PUBLIC SAFETY Police arrest man suspected of...

PUBLIC SAFETY

Police arrest man suspected of robbing six O.C. banks

A man dubbed the “Quatro Bandit” after he allegedly robbed four

banks in less than four hours was arrested the day after the heists.

Callers tipped off authorities after relatively clear images from

surveillance cameras were shown on local news broadcasts. Costa Mesa

police arrested James McKibbin, 34, at a Newport Boulevard motel and

authorities charged him with six counts of bank robbery.

Police believe he robbed banks in Westminster, Huntington Beach,

Tustin and Costa Mesa on the same day. They also say he’s the same

man who robbed two Newport Beach banks in two weeks.

* Corona del Mar High School parents had plenty of questions after

they received an anonymous letter detailing a wild party that ended

with a trashed home and that resulted in three arrests.

Police said that they did respond to a Newport Coast home on April

30 where they found more than 300 teenagers partying while a disabled

woman in her 70s was in an upstairs bedroom. Police arrested two boys

that night: one for allegedly running from police, and a 17-year-old

boy on suspicion of public intoxication. The 17-year-old was later

charged with burglary; a plasma-screen television was missing from

the home but was later returned.

COSTA MESA

Council sets aside park land for use as a library

The city council on Tuesday agreed to set aside a 2.5-acre park

next to City Hall for 10 years as a future library site. The Friends

of the Costa Mesa Libraries will try to raise the estimated $50

million needed to build a spacious central library facility that

would be owned by the city and operated by the Orange County library

system, which also runs Costa Mesa’s three existing libraries.

POLITICS

State senator announces candidacy for U.S. House

State Sen. John Campbell on Friday became a candidate for the

congressional seat Rep. Chris Cox has held since 1988. Cox will leave

if he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate to head the Securities and

Exchange Commission.

Campbell joins fellow Republicans, including state Sen. Dick

Ackerman of Tustin and former Assemblywoman Marilyn Brewer of Newport

Beach, in the race for Cox’s seat, and other candidates are expected

to emerge once Cox is confirmed.

* Six applicants will try for the Newport Beach City Council seat

that Mayor Steve Bromberg will leave June 17 to become a judge. The

applicants are Donald Abrams, Patricia Beek, Lloyd Ikerd, Robert

Schoonmaker, Ed Selich and Bernie Svalstad.

The City Council will interview them and appoint one June 21, and

on June 28 the council will select a new mayor.

* Former Newport Beach City Atty. Bob Burnham was named Monday to

lead reconstruction efforts after a June 1 landslide in Laguna Beach

displaced nearly two dozen families. Burnham has lived in Laguna

Beach for 25 years and retired in 2004 after working for Newport for

more than 20 years.

Burnham will work with displaced residents, seek government relief

funds and oversee construction projects to fix the wrecked hillside

and infrastructure. Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has asked state

officials to allow residents to live in vacant homes at the El Morro

Village mobile-home park while homes are rebuilt.

EDUCATION

Costa Mesa United nets $30,000 with fundraiser

Costa Mesa United’s Million Dollar Memorial Day fundraiser didn’t

quite turn out to be a million-dollar baby, but it still netted

$30,000 toward building a football stadium at Estancia High School

and an Olympic-sized swimming pool at Costa Mesa High School. The

organization needs about $5.4 million more to begin construction on

the projects.

* On Tuesday, Newport Harbor High School announced that it had

become the first site in Newport-Mesa to discontinue the use of

polystyrene foam on campus. The school has already replaced plastic

foam plates and cups in the cafeteria with cardboard and wax-paper

ones. Also, Newport-Mesa nutrition services director Dick Greene

donated six new trash cans to fight litter.

* The contention over the planned rezoning of some Newport-Mesa

Unified School District elementary schools continued Wednesday, as

parents filled the Lincoln Elementary multipurpose room for

Newport-Mesa district’s second public forum on the matter. Lincoln

parents criticized the district’s proposal to divert several of their

school’s neighborhoods to Eastbluff and Harbor View Elementary.