Costa Mesa students shine at Les Miller event

Costa Mesa High School student Matthew Morgan, left, listens as Principal Phil D'Agostino speaks of his outstanding achievements, including a 4.68 GPA, during the 33rd annual Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce Les Miller Outstanding Student Awards and Scholarship Recognition Breakfast. (DON LEACH)

Impressive. Incredible. Amazing. These are words to describe the scholars and student-athletes honored at the 33rd annual Les Miller Outstanding Student Awards presented by the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce on Friday morning at the Costa Mesa Hilton.

The words certainly fit Matthew Morgan. Those and one more: genius.

Matthew, 15, is set to graduate from Costa Mesa High two years early with a weighted 4.68 grade-point average. In the fall, he’ll attend California Institute of Technology to major in mathematics.

He said he was encouraged to move to higher grades when he was in the fourth grade at Killybrooke Elementary School. Three years later, he was tackling ninth-grade classes and those were too easy.

When reading off Matthew’s accomplishments, Principal Phil D’Agostino said Matthew missed three questions on his SAT practice test.

“He can levitate objects,” D’Agostino joked.

–Steve Virgen, @SteveVirgen, Daily Pilot

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Former Costa Mesa police chief up for new post

Costa Mesa’s former police chief, who left the department in 2011 amid concerns that he used city resources for personal travel to Arizona, is among five finalists to become police chief in Washington state.

Chris Shawkey is applying to become the top cop in Des Moines, a suburb of about 29,000 located about 15 miles from Seattle.

He resigned from the Costa Mesa Police Department in 2011, telling the Daily Pilot at the time that he “never shied away from the difficult issues” and was “proud of the job [he did in his] four years at the department.”

Shawkey was placed on leave in November 2010 by then-City Manager Allan Roeder after allegations surfaced that he had expensed mileage to Arizona, where he used to live, and other states. There were also allegations of chronic absenteeism.

–Lauren Williams, @LAWilliams30, Daily Pilot

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Woman who helped murder Newport Beach boyfriend gets life

Nanette Packard is led out of the courtroom after being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for plotting to kill Newport Beach's Bill McLaughlin in 1994. (SCOTT SMELTZER)

SANTA ANA — A woman who plotted with a former NFL linebacker to kill her Newport Beach boyfriend received a life sentence without the possibility of parole Friday.

Nanette Packard, 46, sat stone faced in Orange County Superior Court as the verdict was read. Dressed in a pink cardigan, with a black shirt and skirt, and with a faded blond streak in her curly brown hair, Packard did not speak or apologize to the 40 or so people gathered in the courtroom, many of them family and friends of the victim.

Packard and Eric Naposki, 45, were convicted in January and July, respectively, of plotting the murder of Bill McLaughlin, a Newport Beach millionaire. Packard was dating both men at the same time and had hoped to benefit financially from the 1994 murder.

Naposki refused to come out of his holding cell during proceedings, leaving him to shout his answers to Judge William R. Froeberg.

Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said Naposki was “a coward for not coming out of his cell, a coward for not facing” McLaughlin’s family.

–Lauren Williams, @LAWilliams30, Daily Pilot

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Woman convicted of plotting boyfriend’s murder

SANTA ANA — Family and friends of a slain Newport Beach businessman cried and hugged in a courtroom here Monday when the second of two killers was convicted of murder.

Following almost

four hours of deliberations, a jury of nine women and three men convicted Nanette Packard-McNeal, 46, of murder for financial gain in the 1994 shooting of her then-boyfriend, Bill McLaughlin.

Eric Naposki, a former NFL player, was convicted last summer of pulling the trigger. While Packard-McNeal was with McLaughlin, she was also dating Naposki on the side.

– Lauren Williams, @lawilliams30, Daily Pilot

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Sanitary District continues effort to oust Fitzpatrick

The Costa Mesa Sanitary District Board is continuing its effort to remove Jim Fitzpatrick from the board because of a perceived conflict of interest with his recently relinquished Planning Commission seat.

Fitzpatrick dropped the planning post after the board said his involvement with both boards could one day prove incompatible.

But his peers on the board do not believe the potential for conflict disappeared with his resignation.

“Board member Fitzpatrick caused this by accepting the Planning Commission position after being advised by both the district counsel and the city’s attorney that there was this legal doctrine that could cause him to lose his office,” board President Bob Ooten wrote in an email. “The board believes that when Fitzpatrick accepted the Planning Commission office, he vacated the Sanitary District office. The board cannot change the legal result.”

–Joseph Serna, @JosephSerna, Daily Pilot

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Construction continues for Coastline’s Newport campus

Guests take a look at the construction progress for the Newport Beach campus for Coastline Community College during a tour Wednesday. (SCOTT SMELTZER)

The crack of hammers and metallic buzzing of power tools echoed throughout the partially finished building at Coastline Community College’s new Newport Beach campus Wednesday.

Walking along an outdoor corridor complete with ocean views, officials took in the many unfinished rooms littered with equipment and electrical work hanging from the ceiling.

“What is right behind you is a typical classroom,” said John Weaver, who led the tour and is with C.W. Driver, the construction management company.

