UCI and Chapman U have had an extraordinary 10-day run. Chapman an-nounced a $10 million donation from the Brandman Foundation of L.A. for adult education. Then UCI unveiled a $21 million posthumous naming gift from developer M.A. Douglas for its new hospital building in Orange. Chapman answered with an anonymous $25 million challenge gift to build a performing arts center. No explanation for the spate of largesse during a recession, other than just charity and fundraising efforts coming together …
The Strand at Headlands’ Sanford Edwards says he sold the first of 48 home lots at the second, South Strand neighborhood of the Dana Point beachfront development. The 20,000-square-foot lot sold for $4.3 million, was paid in cash and wasn’t discounted, he says. The buyer: a “big time” Texas oilman. Another sale is in escrow …
The market lives! With so much consternation over government intervention in business (AIG, the banks, GM, etc.), the Insider is heartened to see two local tech companies waging an old-fashioned takeover battle. More on Broadcom versus Emulex, page 1 …
Mr. Street goes to Washington: Chriss Street’s appearance before Barney Frank’s House Financial Services Committee last week was a doozy. While five other witnesses testified in favor, the OC treasurer was alone in opposing a bill that would provide TARP funding to local governments that lost investments in Lehman Brothers; Street said the legislation would “promote irresponsibility” and reminded the committee that Orange County recovered from its 1994 investment debacle without federal aid. Street was sharply questioned by the bill’s Bay Area sponsor Jackie Speier and other Dems. OC’s GOP reps John Campbell and Ed Royce defended Street …
The guv and a would-be guv are fundraising in Newport Beach Thursday-Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Island Hotel for Props 1A-1F, Steve Poizner at the Yeager family home for his planned 2010 race …
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Ken Jillson of Safari Air in Newport Beach wants everyone to know that Pimco spokesman Mark Porterfield has turned 50 …
President Nixon’s grandson, GOP activist Christopher Nixon Cox, spoke at Tom Fuentes’ Cinco de Mayo (and one-year liver-transplant anniversary) party at the Balboa Bay Club. East Coaster Cox told the Insider it is just coincidence that his consulting firm is called OC Global Partners-“OC” are the last name initials of he and his partner. Fuentes got to repeat his gag line that OC loves Nixon so much, it named a former congressman after his grandson! …
Forbes calls Angels owner Arte Moreno “Baseball’s Best Boss” for charging fans less, getting more from sponsors and TV and nearly tripling the team’s estimated enterprise value, to $509 million. Forbes says the team still has “the unwieldy Anaheim at the end of its name” but “Moreno will be free to do what he wants when the stadium lease allows him to opt out in 2016.”
