Inside scoop

Eron Ben-Yehuda, Ellen McCarty and Andrew Wainer

A Huntington Beach City School district board meeting turned into a

family award show on Tuesday.

During an award ceremony for the district’s mentor teachers, Cindy

Garland was recognized for her teacher training effort. The award was

presented to Cindy by none other than her father-in-law, Brian Garland, a

board of trustees member. The two district officials exchanged a kiss on

the cheek and a hug rather than the usual formal handshake.

The Garlands also had another reason to celebrate: a 4-month-old

grandson.

Get your stories straight

Confusion reigned among government health agencies when the beach

contamination first spread off Huntington Beach last summer, Assemblyman

Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) said at a public hearing. The Oct. 7

hearing brought together city, county and state officials to figure out

ways to avoid a similar fiasco in the future.

To drive home the point that better coordination among agencies is

crucial, Baugh told the story of a man whom police stopped for speeding

and running a red light. He kept insisting that he hadn’t done anything

wrong until the officer asked his wife what happened.

“Officer, I’ve learned never to argue with my husband when he’s been

drinking,” she said.

Hey, keep it down

“Can you tell those guys to keep that down?” Mayor John Collins asked

firefighters attending the Oct. 5 Fountain Valley City Council meeting as

sirens wailed past city hall, drowning out his voice. Further impeding

his ability to be heard was a broken microphone. “This is the council’s

dream,” he joked later in the meeting, “that I get laryngitis from

speaking into a broken mike.”