When Hearthside Homes won California Coastal Commission approval last year to build 349 houses on the mesa above the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, it was with the understanding that any archaeological remains unearthed be handled with care. Builders of the Brightwater development on a 68-acre plot northeast of Pacific Coast Highway and Warner Avenue in Huntington Beach have boxed up the remains of more than 175 Native Americans and various artifacts. But the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, the California Cultural Resources Preservation Alliance and 20 Native Americans from various tribal groups contend excavation at the “sacred site” has been botched, and the commission granted them a hearing to determine whether Hearthside’s permit should be revoked. Didn’t these people ever see Poltergeist? Note: Bolsa Chica hearing is expected to begin in the afternoon.
Thu., Nov. 13, 8 a.m., 2008
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.