‘Save the Steele’ campaign seeks to protect Orange Coast College’s children’s center
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Good morning. It’s Wednesday, March 5. I’m Carol Cormaci, bringing you this week’s TimesOC newsletter with a look at some of the latest local news and events.
For 40 years young parents have relied on the Harry and Grace Steele Children’s Center at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa as a place where their little ones from infancy through 5 years old can thrive in weekday programs until it’s time for them to enter elementary school.
Originally the center was intended for the use of OCC students who needed care for their children while they were attending classes. As trends changed over the years, according to this Daily Pilot article by Sara Cardine, there were fewer student parents on campus. This allowed the center’s services to be made available to OCC faculty and staff members with youngsters of their own, as well as the community at large, which embraced the offerings that even included opportunities for the kids to pet live animals or care for a garden.
There had been some financial difficulties dating back to the pandemic, the center’s teachers were aware, but they were not braced for an announcement made via an email to staff on Feb. 21. They learned in that Friday message that cuts would have to be made that would “eliminate more than half of the Costa Mesa center’s offerings and force the relocation or layoff of staff members, many who’ve worked there for decades,” Cardine writes.
Budgetary shortfalls requiring the annual outlay of more than $500,000 to the program, the officials explained, led to the need for the reorganization. In an interview with the Daily Pilot on Thursday, Madjid Niroumand, OCC’s vice president of student services, said the projected expenses for the 2024-25 academic year are forecast at nearly $2 million, but officials anticipate revenues of just $1.37 million.
So, the proposal on the table is that the center’s infant, toddler and young preschool classes will be eliminated entirely and there will be just two preschool classrooms for kids aged 3 to 5. Parents who for years have valued the center’s offerings have taken up arms to battle the cuts.
Banding together for the “Stop the Steele” campaign, they are showing up at meetings to protest, and one mom set up a change.org petition that, as of Friday, had 2,266 signatures, Cardine reports. They allege the center would not be in the financial position it is had a former director of the programs not given up valuable federal Title V grant funding in order to take less restrictive state funding.
One instructor, who said she and the others were blindsided by the Feb. 21 email, is among those worried they’ll lose their jobs and suspect school officials “are angling to privatize the facility, a strategy undertaken at OCC’s Recycling Center and campus bookstore,” according to the article.
The cuts and the future of the Harry and Grace Steele Children’s Center are expected to be considered at a March 10 meeting of the Orange Coast Community College District Board of Trustees, Cardine reports.
MORE NEWS
• A 60-foot eucalyptus tree crashed down in Huntington Beach’s Central Park at about 7 p.m. last Wednesday, flattening a Nissan sedan that belonged to a janitorial crew working at the park. No one was injured. “The tree was determined to be in good health, with no wind or water damage — it’s just one of those weird things,” Deputy City Manager Jennifer Carey told the Daily Pilot.
• A brief update on a couple of current Huntington Beach legal entanglements we’ve been reporting here: Two teenagers have joined others in suing the city over the conservative City Council’s library policies and a judge reversed an earlier decision in a case brought against the city by the state over its Measure A voter ID law. That case can now proceed and its next hearing is set for early April.
• After about two years of negotiation between Fountain Valley and the county of Orange, the Board of Supervisors last week unanimously approved an expansion of Fountain Valley Sports Park by 16 acres.
• Although final numbers in last week’s special election will not be released until Thursday, Huntington Beach City Councilman Tony Strickland claimed victory Monday in the race to fill the state Senate seat for District 36. That seat was vacated by fellow Republican Janet Nguyen after she was elected in November to the county Board of Supervisors. The candidate with the closest number of votes to Strickland’s, Democrat Jimmy Pham, conceded the race. District 36 includes most of coastal Orange County — including Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach — and also the Los Angeles County cities of Artesia, Cerritos and Hawaiian Gardens.
PUBLIC SAFETY & CRIME
• The Newport Beach Police Department received the blessing of the City Council last week to get started on a new drone program by approving a $2.1-million, five-year contract with Seattle-based BRINC Drones Inc. “[The drones are] designed to take off from a citywide network of recharging stations and then hook into computer-aided dispatch. So, the second someone calls 911, we grab that GPS coordinate and then we use it to automatically dispatch an aircraft to that location. So we can respond to 911 calls with this technology in tens of seconds,” a company representative told the council.
• Also out of Newport Beach is this Daily Pilot article on the turnout of about 70 people, including some nostalgic firefighters, to witness the demolition Monday of an old fire station on 32nd Street that stood vacant since the department moved operations to a new facility about a quarter of a mile away in 2022.
• The jury that had been at an impasse Monday in the murder trial of Jeffrey Ferguson, the O.C. Superior Court judge charged with fatally shooting his wife in the summer of 2023, reheard Ferguson’s testimony Tuesday in hopes they could come to a verdict. Deliberations were expected to continue today. The options for the panelists include acquitting Ferguson or convicting him of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter.
SPORTS
• For the fourth time, the Laguna Beach boys’ soccer team has captured a CIF Southern Section championship crown by topping Yucaipa 3-2 on penalty kicks in the Division 4 final at El Modena High’s Fred Kelly Stadium in Orange.
• Sage Hill’s first CIF Southern Section girls’ soccer final ended Saturday when the Lightnings beating La Mirada for the Division 4 championship, also played at Fred Kelly Stadium.
• Batters up: A handful of O.C. prep teams are on The Times’ top 25 high school baseball rankings published Sunday. The complete list can be found here.
• Edison High School fired former NFL player Chris Kluwe from his job there teaching freshman football last week, following his political protest against MAGA actions during a meeting of the Huntington Beach City Council that led to his arrest.
LIFE & LEISURE
• The Lido Theater in Newport Beach was the venue last Thursday night for the premiere of the documentary “The Surf-Skate Business Evolution: The OC Effect,” produced by Scott Hays and Terry Corwin. Dick Metz, the original owner of Hobie Surf Shops and a founder of the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center, was among the crowd.
• Observant Muslim students in the Garden Grove and Anaheim Union High school districts who request a religious accommodation during Ramadan are offered free meal kits to take home with them, TimesOC reported. Throughout the Islamic holy month, which got underway last Friday, followers abstain from food and drink from dawn until dusk.
CALENDAR THIS
• Dana Point Festival of the Whales runs this Friday through Sunday and offers a host of activities throughout its run, according to this TimesOC story. Click here for the complete list of the festival’s events, where you’ll see that some require RSVPs while others do not.
• On Friday, March 14, from 5 to 8 p.m. and Saturday, March 15, from noon to 7 p.m., Los Alamitos presents its Weekend of Art, an exhibition of visual and performing arts, at Los Alamitos Community Center, 10911 Oak St. That Saturday there will also be a vendor and arts and crafts fair.
Rain and cool temperatures are in the National Weather Service forecast for Orange County today, possibly tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday. Stay warm and dry until we meet here again next week!
Best,
Carol
KEEP IN TOUCH
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