THE RACE FOR NEWPORT BEACH CITY HALL

Mathis Winkler

BALBOA ISLAND -- When icy winds swept District 5 city council

candidate Patricia M. Beek off her feet and against a bus parked on

Broadway in 1977, she knew it was time to bid farewell to New York City.

She called Seymour Beek, her boyfriend at the time, who told her about

the mild winters in Newport Beach.

“Why don’t you think about coming to California?” he asked. After

years of traveling and living around the world (Hong Kong and a “grass

shack” in Honolulu were two stops along the way), the former model and

retail manager decided to leave her East Coast roots and head

cross-country.

She had no idea that she was marrying into one of the city’s oldest

families.

“When I met [Seymour], I didn’t know who he was,” she said, sitting on

the family’s boat moored to a dock outside the Beeks’ ancestral home on

Balboa Island.

She thinks “being a Beek” -- which she became in 1978 -- in Newport

Beach isn’t that significant anymore.

“I suspect that for new families coming into the city, it’s not in

their welcome packet,” she said, laughing.

But the family still oversees operations of the Balboa Ferry, which

her father-in-law founded in the early decades of the century.

Newport Bay is Beek’s favorite place in the city and she regularly

swims -- sometimes with a friendly seal -- just outside her home.

“No one has gotten any infections,” she says.

Her husband recently sailed from Bora Bora to Tonga with his son,

Clark, who has been out at sea for more than a year. Last week, her son,

Jim, flew to Tonga to join his brother on a leg to Australia.

“I’ve been telling [daughter] Cynthia, ‘Let’s hold out and get to

Sydney,’ ” she said.

Along with protecting the bay, keeping the city’s open spaces open

ranks high on Beek’s priority list. A parks, beaches and recreation

commissioner for the last five years, she favors a “Central Park” above

the city’s central public library rather than an arts and education

center that’s been proposed.

And in true New Yorker fashion, she’s already thinking about culinary

treats for visitors.

“I don’t think they’ll ever have hot dogs as good as they do in New

York,” she said. “But we could have a little cappuccino stand and call

that Tavern on the Green. Wouldn’t that be nice?”