Maybe the shrinking of Orange County wasn’t such a hot idea. After Tribune Co. bought Times Mirror in 2000, the L.A. Times recast itself as a big-picture publication,and slashed its OC bureau from about 200 editorial staffers to 30. But with circulation plummeting and profits squeezed, the Times is doing an about-face. Editor Dean Baquet’s recent staff memo on 85 job cuts included this note: “We’re rebuilding the Orange County operation.” No details yet and neither Baquet nor publisher Jeff Johnson returned emails. But the Insider hears that OC is exempt from the above-mentioned cuts, and there’s buzz that the Times is rehiring OC salespeople and looking into zoned editions for OC …
El Toro airport foe Len Kranser says he will “weigh the alternatives before taking sides” in the El Tunnel debate. While some of his South County cohorts have come out against the proposed road through the Santa Ana Mountains, Kranser, editor of the El Toro Info Site, says he doesn’t see the project polarizing the public the way the airport did. He notes that during the El Toro battle some airport foes touted a tunnel as an alternative that would make Inland Empire airfields more accessible from OC. (Kranser recaps the El Toro fight and EE RR opines on the tunnel, page 54) …
The OC Performing Arts Center is focused on next September’s opening celebration of a new concert hall, but Henry Segerstrom also is looking farther out. The South Coast visionary predicts that by 2016 OC will be a major draw for something new: “cultural tourism.” He didn’t elaborate, but the Insider is thinking Paris with surfboards …
Spam for the cause: “Cancer research should be a priority for Congress.” The American Cancer Society blitzed EE RR with that e-mail message 53 times in 30 hours …
EE RR is honorary chair of the Child Guidance Center’s annual Holiday Tree Fantasy Dec. 11 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine. Call (714) 953-4455, ext. 31 …
Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade won Best Dressed at this year’s ESPYs in a custom-tailored, brown pin-striped suit he’d commissioned just one day earlier from David Heil of David August in Costa Mesa. The cost: $3,500 plus a 30% rush fee, reports the December GQ …
Newlyweds (for four months): Pacific Symphony Prez John Forsyte and UCLA English Prof Michele Moe …
EE RR isn’t the only one to mix up appointments at the Center Club and Pacific Club. So have Tom Rogers (City National), Sam Wolgemuth, Carol Geffner, Harriett Wieder, Stewart Ross, Maria Chavez Wilcox, Betsy Sanders and R TC (yes, a new mystery source). Unconfused populist Adam Probolsky says only a “member of the moneyed elite” would waste ink on such a topic. Bob Currie says he hasn’t confused the two clubs, but he has mixed up the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel and the Ritz Restaurant in Newport Center.
