Green Harry or Dirty Harry? An advocate for extending the Foothill South (241) toll road to the I-5 finds it “ironic” that State Parks Commissioner Clint Eastwood opposes the project. This source notes that while Eastwood objects to a SoCal road traversing San Onofre State Park, in NoCal he “has no qualms about cutting down 17,000 trees in Carmel’s Del Monte Forest for a new golf course.” Pebble Beach Co., whose investors include Eastwood, Arnold Palmer and OC’s Peter Ueberroth, wants to build the golf course, homes and a hotel, and would preserve 800 acres in Pebble Beach to compensate for the lost trees. Monterey County voters have OK’d the plans, but environmentalists are preparing for a showdown with Eastwood at the Coastal Commission later this year. “They’re taking the heart of one of California’s last intact coastal forests,” says Mark Massara of the Sierra Club, which along with the Surfrider Foundation is an Eastwood ally against the Transportation Corridor Agencies in the 241 fight …
The Irvine Company is taking its management of the former Four Seasons Newport Beach seriously,as top rival hotels can attest. The latest recruit to the renamed Island Hotel Newport Beach is chef-exec Bill Bracken, wooed away from the Peninsula Beverly Hills, where he oversaw food and beverage operations and before that was executive chef at its acclaimed Belvedere restaurant. The Island also recently recruited sales-and-marketing manager Terri Reid from the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort & Spa and retained ex-Montage publicist Marguarite Clark …
The OCBJ is hurting at the top,Editor Mike Lyster and P RR both undergo minor surgery Tuesday. Lyster is having a polyp on his vocal cord removed. Lyster notes he’s in celebrity company: Among those who have had the procedure are racecar driver Jeff Gordon, Julie Andrews, Pete Wilson, singers from Lynyrd Skynrd and the Scorpions and actor Jason Bateman. The Insider wonders what’s worse,the operation, or being an editor who is under doctor’s orders not to talk. P RR is having his Achilles tendon repaired; he tore it trying to keep up with Irv Goldberg on the tennis court …
To Linda Ruth: Sorry, but it appears your Jim (retired Anaheim city manager, former OC interim CEO and now interim OC sanitation chief) is never going to stop working …
Happy 100th birthday to the Register, a unique editorial voice (and an OCBJ family-owned-business winner!) that defines Orange County …
Donald Bren ranks 18th on BusinessWeek’s philanthropist list, having given or pledged $447 million since 2001 …
Another honor for UCI Chancellor Emeritus Jack Peltason,Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education …
KOCE’s Mel Rogers, the OC Register’s Jan Norman and EE RR give the Association for Corporate Growth a primer on “crisis pr” at the Reg Nov. 30. Go to www.acg.org/occ.
