Possibly for the reason that I revealed a regular printed e-newsletter named “Orange County Report” for above 15 years or perhaps due to the fact I wrote a weekly column for the “Daily Pilot” for many yrs, I want to know what is occurring in Orange County. But nowadays, for the reason that newspapers are strained for space and newsletters are scattered online, I have to rely on choosing up this and that from buddies.

For illustration, here is what is going on at Newport Center, the place I the moment referred to as downtown Newport Seaside. Very first, the dining establishments. Did any one know that the beloved Cheesecake Manufacturing unit, a fixture of Trend Island for 30 several years, is closing down on Feb. 19? The restaurant claims that a new lease for the space from the Irvine Co. is way too highly-priced. About the corner, California Pizza Kitchen area is gone, and P.F. Chang’s statements it is hanging on.

Long gone, too, with tiny notice, is that after remarkably hyped Fig and Olive restaurant which had its own developing in Newport Heart. In its place, now below design, will be a new restaurant identified as Ocean 48 — high-class seafood and primary steaks. Also in its own creating, once occupied by Roy’s cafe, is Joey’s Newport Beach, that includes “global delicacies,” which suggests ranging from sushi to tacos.

At last, for yrs people today have questioned me why Newport Centre does not have a cafe with a check out of the ocean, and that is coming. An elegant cafe and wine bar, with a see of the ocean, will rest on the best floor of the below-development four-tale RH Newport in Vogue Island. RH will be a furniture gallery by Restoration Hardware. It is on the web site of the former Endlessly 21 and scheduled to open up in mid-2024.

And that is simply the restaurants. So considerably more is going on, from the conversion of the former Newport Seashore Marriott to the swanky Vea Newport Beach resort and the conversion of the previous 4 Seasons then Style Island Lodge into the really substantial-course Pendry, to the arrival of the Vivante Newport Beach, a property for seniors on the website of the Orange County Museum of Art. Next for Newport Heart, with no day declared is the four-tale Residences at Newport Centre — 28 luxurious condominiums on the web-site of the nevertheless-working motor vehicle clean.

Martin A. Brower
Corona del Mar

H.B. doesn’t will need an open Principal Avenue

Downtown Huntington Beach is a hodgepodge of out of doors eating and road vendors. Nonetheless, returning Principal Road to roaring motorcycles, parking meters and the like is a move backwards (Huntington Beach front to reopen next block of Most important Road to targeted visitors, Day-to-day Pilot, Jan. 18). I program to speak at the future Town Council meeting. It occurs to me the Daily Pilot is in a unique posture to ask people to demonstrate up and voice their viewpoints about this issue.

Armen Bagdasarian
Huntington Beach

The bulk is no longer silent

Although it is an oft-repeated phrase in our tradition, it is questionable now as to regardless of whether the “silent majority” nevertheless exists. It can be a comfort and ease to some to think that a bulk of the people in our lifestyle have views somewhere in the centre of the ideological divide relatively than at the extraordinary poles. But the far more that we see the terms “divisive” and “conspiracy” becoming employed, the much more we have to ponder just how huge that team in the centre is. Also, it have to be mentioned that folks are not a single dimensional and that all their views on particular person subject areas could not be the exact same as these of the vast majority.

Patrice Apodaca in her column (Points are looking about the same in 2023, Jan. 29 Daily Pilot) gives us examples of concerns that keep on to divide us in the new 12 months. She tells us to glimpse only as significantly as our colleges to locate illustrations of “divisiveness, disinformation and unsafe nonsense.” School boards, she states, have develop into “unlikely battlegrounds in our nations progressively vitriolic society wars … with showdowns in excess of pandemic steps these types of as masking and college closures” and curriculum material.

In two area districts, the most recent becoming Orange Unified University District, some board customers abruptly fired their effectively-favored superintendent right after making the choice driving shut doors, without all the board users being present. 1 hugely regarded and lengthy time period faculty board member missing her placement in the newest election by only a small more than 200 votes. Moms and dads are currently circulating remember petitions for members of the faculty board liable. This will be the 2nd recall in OUSD in the previous 25 years.

Fortunately, in the case of OUSD, it looks like the majority is not remaining silent. They jumped into motion as before long as they observed their district getting to be the victim of a lifestyle war that will likely confirm to be the creation of extremist sights.

On a particular stage, as I have aged, I locate myself emotion upset when people today do not discuss out above problems that seem so vital to our modern society and to our democracy. When I was young I averted political discussions with good friends and household, seeking to usually be favored. But in these divisive instances and as I have matured, I come to feel the urgency of standing up for my sights.

Lynn Lorenz
Newport Seaside

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