College and district officials donned hard hats to tour the $48-million campus at 1515 Monrovia Ave., which is expected to be completed in the fall and have classes starting in the spring.

“It will be wonderful that the college will now be out in the community,” said retired faculty member Sally Kurz, a Coastline Foundation board member. “So many students come from Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.”

–Britney Barnes, @britneyjbarnes, Daily Pilot

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Police break up homeless camp in Costa Mesa

Costa Mesa Sgt. Vic Bakkila, left, and senior Officer Larry Fettis find a pellet gun rifle, among other items, in a homeless encampment under the 405 Freeway near the Santa Ana River. (Don Leach)

A Costa Mesa homeless encampment adorned with animal rights posters and graffiti could shelter suspects connected to a recent spate of burglaries, police said Thursday.

Police discovered the elaborate encampment beneath a San Diego (405) Freeway underpass where the Santa Ana River meets Moon Park, 3377 California St.

Officers believe eight men have been living in the encampment for about two years, said Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Vic Bakkila.

Police came upon the camp after an officer saw a suspicious-looking man go under the overpass, according to Bakkila.

Authorities had increased patrols in the area because of a recent increase in burglaries.

In the encampment, police found a cache of bikes and watches, although where the items came from and whether they were stolen was immediately unknown. Police were working to determine whether the items were connected to the recent burglaries.

–Lauren Williams, @LAWilliams30, Daily Pilot

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April Ross qualifies for London Olympics in beach volleyball

There will be two former Newport Harbor High volleyball standouts in the London Olympics.

April Ross, who starred at Newport Harbor, and Jennifer Kessy have qualified for their first Olympics. They will join Misty May-Treanor, also of Newport Harbor, and Kerri Walsh, the two-time gold medalists, in the Olympic beach volleyball tournament.

Ross and Kessy were the No. 3 team at the Beijing Olympics, but the duo clinched the second of two American women’s berths after finishing fifth in the Beijing Grand Slam this past weekend.

Beach volleyball teams qualify for the Olympics by compiling points on the international pro tour. A country can have a maximum of two men’s teams and two women’s teams.

Matt Fuerbringer, an Estancia alumnus, is in contention to qualify for the Olympics for the men. Fuerbringer and Nick Lucena are tied in the standings with Sean Rosenthal and Jake Gibb for the second men’s spot.

Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, the defending men’s gold medalists, have already locked up the other U.S. men’s berth.

–Daily Pilot staff reports

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‘American Idiot’ musical to hit Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Gabrielle McClinton (Whatsername), center, is joined by other cast members of "American Idiot." (Photo by Doug Hamilton)

Punk band Green Day skyrocketed to fame in the 1990s, but is winning over an entirely new audience with its latest offering: a Broadway musical.

But their “American Idiot” is a far cry from “Camelot.” It’s a gritty, urban-inspired show that uses the same punk songs that made the band famous, and adds more than a smattering of simulated drug use, strong language and other adult situations.

“American Idiot,” which arrives in Costa Mesa on May 29, follows the lives of three disaffected suburban youths: Johnny, Will and Tunny.

The country’s residents are riveted by their television sets, and the boys want a way out. Johnny and Tunny move to the big city, where Tunny soon is brainwashed by an Army recruitment ad, shipped off to war, and wounded. Johnny, in the meantime, discovers heroin — and love. Passive-aggressive Will stays at home to support his pregnant girlfriend, but takes his solace in beer and pot.

The musical is based in part on Green Day’s 2004 “American Idiot” studio album, and more specifically with the song that became “Homecoming.”

The three band members spent a day in the studio creating solo 30-second songs, which later merged and connected into the song, and inspired a full concept album akin toThe Who’s”Tommy” orAndrew Lloyd Webber’s”Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Michael Mayer, the director of the wildly successful modern musical “Spring Awakening,” heard the album and approached the band about adapting it for the stage. It had a successful run on Broadway before being launched as a nationwide touring production.

–Candice Baker, Special to the Daily Pilot

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Tourism conference: O.C. cities should work together

Sibling rivalries are expected, and to a degree, beneficial, but when it comes to tourism in Orange County cities, the message Wednesday was all about working together.

“Of course, we’ll keep working individually too — I still want to keep my job,” Gary Sherwin, president and chief executive of Visit Newport Beach Inc., joked while speaking at the fourth annual Tourism Conference, organized by the Orange County Tourism Council (OCTC) at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and Spa.

Overall, speakers encouraged the audience — and each other — to work together to develop “The OC” as a global brand and destination for international visitors.

“We’re talking about this wonderful shared asset called Orange County,” Sherwin said to the audience. “When you hear ‘The OC’ anywhere in the world, you know what they’re talking about — they’re talking about us. And we take a lot of pride in that.”

Panelist Judith Bijlani, president and chief executive of the Laguna Beach Visitors and Conference Bureau, pointed to the county’s miles of beaches, many art museums and galleries, and shopping as several of the key components making up “part of the OC experience,” a tagline she encouraged local businesses to adopt.

–Sarah Peters, @SPeters01, Daily Pilot

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