It was quite a year.<\/p>\n
In 2025 Orange County encountered local twists on many of the same issues that impacted the state and nation at large: political strife, homelessness, food insecurity, affordable housing, corruption, environmental concerns, worries about our youth and whether AI will soon make us all obsolete. And we faced other issues uniquely our own.<\/p>\n
But as we begin a new year, a time when it\u2019s customary to reflect on the year that was, how will we remember 2025?<\/p>\n
I would like to suggest a handy framing device: my own humble list of awards.<\/p>\n
This list is by no means comprehensive, and there is no cohesive theme. It consists of just a few newsy bits that I somewhat randomly chose to commemorate, for good or bad.<\/p>\n
And in keeping with awards programs generally, it is highly subjective. I would love to know what others would choose to honor, but until then, here we go with my first (and possibly last) Annual Orange County Completely Arbitrary and Awkwardly Named Awards:<\/p>\n
The award for Wackiest City Council goes to Huntington Beach.<\/p>\n
This one was a slam dunk. I can\u2019t think of another city council that generates so many head-scratching headlines.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s been the case since early 2023, when a newly reconfigured council began drawing attention for its relentless focus on imaginary problems, like banning rainbow flags<\/a> and library books<\/a>. But in 2025, it was in the news largely because of a string of lawsuits<\/a> in which the city argued \u2014 if I\u2019ve got this right \u2014 that its status as a charter city means that it doesn\u2019t have to follow state law.<\/p>\n That argument hasn\u2019t worked out too well. So far the city has been predominantly on the losing side in legal battles dealing with a range of issues, including the state housing mandate, voter ID, and immigration. Nonetheless, council members have said they will keep these fights going. Meanwhile, the city is also facing legal challenges to other policies.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how much the copious litigation has cost the city. But for its legal shenanigans, and for lots of other reasons, Huntington Beach is the clear winner in this category.<\/p>\n The Everyone Agrees Something Must Be Done award goes to e-bike safety.<\/p>\n I recently wrote another column<\/a> on the topic of e-bikes, and the response I received was considerable. In short, the concerns over speeding, recklessly driven e-bikes are rising to a crescendo. Municipalities throughout Orange County are struggling to respond, and the state has been passing laws to address aspects related to safety.<\/p>\n But based on my highly unscientific methods \u2014 my methodology is essentially that everyone I know seems to be taking about it \u2014 I believe that most Orange County residents in 2025 were dissatisfied with the situation and want more vigorous action. It\u2019s a well-deserved award winner.<\/p>\n The This Doesn\u2019t Look Good award goes to the controversy over sitting Newport-Mesa Unified School Board Trustee Ashley Anderson.<\/p>\n What a sad and uncomfortable story. Allegations of past misconduct<\/a>, including a 2022 hit-and-run car accident and a long-ago DUI, have dogged Anderson, and the calls for her resignation mounted in the last few months of 2025.<\/p>\n While many of us are inclined to feel empathy for anyone who might be going through something, we also acknowledge the need for a well-functioning board that can get past distractions to focus on the business at hand, which is the welfare of NMUSD students. I don\u2019t like this award, but the whole situation really doesn\u2019t look good.<\/p>\n The award for You Can Turn Off an Oil Well But It Still Leaks Toxic Stuff goes to the idled oil well in Newport Beach that caused a methane leak<\/a> so noxious that the residents of several nearby houses had to temporarily evacuate.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not like we didn\u2019t know how dangerous idle wells can be. After they stop producing, they often contaminate drinking water, pollute the landscape, contribute to climate change and harm the health of local residents. Thousands of these old wells are scattered throughout the state, and an estimated two-thirds of them leak methane, according to a study published<\/a> by the American Chemical Society. The clean-up costs alone are astronomical.<\/p>\n The Newport Beach leak on Balboa Peninsula was detected in October, when unsafe and potentially flammable levels of methane and hydrogen sulfide prompted the declaration of a local emergency and several homes were evacuated. Late last month, an emergency remediation project to cap the leak hit an unexpected delay<\/a> because of complications with underground infrastructure.<\/p>\n So, as we enter the new year, this toxic problem remains with us. It is another no-brainer award recipient.<\/p>\n I\u2019m nearly out of space, so I won\u2019t be able to get to all the awards I wanted to bestow. I will just quickly mention a couple:<\/p>\n The I Still Don\u2019t Get It award goes to a proposed surf park<\/a> on land currently occupied by the Newport Beach Golf Course.<\/p>\n And since I don\u2019t want to end on a downer, I present the award for Good News in Health Care to the organizations that opened advanced new facilities last year: Children\u2019s Hospital of Orange County, which debuted a new tower <\/a>intended as a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for pediatrics; City of Hope and its new cancer specialty hospital<\/a> in Irvine, and UC Irvine, which opened a cutting-edge acute care<\/a> hospital that deserves extra accolades because it\u2019s an all-electric facility, the first of its kind in the nation.<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s see what 2026 has in store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was quite a year. 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