Financing plan for toll road released Details...

Financing plan for toll road released

Details of a proposed financing agreement for the San Joaquin

Hills Toll Road (73) were released Thursday. The plan could be

approved as early as next month.

“It’s been put off a month, so the public can react to it,� Costa

Mesa Councilman Gary Monahan said.

Monahan is a board member with the San Joaquin Hills

Transportation Corridor Agency, which operates the toll road.

Under the basics of the proposal, the Foothill/Eastern

Transportation Corridor Agency, which manages three toll roads, would

provide $120 million over four years to San Joaquin Hills Agency.

Starting in 2011, the Foothill/Eastern Agency would also be able

to make loans of up to $1.04 billion annually to help the San Joaquin

Hills Agency pay off toll road bonds.

In exchange, the San Joaquin Hills Agency will support the

Foothill/Eastern Agency’s plans to expand the Foothill Toll Road.

Expansion of that road is expected to draw drivers, and thus toll

revenues, away from the 73.

Under the proposal, toll road rates are not projected to go beyond

scheduled rate hikes.

Energy marketing firm fires its top officers

Costa Mesa-based Commerce Energy Group Inc. announced Thursday

that its board of directors’ August decision to fire the company’s

president and senior vice president without cause went into effect

Oct. 8.

The decision to terminate president Peter Weigand and senior vice

president Richard Boughrum was made Aug. 4, according to a filing

with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Weigand is still a on

the firm’s board of directors.

The Commerce Energy Group is an electricity and natural gas retail

marketing firm.

OCC sports program fields best scholars yet

Orange Coast College set a campus record for academic performance

by its athletes last year, according to statistics released this

week.

In 2004-05, OCC’s 24 athletic squads -- 12 men’s and 12 women’s --

achieved a collective grade-point average of 2.90, equivalent to a

B-minus. At the same time, the campus had a solid year on the field,

winning state titles in men’s and women’s cross-country and women’s

tennis.

Since the college started compiling its athletic team grade-point

averages 16 years ago, it has seen overall classroom performance come

very close to 2.90, but it never actually reached it until this year,

according to a news release.

Coach Glenn Morton’s men’s tennis team led all campus squads with

a 3.54 average. Don Watson’s women’s swimming team came in second

with 3.34.