THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:Outgoing leader talks legacy

His favorite phrase is “quite candidly,” but Tod Ridgeway won’t be getting candid from the dais in Newport Beach after Dec. 11. The two-term city councilman will close out 14 years of service — six on the planning commission, eight on the council — at the next Newport Beach City Council meeting, when his successor is sworn in.

When prodded on Wednesday, Ridgeway came up with a few things he’s proud of during his tenure — hiring City Manager Homer Bludau, and annexing Newport Coast — but he expects his legacy to be neither of those things.

It will be a decision to cut down trees.

“They’ll remember me for the dumb ficus trees in Balboa Village,” he said. “It was the albatross around my neck, and yet it was the right decision.”

Activists took the city to court to save 25 ficus trees that the city wanted out so renovations in Balboa Village could start. The tree boosters lost, but tempers flared when the city cut down most of the trees while an appeal was pending.

Ridgeway said he’ll miss the people in the community he got to meet as a councilman, but he’s done with politics. He lost a bid for a seat on the Orange County Water District board in November.

“I think my political career is over,” he said. “I think my family’s happy to hear that.”

WAR PROTESTERS MARK 5 YEARS OF VIGILS

If you’ve seen the anti-war protesters near South Coast Plaza on Friday nights, it may have crossed your minds that they’ve been staging their quiet opposition for a long time.

They have. The peaceful protesters this month celebrated their fifth anniversary, and they don’t plan on quitting soon.

They generally get support from people in passing cars, who often honk and wave, said Chuck Anderson, a retired gardener who lives in Anaheim and has participated in the protests since they began. But it can be a thankless vigil.

“We have been shot at, and there’s somebody that comes by once in a while and shoots money at us in a slingshot, which is a little painful, and people have sometimes thrown cups or bottles of drinks at us,” Anderson said.

The protests started when the U.S. bombed Afghanistan in 2001. A protest was held at a federal building in Santa Ana, but participants soon moved to Costa Mesa — Anderson said protests of the first Gulf War were staged there too.

What’s changed in the last five years? The numbers have dwindled, Anderson said. “We used to have a lot more regulars,” he said. “Now we’re lucky if we can get 18 people out there.”

He thinks people have grown apathetic or just don’t think the protests are effective. But Anderson, 68, has been protesting a long time — he was drafted twice to go to Vietnam but refused. He could have been sent to jail instead, he said, but “they said I was crazy and didn’t send me.”

After that he moved to Mexico for 20 years, but eventually he moved back to California because he couldn’t earn enough money down south.

Anderson said he believes the Costa Mesa protests have an effect, and he’ll keep going until the U.S. is out of Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Every time someone sees us and agrees with us, they go home and talk about it,” he said. “They go home and talk about the atrocities of the war.”

Protesters gather from 5 to 7 p.m. every Friday at the corner of Bristol Street and Anton Boulevard.

LOCAL CONGRESSMAN IS INVESTIGATING 1995 BOMBING

Huntington Beach Rep. Dana Rohrabacher called off hearings planned this month on the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, but the House oversight and investigations subcommittee — which Rohrabacher chairs — will issue a report by the end of the year.

Rohrabacher, who represents Costa Mesa, announced in 2005 that he wanted to investigate the bombing to determine whether more people were involved than official records show.

He has followed various leads suggesting a foreign connection, and possibly Al Qaeda involvement, he said in a phone interview Wednesday.

But with a limited staff working on the issue, Rohrabacher said, he hasn’t secured enough witnesses to justify hearings. Also, he’ll lose his chairmanship of the subcommittee when Democrats take over the House in January.

The committee is still tracking down information, but if some of its conjectures are proven true, Rohrabacher said, they could be “of national significance.”

“I think at the very least this report will raise serious questions about the initial investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing,” he said.

TOY DRIVE

The Orange County chapter of Democracy for America will be collecting toys to donate to Toys for Tots at its regular meeting next week. The group meets at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Karl Strauss Brewery, 901 South Coast Drive, Costa Mesa. For information go to www.dfa-oc.org.

APPLICATIONS FOR OPEN PLANNING COMMISSION SEAT

With Newport Beach City Councilman-elect Michael Henn due to be sworn in Dec. 11, the council on Tuesday officially declared his seat on the planning commission vacant and requested applicants.

The city will accept applications through Dec. 21 and the council will appoint someone in January to complete Henn’s term, which expires in June 2009. To apply, call (949) 644-3005 or go to https://www.city.newport-beach .ca.us/generalinfo.html and click on “Citizen Participation.”