Too bad Elton Brand didn’t join the party: Even before Baron Davis suits up with the L.A. Clippers, he’s joining Tony Thompson’s new Irvine-based real estate team as a founding shareholder, joining fellow UCLA Bruins Cade McNown and Ken McGuire among the company’s recruits. Thompson, a big supporter of the university, has known Davis since the point guard starred for UCLA in the late 1990s; he describes Davis as a savvy businessman with his own production company, Verso Entertainment. Thompson, an avid Clippers fan, says he planted several bugs in the ear of team owner and fellow real estate guy Donald Sterling to bring Davis home to Los Angeles. In fact, Davis was at the Las Vegas launch party for Thompson National Properties when reports hit that he had agreed to sign with the Clippers, and Sterling later dropped in on the gathering, too. “Hopefully I’ll get better tickets” for next season’s Clipper games, says a smiling Thompson. (Mark Mueller has more on the Vegas bash, page 55) …
The country is agonizing over $4 gas, but OC is on the verge of $5 fuel. Diesel already was $5.05 a gallon last week at Corona del Mar Shell on PCH, and premium was within 25 cents of the $5 mark on several pumps around town …
Speaking of which, co-owner Bill Taylor says the economy has taken a toll on Orange County Harley-Davidson,sales from August 2007 through April were the lowest since the 2000 dot-com bust, the last time many potential customers put off buying high-priced toys. But suddenly things have changed. In recent weeks sales have rebounded to normal levels, and Taylor credits the high gas prices: At 50 miles per gallon and a fraction of the price of a hybrid car, a motorcycle is an increasingly cost-effective way to get to work …
Deal now: With looming prospects for a Democratic sweep of the White House and Congress, Derek Newcomer of Newport Beach-based Creso Capital Partners and Murray Rudin of Riordan, Lewis & Haden detect increasing interest among some owners to divest their companies and real estate before any increase in the capital gains tax …
John Moorlach, the gender bender in the supervisors’ 3-2 vote making Sandra Hutchens the new OC sheriff, says his top choice was her former subordinate, L.A. County Sheriff’s Commander Ralph Martin. When Martin failed to get enough support from other supes, Moorlach switched to Hutchens. But that was after he vetted Hutchens on a pet issue, the county’s attempt to reduce the deputy pension increase granted by prior supes in 2002. In her public job interview Hutchens said, “I think it will be determined in the courts.” Moorlach pressed her in a subsequent private interview “and she gave a much better answer.” Hutchens indicated she is receptive to ideas for cutting costs and stemming early retirements, such as lower benefits for new hires.
