Police officials reported a well-behaved throng of funseekers during the annual OB Beach Ball Festival on May 18-19, which served as one spoke in the wheel of the Ocean Beach 125th anniversary celebration and as the prelude to a series of summer fun events in 2012. A Ferris wheel, an enormous water slide at Saratoga Park, live music and a beer garden in the OB Pier parking lot attracted hundreds of people for fun in the sun. But despite the sometimes-volatile mixture of crowds and alcohol, the event was largely peaceful and incident-free, according to Sgt. Gary Mondesir, charged with crowd control for the San Diego Police Department’s Western Division. As of 7:30 p.m. on May 19, Mondesir reported an uneventful day but for one minor arrest of a man in his twenties for public intoxication and disturbing the peace. “I don’t expect it to get any crazier from here on out,” said Mondesir. “We’ve got this under control.” Mondesir added, however, that officers have not observed “a lot of intoxicated people this year.” Still, he said he was pleased with the outcome of the event and the behavior of the crowd. Mondesir said he is in his fourth consecutive year monitoring crowd control at Ocean Beach events, but he has spent the last seven years with the police department’s Special Events Units. Eligible officers are handpicked and individually instructed on how to handle large events like the OB Beach Ball Festival and the gigantic, upcoming Ocean Beach Street Fair and Chili Cook-Off Festival on Saturday, June 23. “I have an excellent team with me,” said Mondesir. “They’re pros at this. We’re hired by the event organizers [in this case, the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association], who solely pay for this added security maesure. We have the same number of officers present as we had last year [the inaugural OB Beach Ball Festival]. “Because this is a special service, compensation is the event organizers’ responsibility,” he said. “It does not come out of the taxpayers’ pockets. The organizer wants to ensure a safe event to the visitors, so it is up to them to employ extra security forces.”