Neptune’s Beach Ball set for tonight The...

Neptune’s Beach

Ball set for tonight

The Corona del Mar High School Foundation will hold its third

annual Neptune’s Beach Ball tonight at the Balboa Bay Club, 1221 W.

Coast Highway, Newport Beach.

The event, which benefits educational programs at Corona del Mar

Middle and High schools, features a live and silent auction, hors

d’oeuvres and music from a steel drum band.

Among the 240 items to be auctioned are first-class tickets to

Hawaii from Aloha Airlines, a live puppy from Russo’s Pet Experience,

a number of dinner packages, and two front-row club seats to U2’s

concert at the Arrowhead Pond on April 1.

Festivities kick off at 6 p.m. and last until midnight. Tickets

are $100 per person. For information or reservations, call (949)

644-7422.

Center needs 93 parking spaces

A community center planned for Newport Coast apparently will have

just 93 parking spaces, or there won’t be a community center. Rather

than making the space reserved for a future library into an

additional parking lot, the Newport Coast Advisory Committee will ask

the Newport Beach City Council to approve the planned 93-space lot

and require a plan to handle large events.

The $7-million community center is being paid for with money from

a Newport Coast annexation agreement, and a homeowners’ association

is donating the land. The council on Tuesday voted to require an

additional 29 parking spaces that would go where residents hoped to

someday build a library.

The advisory committee, made up of residents, decided Thursday

that if the council won’t approve the smaller parking lot, the center

won’t be built at all, said advisory committee chairman Jim McGee.

The spot meant for the library is prominently located at the

corner of Newport Coast Drive and San Joaquin Hills Road -- not an

appropriate place for a parking lot, McGee said.

The advisory committee does have the right for final approval of

the center’s design, but it’s unclear what stance the City Council

will take on the association’s proposal, said Councilman John

Heffernan, whose council district includes part of Newport Coast.