Inside Scoop

Independent staff

CREW’S HEARTS NOT IN THE WORK, BUT EARS WERE

Huntington Beach City Hall may not compare to the Sistine Chapel but

Mayor Peter Green expected more dedication from the company the city

fired this month for doing a poor job of repainting the seat of city

government.

“They’re the only crew I’ve seen who paint with one hand and talk on

the cellular phone with another,” he said.

BANKING ON SWEET TOOTH PERSUASION

Bribing school district officials certainly isn’t condoned by state

education codes, but a couple of Huntington Beach City School District

parents are considering baking some cookies for a district official to

“show their appreciation.”

Barbara Ball said she and another parent are interested in having a

Dwyer Middle School bus route implemented near their Peninsula homes. She

said they might send Dorothy Phillips a little gift for her hard work as

supervisor of transportation.

“I think I’m going to drop off some cookies,” Ball said.

SHAKEN, BUT DIDN’T STIR

A vacationing Fountain Valley resident, Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick,

survived the earthquake that struck Turkey Aug. 17, but for a while, she

worried that a member of her tour group had not because he didn’t show up

on the street after the 7.8-magnitude shaker struck their hotel at 3 a.m.

“I kept looking for him, but I couldn’t spot him in the crowds,” she

recalled.

Three hours later, she saw him at the checkout counter. Apparently,

the civil engineer from Pasadena grumbled that he had been rudely

awakened, not by the earthquake, or its four aftershocks, she said, but

by inspectors evacuating the hotel.

--Eron Ben-Yehuda, Marissa Espino and Ellen McCarty