Upstart GOP Group Already Halfway to Fundraising Goal

The New Majority Committee, the insurgent political fundraising group for well-heeled GOP moderates, is off to an impressive start. The Insider is told that so far the Larry Higby-Mark Johnson-Tom Tucker-led effort has attracted 50 members. At annual dues of $10,000 each, that puts them halfway toward their goal of having $1 million a year to pump into local races. A reception for tech execs is set for Feb. 10 Murray Coleman hears that the oceanfront mansion Bill Gates almost bought, 100 Rockledge in Laguna Beach, is instead going to wind up with the Broadcom boys, for use as a corporate retreat and guest house Russ Stanton, biz editor of the Times OC, has been promoted to Spring Street. Starting Jan. 10 he’ll be technology editor for all editions. No replacement named yet for OC Wait until ETRPA and bird lovers get hold of this: Buried within the thousands of pages of the county’s new El Toro EIR is the disclosure that takeoffs intersect with the paths of seagulls flying to a nearby waste dump. The EIR said it’s not a big problem , for the planes Boeing may have been No. 1 on the Business Journal’s recent list of largest OC employers, but get this: The aerospace giant has cut more jobs in Washington state in the past year (15,610, per the Seattle Times) than it has in its entire OC workforce (13,854). Still, the Evergreen State need not worry about getting eclipsed by OC as a Boeing job hub anytime soon , it’s still home to nearly 200,000 Boeing employees … PowerSki International Corp., is a Brea startup with a dozen people on staff, plans to begin rolling out a souped-up water ski next August and a heck of a pre-production marketing boost , Popular Mechanics bestowed one of its two 2000 Design & Engineering Awards in the marine category on PowerSki’s planned Jetboard, calling it “the cutting edge of a new direction in personal watercraft” A degree in resourcefulness: For Chapman U’s recent American Celebration gala, staffer Sheryl Bourgeois came up with a way to save the $5,000 normally spent to rent AstroTurf. Instead, Chapman spent $11,000 for carpeting but, the contractor agreed to remove it, clean it, store it , and lay it back down in a residence hall Calling all hams: Auditions for “CHOC Follies IV: Fabulous Fables & Twisted Tales” is set for this weekend, 10 a.m. on both Jan. 8 and 9, at the Sutton Place Hotel ballroom. The shows will be at the El Toro Marine base theater March 31 and April 1. The annual amateur-revue-and-social-happening has raised half a million for Children’s Hospital. Broadway wannabes and potential sponsors should contact Gloria “Glo Ziegfield” Zigner at (949)720-1665 or at gzigner@pacbell.net.