DP 103:Lunching with the influential

Influence peddlers could have made out big Wednesday as Newport-Mesa’s most powerful gathered for the annual lunch that celebrates the Daily Pilot’s DP 103 special section.

Among those in attendance were Rep. John Campbell, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, former state Sen. Marian Bergeson, Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau, Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder and Newport Beach Mayor Don Webb.

The fare? From one of Newport-Mesa’s most influential restaurants: Wahoo’s.

Roped in at the last moment as part of the event’s half-serious, half-joking program were UC Irvine volleyball coach John Speraw, Costa Mesa Assistant City Manager Thomas Hatch — who had to make fun of his boss, Roeder — and Costa Mesa resident Charlene Ashendorf. Ashendorf, the state’s senior poet laureate, had about an hour to write a poem on the occasion. Somehow, she managed to touch on a good number of the people there.

Candace Tift, the Eastbluff Elementary school teacher who was fatally injured in August when a car struck her while she was bicycling, was remembered toward the end of the luncheon, and Eastbluff Principal Charlene Metoyer was presented a plaque retiring No. 119 in Tift’s honor.

The luncheon, as is tradition, finished with Temple Bay Yahm’s Rabbi Mark S. Miller delivering the closing comments.

This year’s subject: 12 things Miller had learned from the Book of Noah. Among them: Don’t miss the boat. Travel in pairs.

— S.J. Cahn