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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Laguna council gives initial approval to proposed budget

City officials squeezed the proposed 2012-13 budget to help preserve Laguna’s past and protect its future.

The City Council gave preliminary approval at the workshop on Tuesday to a budget drafted by the city manager that totals $65.8 million for operations and capital projects, with $47 million of it in the General Fund, over which the council has discretion. The approval included some tweaking by the council at the hearing, attended by seven members of the public.

“I found the public attendance at the workshop disappointing,” said Councilman Kelly Boyd. “It is the time for them to express their opinions, but when you have the hearing at 3 p.m., it is hard for people to get there.”

The council made it worth the while of two members of the public who did find the time to attend.

The South County Cross-Cultural Council’s David Peck was on hand to hear the council approve a request for $30,000 toward the Day Laborer Hiring Area, which his nonprofit runs, off Laguna Canyon Road. The Cross-Cultural Council will a still be included in the applications for community service grants to be vetted by Boyd and Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson.

–Barbara Diamond, Coastline Pilot

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Memorials set for Austin Brashears in H.B.

A memorial service and paddle-out have been scheduled for Austin Brashears, the Huntington Beach resident who died this month in a minivan accident in New Zealand.

Debbie Kagawa and Sage Russo, the leaders of the Bring Austin Home campaign that has raised funds to transport his body home, said Brashears’ parents are in New Zealand and plan to return to the United States with the remains Sunday.

Kagawa, the longtime boss of Brashears’ mother, said the campaign’s PayPal account exceeded $20,000 in donations Friday morning. She did not know how much had been raised in cash and checks.

The Brashearses, she said, would have to make arrangements for the flight and coordinate with mortuaries in California and New Zealand.

“They’ll come back when everything they have to do on that end is done,” Kagawa said.

The paddle-out is set for sunset May 25 between lifeguard towers 2 and 4 near the Huntington Beach Pier. Russo, a high school friend of Brashears, advised participants to arrive at 7 p.m., with the paddle-out expected to start about 8.

–Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, HB Independent

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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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D.A.: Fountain Valley officers’ shooting of teen not criminal

The Orange County district attorney’s office has declared that four members of the Fountain Valley Police Department are not criminally culpable for the non-fatal shooting of a 17-year-old in 2010.

A May 15 letter from Senior Deputy District Attorney Aleta Bryant, which the office released to the media Friday, concludes that Officer Richard Nilos, Det. Kham Vang, Det. Pat Estes and Sgt. Kurt Ulrich acted legally and reasonably when they shot David Dinh in an apartment complex courtyard.

The office reached its findings after interviewing 69 witnesses and examining incident reports and other evidence, the letter states.

Spokeswoman Farrah Emami said her office’s Special Assignment Unit automatically investigates any officer-involved shooting in which a person is injured or killed, regardless of whether anyone questions the officers’ actions.

“Whether there is any type of attention or not, it’s our responsibility to review officer-involved shootings to determine if there’s any criminal culpability on the part of the officers,” she said.

–Michael Miller, @MichaelMillerHB, HB Independent

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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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Laguna man found dead in apparent suicide

A man was found dead on a trail near Morningside Drive on Thursday afternoon in an apparent suicide.

Police received a call at 2:14 p.m. from a man and woman who said they found a body while walking a trail near the 1100 block, according to Lt. Jason Kravetz of the Laguna Beach Police Department.

Officers at the scene determined that the man died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Kravetz said. He was fully clothed, and a handgun was found near his body.

He was 20 years old and a resident of Laguna Beach.

Police are not releasing the name of the man and are waiting to notify next of kin.

—Joanna Clay, @joannaclay, Coastline Pilot

Selich: Newport Civic Center could be open for December council meeting

If everything goes as planned — and so far, everything is — the Newport Beach City Council could hold its December meeting in the new Civic Center, Councilman Ed Selich said Thursday.

“They say it will be open in December for the first council meeting, and I believed them,” Selich told the Corona del Mar Residents Association board at their monthly meeting at the OASIS Senior Center.

The new Civic Center broke ground in May 2010 on Avocado Avenue. The project will include a new City Hall, a 450-space parking structure, a 17,000-square-foot expansion of the Newport Beach Central Library, and a 16-acre park including a dog park and 1.23 miles of walking and viewing trails. The total costs is $128 million, according to a city webpage.

The City Council has scheduled a meeting for Dec. 11, the only meeting on the December calendar.

Selich said after that meeting, the building would be left for about a month “to de-bug it.”

“To make sure you don’t turn a light switch on, and then the air condition comes on in the the other side of the building,” he said.

–Amy Senk, @coronadelmartdy, Corona del Mar Today

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