{"id":231424,"date":"2026-03-22T16:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T16:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/231424\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T16:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T16:54:09","slug":"orange-countys-biggest-headlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/231424\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County’s Biggest Headlines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fullerton officials have grappled with rocky budgets for years but revelations just this week put the municipal spending pool in peril<\/a> after city staff erroneously accounted for $10 million in reserves.<\/p>\n

Instead of being in the contingency fund, that money\u2019s already been spent across a host of programs \u2013 leaving city reserves dangerously low while officials grapple with a nearly $14 million budget deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, city council members are considering what types of spending cuts to make as budget season nears \u2013 with some floating ideas of a potential sales tax increase measure this November to bail the budget out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cities throughout Orange County are grappling to keep up with the surging demand for senior ride services<\/a> \u2013 programs that haven\u2019t lost funding, but the demand is outpacing money as more people get older.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Orange also faces budget woes, one councilwoman proposed changing to a charter city in order to gain $10 million a year in utility taxes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"An e-bike rider makes their way through a sidewalk. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC<\/p>\n

Garden Grove City Council members are looking to model the city\u2019s response to dangerous e-bike riders after Huntington Beach\u2019s program, which has educational outreach efforts and a diversion program for certain offenders \u2013 a potential model for other OC cities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

As part of that program, the Huntington Beach Police Department teamed up with local school districts to give e-bike safety classes to students before they can take the bikes to school. E-bike crashes were the leading cause of trauma cases in the local children\u2019s hospital last year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It could get tougher to get certain permits and zone changes<\/a> in Huntington Beach as council members consider removing that process from an administrator and giving it to the planning commission \u2013 a move the local chamber of commerce said will hurt businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Costa Mesa officials backed off tracking the rental market through an online registry<\/a> and having landlords report at-fault evictions after interest groups railed against the proposals.<\/p>\n

Three mountain lions have been killed by cars<\/a> on the Ortega Highway in the past six months, raising questions over how to best help protect the species \u2013 with the possibility of building fences along the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Aliso Viejo library is slated to reopen next week<\/a> after being closed for two years as part of a nearly $6 million renovation project \u2013 an effort that was supposed to be finished last year, but was stalled by water damage and the permit process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fullerton officials have grappled with rocky budgets for years but revelations just this week put the municipal spending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-231424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}