This Fire Department is creating sparks.

The Orange Fire Department is participating in the Spark of Love Toy Drive through the year, said Ed Engler, deputy fire marshal.

Spark of Love is a holiday toy drive that distributes donated gifts to needy children throughout the community. Gifts are needed, especially in this economy.

“Gift-giving was strong last year in spite of the economy. There are probably more needy people than in years past to give the gifts to,” Engler said.

Anyone can drop off a new, unwrapped gift at any fire station in the county. Dropping off gifts past Christmas is OK, as they will be used for distribution later.

ABC-TV is a main partner along with CVS Pharmacy stores. Volunteers from the Orange Park Acres Trailblazers help along with grade-school and junior-high children from the Orange Park Acres community, Engler said.

“We came up with the idea of getting the kids involved – they’re learning about how to help other people who are less fortunate,” he said.

Every five to seven days, volunteers fill a large Ford van to deliver gifts to the distribution center in an old warehouse on the former El Toro Marine station, Engler said.

The 4-foot-by-4 boxes at each station can be filled in a matter of days.

“As we get closer to Christmas, the boxes overflow every day, sometimes several times a day,” he said.

Engler has worked with another program the Fire Department has, which takes Santa to the hospital.

“It’s extremely heartwarming,” he said. “You come away from that with a completely different outlook on things. You go home and hug you kids and just feel really grateful for everything you have.”

– Kristen Salazar and Rachelle Yeung

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Post from: Orange City Watch

The event includes live music and $1 tacos.

Patrons are asked to donate non-perishable foods, personal items and blankets.

Proceeds and donations from the event will benefit the Friendly Center of Orange.

Information: 714-602-8999

Post from: Orange City Watch

Amber Gonzales, editor of The Panther, said the printing cost is about $1,400 and this week’s issue of the paper won’t be reprinted.

“We really can’t afford it,” Gonzales said. “There’s a PDF version on the Web.”

The shipment of newspapers was delivered in bundles at about 10:30 a.m. Monday on campus, and Gonzales said she went out and grabbed a bundle for archival purposes.

“Our distribution guy went out at 11:30 a.m. and when he went out, they were gone,” Gonzales said. “I drove around, and I didn’t see any of the newspapers.”

Susan Paterno, the director of the journalism program at Chapman, said this is the third incident of newspapers disappearing at the campus in five years.

Gonzales said she didn’t know why the newspapers had been taken. She planned to report the papers’ disappearance to Orange police.

“It feels really random. I can’t think of anything controversial,” Gonzales said. “We were featuring ‘Twilight: New Moon.’ ”

Mary Platt, a university spokeswoman, said Chapman was concerned about the disappearance.

“Whether it was meant as a prank or was done purposefully to sabotage distribution of the news on campus, we take this very seriously,” Platt said. “We will be assisting the newspaper staff in investigating this incident.”

Gonzales said she was frustrated in part because of the time her staff put into the paper.

“Our editors work so hard every week,” she said. “They’re in here 10, 12 hours (some days) and on the weekends for design and layout.”

The paper can be seen at thepantheronline.com.

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The tour begins at the intersection of Smokewood Drive and Alta Drive and will make 36 stops ranging from 10 to 15 minutes.

A complete map and list of stops along the route is available on the city website.

Information: 714-998-1500

Post from: Orange City Watch

Address: 18682 E. Rosenau Drive

Amount: $1,038,485.31

Sales date: Dec. 2

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 714-573-1965

TS#: CA0847642

++++

Address: 1409 E. Mayfair Ave.

Amount: $570,851.47

Sales date: Dec. 2

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 714-573-1965

TS#: CA0843168

++++

Address: 8236 E. Star Pine Road

Amount: $604,954.22

Sales date: Dec. 9

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 619-590-1221

TS#: 1233421-02

++++

Address: 7606 E. Appaloosa Triangle

Amount: $603,326.46

Sales date: Nov. 25

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 619-590-1221

TS#: 1231035-02

++++

Address: 8517 E. Deershire Street

Amount: $813,643.56

Sales date: Dec. 2

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 619-590-1221

TS#: 1226640-15

++++

Address: 925 W. Chapman Ave.

Amount: $636,171.53

Sales date: Dec. 2

Time: 3 p.m.

Auction location: Orange Civic Center

Information: 714-480-5690

TS#: K393991 CA

++++

Address: 594 N. Lemon Street

Amount: $569,243.91

Sales date: Dec. 9

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 530-672-3033

TS#: 20099070817311

++++

Address: 366 N. Batavia Street

Amount: $518,203.70

Sales date: Dec. 9

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 714-572-1965

TS#: 20090134007867

++++

Address: 1424 E. Maple Ave.

Amount: $542,257.05

Sales date: Dec. 9

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 714-573-1965

TS#: 09-32278

++++

Address: 449 N. Fern Street

Amount: $575,193.76

Sales date: Nov. 25

Time: 10 a.m.

Auction location: Placentia Civic Center

Information: 714-573-1965

TS#: 09-32237

Post from: Orange City Watch

ACLU attorneys Hector Villagra and Belinda Escobosa Helzer.

