for five years — left to take over as city manager in Laguna Niguel.
Another city official, Justin Martin, was named acting assistant city manager after Letourneau’s departure, but he later left to join her in Laguna Niguel, where he is now deputy city manager.
Susan Price — Orange County’s director of care coordination since May 2016 — was hired in November to become Costa Mesa’s new second-in-command. She is expected to join the city in January.
Costa Mesa also welcomed back a familiar face in January 2019 when Kimberly Hall Barlow returned as city attorney, a role she had previously filled for more than six years until she resigned in March 2011.
She replaced Tom Duarte, a fellow partner at the law firm Jones & Mayer, with which Costa Mesa has contracted for city attorney services since 2004.
Police chief announces retirement following budget dispute, then files claim
Rob Sharpnack, Costa Mesa’s police chief since 2015, announced in October that he planned to retire this month, but his exit was anything but quiet.
In November, Sharpnack filed a claim against the city seeking more than $10,000 in damages. He alleged he was being forced out of his position after he raised issues regarding the most recent budget development process and what he considered the City Council’s “interference” in his department.
The city has denied his allegations.
Sharpnack previously outlined his budgetary grievances in a May 23 memo to the council. He claimed the budget proposed at that point dangerously shortchanged his department and that the process for crafting the plan was “chaotic, full of poor decisions and saturated in secrecy.”
The council in November approved a three-year plan to bankroll several projects in the Police Department, including some that Sharpnack had cited as priorities.
Sharpnack originally said his last day on the job would be Dec. 21. Costa Mesa spokesman Tony Dodero said Monday that he could not confirm whether Sharpnack was still employed by the city.
O.C. Fair Board fires CEO, who was already leaving for a new job
Tumult at the top of the OC Fair & Event Center reached a crescendo in October with the dismissal of Chief Executive Kathy Kramer.
The Orange County Fair Board, which oversees the state-owned fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, fired Kramer less than two weeks after the Central Washington State Fair announced she would join the organization in February as its president and CEO.
To replace Kramer, the Fair Board turned to another member of the fairgrounds’ leadership team — Vice President of Business Development Michele Richards, who in December was officially named the agency’s new general manager and chief executive.
After her dismissal, Kramer asserted she had been retaliated against for participating in an investigation into allegations of misconduct by two former board members. She declined to provide additional details about who those people were or what they were accused of doing.
Though the Fair Board didn’t explain the decision to terminate Kramer, the move followed a few controversies that arose throughout the year.
An audit from the California Department of Food and Agriculture released in January determined that the Fair & Event Center had paid a former employee about $74,000 in wages and benefits after she stopped working amid allegations that she had created a “hostile” work environment.
Fairgrounds officials said those payments were made as part of a separation agreement with the staff member. The Fair Board in March barred staff from entering into such arrangements without both their approval and authorization from the California Department of Human Resources.
Also, a community activist filed a complaint this year alleging that a $75,000 contract between the Fair & Event Center and neighboring Vanguard University violated anti-discrimination laws because of the private Christian school’s stance against same-sex relations.
Voice of OC later reported that Kramer had been a member of the school’s fundraising board while also serving as CEO.
Ruling seemingly scraps proposed needle exchange
A more than year-long legal battle over a state-approved mobile needle-exchange service that sought to operate in Costa Mesa and three other cities seemingly ended in October, when San Diego County Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil ruled that the program is subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Orange County, the county Flood Control District and the cities of Costa Mesa, Anaheim and Orange sued in an effort to block the program, arguing that the state’s approval violated CEQA since “the OCNEP has resulted in syringe litter, which creates environmental impacts to public health and safety that have not been addressed through CEQA environmental review.”
The win signals a potentially imminent end to a years-long battle over the Orange County Needle Exchange Program, which local leaders have long contended presented a public safety hazard.
As approved by the California Department of Public Health in 2018, the Orange County Needle Exchange Program would be able to distribute needles and other supplies in Costa Mesa on West 17th Street between Whittier Avenue and the city boundary during specified times. City officials argued that the operation would be a nuisance and potentially create a public health and safety hazard.
Second time’s a charm for the Plant
More than a year after initially wilting in the face of parking concerns, plans for the Plant — a commercial-residential development proposed for Costa Mesa’s Sobeca district — won City Council approval in September.
The project from Costa Mesa-based Lab Holding LLC, which also built the Lab and the Camp commercial centers on Bristol Street, will bring 62 new housing units — including 14 live/work spaces — plus office, dining and retail areas to the corner of Baker Street and Century Place.
OCMA’s new home begins to take shape
Officials broke ground on the new home of the Orange County Museum of Art in September — moving the long-discussed project a step closer to reality.
The three-story, nearly 52,000-square-foot museum will be next to the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa and include permanent and special exhibit space, a glass-fronted exhibition corridor facing a walkway along Avenue of the Arts, a cafe, a museum shop and a landscaped outdoor terrace.
