Dolphin who swam into Bolsa Chica gets to ‘do his own thing’

A dolphin swims in the Bolsa Chica wetlands near Warner Avenue and PCH on Tuesday. (Scott Smeltzer)

When a dolphin swam into Bolsa Chica sometime before noon Friday, the wetlands got a surprise visitor.

Now, they may have an unintended mascot. Five days and many media stories later, the dolphin still hadn’t left the water near Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway.

Jim Milbury, a spokesman for the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach, said the animal was still splashing about Wednesday.

“When I went by this morning, about 6 a.m., he was still there,” Milbury said.

Authorities, he said, had stuck with their plan to let the dolphin leave when it’s ready.

“We’re letting him do his own thing,” Milbury said. “You can’t always tell what their health is just by looking at them, but from what we can see, he’s healthy.”

Kelly O’Reilly, a biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game, urged people to observe the dolphin from marked trails and not venture into the water.

“It is a wild animal, after all, and wild animals can become unpredictable,” she said.

– Michael Miller and Tony Barboza, @MichaelMillerHB, @tonybarboza, Huntington Beach Independent

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Did hippies gather in Sunset? This woman wants to know

Sunset Beach resident Pat Thies talks about the calendar that she and her friends make every year that depicts one decade in the city's existence. (SCOTT SMELTZER)

While the contention goes on over Sunset Beach’s recent annexation by Huntington Beach, Pat Thies is busy living in the past.

Just as she does for a few months every year.

Thies, who frequently visited Sunset throughout her life and moved there a decade ago, created a calendar in 2004 to celebrate the seaside community’s 100th anniversary. The calendar, which residents used the following year, provided a pictorial history of Sunset, with “then” and “now” photos showing sites around town alongside their past incarnations.

The following year, Thies focused on a specific decade, using surviving photos to show Sunset in the 1900s. Since then, she’s gone through the decades in order — meaning that the neighborhood’s 2013 calendar, which she’s assembling now, may evoke memories of the moon landing, flower power and JFK in the 1960s.

“I’ll have to find out if there were actual hippies or not [in Sunset Beach],” Thies said. “I’ve been told they played a lot of volleyball. They did a lot of partying. Whether they were actual hippies, I don’t know.”

– Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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City Lights: An unlikely spotlight for teacher

When I was a wet-behind-the-ears cub reporter in high school, I once interviewed a local teacher who had held her job for more than 30 years. At one point in our conversation, I asked if she had ever been recognized by the city — my assumption being that anyone who had served her school for so long must have a plaque or key of some kind.

She seemed pleasantly surprised by the question, but responded that no, the politicians hadn’t come knocking. That’s the story for most teachers, who, the occasional state award or newspaper article aside, leave most of their legacy in the memories of former students.

Right now, though, a man who taught for three decades in Huntington Beach has become a national celebrity of sorts — and it had nothing to do with winning a prize or having a school named after him.

Rather, James Atteberry, a social studies teacher at Sowers Middle School during the 1970s, came to prominence after the Oregonian ran a story about one of his former students who apologized to him for a 39-year-old slight.

To summarize in brief: Larry Israelson, one of Atteberry’s top students, asked to be transferred out of his class in 1973 due to rumors that Atteberry was gay and that the teacher’s praise for Israelson was sexually motivated. The second part of the rumor was false, but the first was correct, although Atteberry, like many other gay teachers at the time, prudently stayed in the closet.

– Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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Police seek woman who allegedly withdrew $300,000 with false IDs

Huntington Beach police are seeking the public’s help in identifying a woman who allegedly withdrew money from a local bank using stolen account information.

The woman, shown in surveillance photos on the department’s Facebook page, has long, straight brown hair. She withdrew money from the Chase bank at 19461 Main St. in Huntington Beach in December, according to a release from the department.

She is also wanted in connection with identity theft and account takeover at Chase locations in Southern and Northern California and Nevada. The most recent incident took place in Fremont on April 4, according to the release.

The woman is believed to have taken more than $300,000. Lt. Mitch O’Brien said she appears to be in her 30s or 40s.

–Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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Annual parking passes to go up in cost for state parks, beaches

For some, living near the beach in Orange County is a priceless luxury.

But actually going to the beach — by car, anyway — is about to get a little pricier.

The state Department of Parks and Recreation announced this month that annual vehicle passes at state parks will increase from $125 to $195. Among the locations affected are six in Orange County: Crystal Cove State Park and Bolsa Chica, Huntington, Corona del Mar, San Clemente and Doheny state beaches.

The department announced April 12 that it would raise the price of several annual passes, including for vehicle use, on May 1. The cost for single-day use and camping fees will remain the same in most areas, although some regional superintendents may adjust fees for specific parks, spokesman Roy Stearns said.

The department cut $11 million from its budget last year and expects an identical cut this year, and the higher charges are meant to curb some of that loss.

Stearns said he hopes the increased fees will bring in between $1 million and $1.5 million in added revenue. The state was set to close 70 parks in July, although donors and partners have come through with funding to keep 16 of them open.

– Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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Ninth and last inmate sentenced in Theo Lacy jail death

A Huntington Beach man was sentenced Monday to six years in state prison for his role in the beating death of an inmate at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange in 2006.

Eric Charles Miller, 26, was the ninth and final inmate to be sentenced in the killing of John Chamberlain, who was in custody on misdemeanor charges for possession of child pornography.

The nine men, who reportedly believed Chamberlain was a child molester, gathered around him in a cell and punched, kicked and stomped him to death.

Miller pleaded guilty to one felony count of voluntary manslaughter, according to a release from the Orange County district attorney’s office.

– Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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About 40 bunnies abandoned at Wieder Park

Harriett M. Wieder Regional Park, and possibly its surrounding area, has been hopping since Sunday morning after an unknown person abandoned about 40 rabbits.

Ryan Drabek, director of OC Animal Care, said his office has gotten multiple calls about the animals, which have been described as white and possibly domesticated.

Animal care officials have made repeated stops in the area, but have yet to recover any of the rabbits, he said.

“We’ve gotten calls,” Drabek said. “So far, nobody’s been able to provide any information about who did the dumping. Obviously, animal abandonment is against the law. It would be nice if anyone could contact us with a license plate or anything that could assist us.”

Drabek did not have a description of the vehicle that dropped off the rabbits.

Brian Peterson, who lives near the park, said a neighbor told him a pickup truck had stopped by the park early Sunday morning and the driver had unloaded the rabbits from cages.

– Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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A tough ride into Sunset

Stacy Londo can see the annexation of Sunset Beach through two sets of eyes.

One is that of a concerned resident who wants to preserve the pace of life in her tranquil seaside neighborhood.

The other is a child’s.

Londo, who has lived in Sunset for 13 years, shares some of her neighbors’ wariness about the area’s August annexation by Huntington Beach. Like them, she worries that the long-unincorporated strip of Orange County will lose its offbeat vibe, and that the city may implement parking meters and other changes.

When she takes her 3-year-old son to the community playground by the beach, though, Londo can’t deny that annexation has brought a few welcome changes. In this case, they’re material ones: After Huntington took over Sunset, its Public Works Department removed the corroded equipment and put in new swings, a slide and more.

“At the end of the day, we’re excited to get it upgraded,” Londo said on a recent Monday as her son raced around the sand.

It has now been eight months since an Orange County Superior Court judge officially placed Sunset under Huntington’s control. In the two years before the decision, some in Sunset bitterly fought the move and even attempted to turn the neighborhood into its own city. An appeal of the annexation is winding its way through court.

But even as some Sunset residents fight the new taxes they pay every month, many find themselves in a position similar to Londo’s — finding the changes to the neighborhood minimal and, in some cases, welcome.

– Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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City Lights: When Angels were a family affair

As the Angels embark on a new season, I have a signed baseball in my collection at home that probably isn’t worth much money.

But I don’t care.

Suffice to say that it’s probably the only baseball in existence signed by Chad Curtis, the Angels’ left and center fielder from 1992 to 1994, and his wife.

Yes, his wife.

And anyone can see that, because, unlike the average ballplayer’s, her handwriting is quite legible.

Right now, of course, it’s hip to love the Angels. Just last weekend, former pitcher Jim Abbott, who famously overcame a disability to achieve major league stardom, visited Barnes & Noble in Huntington Beach for a book signing. When the Angels make the playoffs, the local sports bars turn into seas of red. That’s what a world championship and a decade of contention will do for a team.

But that Chad-and-Candace Curtis ball, snug in its tight plastic box, evokes a time when following the Halos was a decidedly minor-league affair. Back then, the Angels and their fans felt more like a family, just because, frankly, there were so few of us at the ballpark.

– Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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Artist Patrick Vogel to design Huntington Beach’s 9/11 memorial

Long Beach artist Patrick Vogel's model of his winning design for the city of Huntington Beach's 9/11 memorial design contest Tuesday. (SCOTT SMELTZER)

Patrick Vogel never saw the World Trade Center outside of photographs, and he didn’t know anyone who died on9/11.

But as far as the Long Beach artist is concerned, he has a connection — a slight, geographical one — to the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Before hijackers took over the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, all three were destined to land in Los Angeles, not far from Huntington Beach, where Vogel has been selected to design a 9/11 memorial over the next year and a half.

“I’m sure there’s many Southern Californians who knew someone,” said Vogel, who also designed a 9/11 memorial in 2002 for the city of Signal Hill.

In September, Huntington Beach’s police and fire associations obtained a pair of steel girders from the World Trade Center’s wreckage and invited artists to submit designs for a memorial by City Hall. The submissions had to incorporate the two girders, mention the locations of the 9/11 attacks and avoid religious messages.

When the first deadline passed Dec. 15 with no submissions, the associations pushed it back to Feb. 15. Six artists ultimately sent in designs and a committee led by Jim Katapodis, a Los Angeles police sergeant who is running for Huntington Beach City Council this year, chose Vogel as the winner.

– Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, Huntington Beach Independent

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