Newport

Help Blue Water has found a way to keep the town’s beaches clean while helping students throughout Orange County meet required community service hours. The organization will launch the Clean Beach Station Program on Earth Day, April 22, in which partnering businesses along the coast from Newport Beach to San Clemente will serve as information and supply stations. The surf shops, restaurants and stores will distribute CBS Kits, which contain trash bags and gloves. Volunteers will collect trash from beaches and return to the station.

The Laguna Beach High baseball team begins play today at the Newport-Elks Tournament, as Breakers spring sports have officially sprung into action. The Breakers are in the Costa Mesa bracket of the annual tournament, in Pool A with Cerritos, Orange and Savanna. They open their season at 3 p.m. today at home against Cerritos. They continue in the tournament Saturday, playing at Savanna at 10 a.m., then have their final pool-play game at 3 p.m. Monday at home against Orange. Tournament play continues Wednesday and March 12. Orange Coast League rival Costa Mesa is also in the Costa Mesa bracket, but in Pool B. Among sports that have already gotten underway, the Laguna Beach boys?

After a long drought, the Laguna High School Surf Team followed a season-long surge that culminated in a victory over Newport Harbor this past Tuesday at Thalia Street. But it almost didn?t happen, according to Surf Team Coach Alisa Cairns, who said she had a bit of convincing to do to run the competition. ?When Coach Scott [Finn] and I saw the conditions we were both on the fence due to lack of surf and the higher tide, but knowing Thalia Street as I do, I pushed to go forward because there were contestable 2- to 3-foot waves coming in. Scott gave it the green light and the contest was on!

Even as the team lost a couple of tough three-game matches, “improvement” was the word of the week for Laguna Beach High girls’ volleyball. And even with four sophomores starting, the Breakers showed that improvement at the prestigious Dave Mohs Invitational against some of the top teams in the county. Laguna Beach was seeded 21st but finished tied for ninth, only going out after pushing eventual semifinalist Orange Lutheran to three games in a 17-25, 25-23, 15-12 defeat Saturday.

Flipping a coin might be easier than picking who would win a game between the Laguna Beach Water Polo club and Newport this year. The 12-and-under girls’ water polo teams have developed quite a friendly rivalry. And, when Newport beat Laguna midway through the S&R Sport Junior Olympics, it made the path to a gold medal that much tougher for the locals. In the biggest game of the club season, though, it was the Laguna girls’ time to shine. Fourth-seeded Laguna put it all together Sunday, defeating its top-seeded rivals up the coast, 4-2, in the Platinum Division championship match at Stanford University.

News of the sale of 18 California Impressionist paintings by the Orange County Museum of Art to a private collector has shocked Laguna art circles, including Laguna Art Museum officials. OCMA acquired the paintings in agreements with the LAM after an aborted merger with Newport Harbor Museum in 1996, which led to the creation of the county museum. The pieces had been in LAM’s permanent collection, many of them painted and donated by early Laguna Beach artists. The name of the buyer, reportedly a Laguna Beach resident, has not been disclosed.

For filmmaker John Keitel, the Boom Boom Room was more than a gay hangout: It was a place of community, and the battle to save it is personal. The second screening of Keitel?s ?Saving the Boom,? a 2008 film documentary about efforts to keep the iconic gay bar ? and the gay community in Laguna Beach ? alive, will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Edwards Island 4 cinema during the 2009 Newport Beach Film Festival. The film premiered last summer at Outfest, a popular gay and lesbian film festival in Los Angeles.

Thank you very much for your article (From Canyon to Cove, ?Homeless Burden Must Be Shared,? Feb. 27). Thank you very much for telling it like it is. It is unbelievable that the ACLU has the audacity to choose a Newport Beach law firm to represent them in this case against Laguna Beach policies. Did they close their eyes to the fact that Newport Beach has no programs for the homeless, nor are the homeless even allowed in Newport Beach? I have not read that the city of Newport Beach has been targeted by the ACLU for their anti-homeless regulations.

A red flag warning and high wind advisories are in effect in coastal Orange County until 10 p.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. Red flag warnings are issued when the danger of fire is extreme, due to low humidity and high winds. A brush fire in Bonita Canyon in nearby Newport Beach scorched about 35 acres Monday as Newport Beach and Costa Mesa firefighters battled for nearly two hours to contain the blaze. Three helicopters helped douse the blaze, which started about 3:30 p.m., while firefighters from several cities raced to the canyon as Santa Ana winds powered the flames up the hillside.