Despite years in the hopper, though, the project had to avoid one last, and somewhat puzzling, hurdle.
Costa Mesa planning commissioners unanimously approved a master plan for the museum in January. However, then-Segerstrom Center President Terrence Dwyer appealed the decision to the City Council on Jan. 18, citing concerns about site access, parking, outdoor activity space, building design and use and whether the museum would be appropriately integrated with existing facilities.
Dwyer left his position Feb. 22 and the appeal was dropped in March. The center hired Casey Reitz, former executive director of New York’s Second Stage Theater, as its new president in October.
Costa Mesa ‘manny’ accused of sexually abusing young boys
A Costa Mesa man who worked as a professional nanny was arrested in May and is now accused of sexually abusing 17 young boys, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Matthew Antonio Zakrzewski — who worked for families across Southern California and billed himself as a “manny” on his now-defunct personal website and various professional profiles — has pleaded not guilty to 33 felony counts and is scheduled back in court Jan. 24.
Authorities allege the crimes occurred between Jan. 1, 2014, and May 17, when Laguna Beach police arrested Zakrzewski after he got off an international flight. Prosecutors say the boys were ages 2 to 12 at the time of the alleged abuse.
Zakrzewski could face 690 years to life, plus eight years, behind bars if convicted as charged.
New library marks next chapter for Lions Park
Costa Mesa closed the book on one of its most significant projects in recent memory when officials celebrated the opening of the city’s new Lions Park library in May.
The revamped Donald Dungan Library — a two-story, 23,615-square-foot structure — replaced a much smaller branch that also was located in Lions Park. That 8,740-square-foot building will be redeveloped as a community center.
The city also plans to renovate the park’s playground.
Pride flags fly at City Hall and O.C. fairgrounds
LGBTQ pride flags officially flew at Costa Mesa City Hall and the OC Fair & Event Center for the first time this year.
Costa Mesa’s rainbow banner caught the breeze from May 22 — Harvey Milk Day, which honors the late San Francisco supervisor who was the first openly gay elected official in state history — through June for LGBT Pride Month: an annual commemoration of the contributions and history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. The flag will be raised annually between those dates moving forward.
Across the street June 8, the fairgrounds raised its own rainbow flag, which will fly year-round at the property.
However, the Fair & Event Center had to replace its original flag after someone stole it three days after it was first hoisted.
Costa Mesa man faces retrial on murder charges related to deadly traffic collision
A Costa Mesa man charged with two counts of murder in a 2015 traffic collision that killed a Lake Forest woman and her 2-year-old granddaughter was spared conviction after a juror’s last-minute vote change led the judge to declare a mistrial in April.
Alec Scott Abraham now faces a retrial that is scheduled to begin Jan. 13.
Prosecutors allege Abraham was recklessly racing another car on June 10, 2015, when he ran a red light at the intersection of Barranca and Alton parkways in Irvine and broadsided a Chevrolet Cruze.
If convicted, Abraham could face 30 years to life in prison.
City opens homeless shelter and settles riverbed lawsuit
Less than three months after publicly endorsing the concept, Costa Mesa opened a 50-bed homeless shelter in April.
The facility at Lighthouse Church of the Nazarene at 1885 Anaheim Ave. includes portable restrooms, showers, bike racks and accommodations for pets. Along with refuge, the shelter also provides a service center for clients.
The plan is to eventually move the shelter into a longer-term home at 3175 Airway Ave. The city agreed to purchase that property in March for $6.9 million.
Costa Mesa brought its months-long search for a suitable long-term site for a 50-bed homeless shelter in for a landing early Wednesday as the City Council approved buying property next to John Wayne Airport to potentially use for that purpose.
Opening a local shelter was a primary thrust of Costa Mesa’s agreement to settle a federal lawsuit filed in January 2018 on behalf of homeless people cleared from a former encampment along the Santa Ana River.
That suit alleged that Costa Mesa, Orange County and the cities of Anaheim and Orange had taken actions that effectively forced homeless people to move to the riverbed and that, when the county moved to clear encampments in the area in early 2018, the homeless population would be pushed back into the surrounding cities without a plan to provide adequate housing or shelter.
Vanguard wins approval for master plan
After months of back-and-forth and a series of public hearings, Vanguard University won Costa Mesa City Council approval for its campus master plan in February.
The plan outlines 12 projects that will reshape the school’s 38-acre campus at 55 Fair Drive — including building a 300-bed dormitory, adding a four-level parking structure along Newport Boulevard and replacing the gymnasium and science, technology, engineering, math and kinesiology facilities.
University officials have said the master plan will allow Vanguard’s enrollment to grow from 2,098 students to as many as 2,700.
Approval of the master plan came despite opposition from some nearby residents who claimed that one of its projects — moving Vanguard’s maintenance and operations facility to the southwest corner of the campus — would hinder their safety and quality of life and lower their property values.
Daily Pilot staff writer Julia Sclafani contributed to this report.
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