Featured Articles from the Huntington Beach Independent

The Huntington Beach City Council voted Tuesday to submit a listing of legally binding agreements or contracts that the city's disbanded redevelopment agency had given to the County Auditor-Controller and the state finance department for a review. The listing will be posted on the city's website. The process is part of the winding-down actions since the state Supreme Court declared the state's redevelopment agencies unconstitutional in December. It's not clear at this time whether the city will get back the money owed to it by the redevelopment agency, said Finance Director Lori Ann Farrell.

When the city dedicated a plaque Saturday honoring the founders of the Huntington Beach Youth Shelter, Carol Kanode thought of another person without whom the project might never have started. That was the Ocean View High School student who came to Kanode in 1987 and explained that her mother had thrown her out of the house. Kanode, a nurse at the school, contacted social services and a youth shelter in Los Alamitos, but the girl didn't want to go to either. Then she disappeared for weeks.

He's wearing black slacks and a black shirt and cowboy hat. There's a bit of silver woven in, too, that picks up the light in the small hotel room. With his neatly trimmed beard and gentle country manner, he cuts a romantic, old-time figure, like some charming character from another age. Then he sits down on a couch, picks up an orange Gretsch hollow-body guitar and starts to play — or, rather, starts to twang. This is, after all, Duane Eddy, one of the most iconic guitar players in history.

For years, Fountain Valley has planned to spruce up the section around the San Diego (405) Freeway near the Santa Ana River, adding a hotel, retailers and more to catch the eye of commuters and bring jobs to town. Now, like hundreds of other cities statewide, it's had to put its plans on hold. The state Supreme Court abolished city redevelopment agencies in December, leaving Fountain Valley, which has had its own agency since 1975, without the resources to complete many of its projects planned for the next few years.

Huntington Beach is one step closer to getting its first Costco after it received the green light Tuesday night from the Planning Commission. The commission unanimously approved a 154,113-square-foot store to be built alongside a four-story building with commercial use on the ground floor and 467 residential units on top floors just west of Bella Terra and east of the Union Pacific Railroad. The project must now go before the City Council for approval. The Costco at 7601 Edinger Ave. would have an attached tire-installation center, a 16-pump gas station and outdoor food sales with an eating area.

To tweak a line from Shakespeare, Susan Peirce needs a kingdom for a horse. Fifty-six horses, in fact. The co-founder and president of Red Bucket Equine Rescue, a Huntington Beach-based nonprofit that rescues and rehabilitates abandoned horses, is appealing to the community to donate funds for a new permanent home for her animals. For three years, Red Bucket has housed its horses at the Huntington Central Park Equestrian Center. However, center owner Mary Behrens and manager Mike Rademaker recently gave the nonprofit's horses until Feb. 15 to move out of their stalls to make room for paying customers, and Peirce and her volunteers are seeking funds for new accommodation.

When Golden West College opened in 1966, it was surrounded by farmland, built on a bog, every structure had to be anchored with cement pillars reaching 68 feet into the bedrock below and it was run out of an old farmhouse. John Wordes knows. He was there. Wordes, 74, who came to the school as a faculty member in 1966 before the doors even opened for students, curated the school's 40th Anniversary Exhibition, which will be on display in the school's Fine Arts Gallery through Feb. 23. Golden West's staff felt confident that he was the best man for the job, as they consider him the school's unofficial historian.

A developmentally disabled resident is suing the Huntington Beach Police Department for allegedly allowing information about his condition to get out, which he claims led to harassment by neighbors. John Patrick Rogers, whose criminal record goes back to the early 2000s, said when police arrested him from his van in front of his home May 21, they left the driver-side window down and the van unlocked. The van, which had medical records for him and his now-deceased mother, thousands of pictures and items with sentimental value, was ransacked and his information got out, Rogers said in the lawsuit.

Brethren Christian boys' basketball Coach Jon Bahnsen was expecting a battle Tuesday night. Instead, his Warriors won in a blowout. Brethren Christian took a giant step forward in its bid to claim a fourth consecutive Academy League championship by blitzing past visiting Crean Lutheran, 65-38, at Ocean View High. The win kept the Warriors alone in first place at 7-0. The Saints, who had a chance to move into a first-place tie with a win Tuesday, fell to 5-2 in league and 14-6 overall.

Drivers will need to plan ahead Sunday as runners take over Huntington Beach for the 14th annual Surf City Marathon The event, which includes a marathon, half-marathon, 5K run, children’s run and fitness expo, will cause many streets to be roped off. Pacific Coast Highway will be closed from Beach Boulevard to Warner Avenue from at 1 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, and several smaller streets will be closed between 6 and 9:30 a.m. Portions of...

HB Gold, a girls' soccer team out of Region 56 (Huntington Beach), won the Under-12 division title Saturday at the AYSO Area K All-Star tournament at Centennial Park in Santa Ana. HB Gold captured the crown by defeating another Huntington Beach program, Region 55, 4-2, in Saturday's final. The teams had played to a 2-2 tie in an early tournament game. The tournament was played during the last three weekends in January and included teams from eight AYSO regions, including three (regions 55, 56, 143)

Cara Hulett's phone rang a little after 10 p.m. on Sept. 25. On the other end, her 27-year-old brother Chris Hulett told her that he had just been in a bad accident. Less than two hours earlier, Hulett told his sister, on his way through the intersection at 6th Street and Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, he struck 16-year-old Heather Stamm and her boyfriend, 19-year-old Nathan Koontz. Hulett told his sister that he called 911 and then stayed with Heather, talking to her and reminding her not to move so she wouldn't further her injuries.

A woman fatally struck by a car while walking across Pacific Coast Highway in Sunset Beach the night of Jan. 28 has been identified by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Coroner’s Office as 70-year-old Olga Reveles of Huntington Beach. According to dispatcher Beth Smith of the California Highway Patrol, Reveles was in a crosswalk when the vehicle struck her at about 9:20 p.m. at Pacific Coast Highway and Coral Cay Lane. She died at the scene. A spokesman for the highway patrol said the incident was still under investigation and no charges had been filed against the driver.

Huntington Beach police are seeking the public's assistance in finding a man convicted of child abuse. An arrest warrant has been issued for Mario David Abernathy, 44, who failed to show up for his sentencing hearing Thursday, said Lt. Russell Reinhart. Abernathy was found guilty July 5 of corporal injury to a child. He has been out on bail since his arrest in November, when police found his daughter bleeding from her mouth after responding to a neighbor's call, Reinhart said.