INSIDE SCOOP

-- Compiled by the Daily Pilot staff

The colorful map that hangs in Newport Beach’s City Council chambers

and depicts the city’s different land uses has long been a favorite

distraction device for your Piloteers. Not that we don’t love those

drawn-out discussions between the folks up on the dais. But it’s nice to

have some visual diversion once in a while.

So when things got a little heated during last Tuesday’s meeting and

council members, supporters and opponents of a proposed arts and

education center on open space land behind the central library brought

out their emotional sides, we somehow found ourselves staring at the good

old map again.

The issue with the center is that it would reduce the city’s already

limited open space by about three acres. And that’s something the

environmental folks aren’t crazy about. Checking the map, something just

didn’t quite look right. Open space parcels usually come in a deep green,

but the proposed site was colored in orange.

On closer inspection, it became clear that according to the map, the

piece of land should be used for administrative, professional and

financial buildings. We don’t know about you, but that certainly doesn’t

sound like open space to us. The problem might be that the map hasn’t

been updated since February 1993.

If you don’t like it, talk to the boss

We’ve always suspected that our Irish friends don’t worry too much

about schmoozing their bosses. But Msgr. William P. McLaughlin, the

pastor at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church, really impressed us

at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

McLaughlin had come to lobby council members about an approval for two

general-plan amendment initiations. If the amendments are approved in the

future, Our Lady’s can build a bigger sanctuary on the current St. Mark

Presbyterian Church site next door. That church would move to another

site near Newport Center. But even though council members approved the

initiations, that’s not really the point here. What got us interested was

McLaughlin’s explanation for the need for a bigger church.

While his congregation has grown to about 4,500 members, he said that

there aren’t enough priests to hold an increasing number of Masses each

weekend. By accommodating more worshipers in a larger sanctuary at one

time, the parish could get by even though the number of priests is

expected to decrease in the future.

And McLaughlin, a Boston native who moved to Ireland with his family

when he was 1, told council members that there’s only one guy who can

remedy that problem.

“You can talk to the pope if you want these things to change,” he

said, to hearty laughter from all sides of the room.