A federal judge denied a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to block a gang injunction aimed at breaking up an Orange street gang.

U.S. District Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank denied the ACLU’s motion for a preliminary injunction, writing that the “relief sought is not appropriate.”

The ACLU filed its federal suit in September, challenging a gang injunction obtained in state court by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office as an “egregious abuse of government power.”

The state court injunction targets the Orange Varrio Cypress gang, prohibiting some 80 alleged members from associating with one other, wearing gang clothing or being out after 10 p.m.

Fairbank’s ruling “leaves us in a position where the residents of Orange are safer, because we can continue to enforce the gang injunction against the Orange Varrio Cypress gang, and we’re pleased about that,” said John Anderson, assistant district attorney for gang injunctions.

The injunction is effective in a “safety zone” of 3.78 square miles that is in three chunks – two largely in Old Towne and a third in West Orange.

Hector Villagra, an ACLU lawyer, said the motion was denied Tuesday on technical grounds and that the group would consider submitting a reworked request.

In its lawsuit, the ACLU says that dozens more people could be held to the terms of the injunction without having a chance to fight their case in court. It claims that the District Attorney’s Office prevented them from getting a fair hearing by dismissing them as named defendants in the injunction before they went to court.

At least 20 people whose names were initially removed from the injunction have since been notified that they are back on it, without a further court hearing, the ACLU says. That “dismiss-and-serve strategy,” the lawsuit claims, “has thoroughly subverted the judicial process” and denied people their right to challenge the allegations that landed them on the injunction.

In its bid for a preliminary injunction, the ACLU asked the federal court to block police from enforcing the injunction against more than 60 people who were named and then dismissed, until they get a judicial hearing.

In denying the proposed preliminary injunction, Fairbank wrote that it “appears unworkable as well as unclear, particularly as to the Defendants’ responsibilities, authority and obligations at the ‘judicial hearing.’”

“She didn’t necessarily say we weren’t entitled to a preliminary injunction, she said we weren’t entitled to the injunction that we wrote,” Villagra said.

The ACLU plans to proceed with the case to discovery and trial, he said.

Villagra said Fairbank’s ruling was in one sense a victory for the plaintiffs, in that the defendants, including the District Attorney’s Office and the Orange Police Department, had argued that the federal court didn’t have jurisdiction in the case.

“It’s our position, and it continues to be our position, that what they’re trying to do is appeal a state-court ruling,” said Anderson. “If you want to call that a victory, so be it. … They can claim victory right before they were defeated.”

The gang injunction is the sixth in the county. Others were issued in Santa Ana, Anaheim, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and in Orange.

Staff writers Eugene W. Fields and Doug Irving contributed to this report.

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New mayor:

The mayor and mayor pro tem are selected by the council to serve a one-year term.

This is the second mayoral stint for Mac Aloney, who served on council from 2000 to 2004 and returned after a four-year absence in November of 2008.

Information: visit villapark.org.

Post from: Orange City Watch

In his family runs a streak of patriotism. Many family members were in the military and he has worked with the American Legion, he said.

“I’ve done a lot of patriotic things in my life,” he said. “With this at least you feel like you’re serving.”

As an inspector, he processed voters and oversaw other poll workers. Although special elections are generally slow, he still enjoys his works.

“There’s a nice feeling you get, like you’re doing something to help,” Velte said.

When he’s not working as inspector at a voting place, he’s an inspector for Northrop Grumman, a company that makes military aerospace products, he said. As a quality engineer, he inspects the quality of the product’s parts.

‘I’m always an inspector,” he said.

He did not vote in yesterday’s election, but not because he’s disinterested in politics. He lives in Orange, but in the area outside the 72nd District, Velte said.

“I would have (voted(, and I always do.”

– Kristen Salazar

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Norby, a Republican and member of the county Board of Supervisors, was more conservative and familiar to Hall than Republican Linda Ackerman, a member of the board of directors for the Metropolitan Water District.

“I had to vote for someone,” Hall said after voting at the Community Garden Tower, 3919 W. Garden Grove Blvd., in Orange.

When Hall compared Norby and Ackerman’s experience, Ackerman was less impressive, he said. However, Hall said he didn’t think either of them would do a much better job than the other, if elected.

“I just like Norby a little bit better,” he said.

Hall also was concerned that Ackerman only moved back into the district to run for the Assembly seat.

– Daniel Langhorne

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That’s was what it was all about for Judy Juenon, 55, who voted for Democrat John MacMurray in the 72nd Assembly election Tuesday afternoon at Son Light Christian Center in Old Towne Orange.

“I just wanted to make sure at this point in time that it wasn’t a Republican. So, this election I was voting more anti-Republican than Democrat,” Juenon said.

Juenon, an OUSD kindergarten teacher who had just returned from a field trip with her class, hopes her vote will benefit teachers, but has no immediate expectation of change.

“I’m hoping it’s going to do good for the teachers and for California but I’m not necessarily thinking that things are going to be really good for a while,” she said.

– Kerrianne Rivas

Post from: Orange City Watch