A CLOSER LOOK -- City rifts are not healing overnight

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- When Greenlight author Allan Beek recently expressed

his gratitude to the city’s elected leaders for their efforts to put the

city’s new slow-growth law to work, Mayor Gary Adams and his six

colleagues on the council seemed lost for words.

“The mayor has rolled up his sleeves to make [Greenlight] work,” Beek

said during one council meeting, his voice trembling with emotion. “There

are three things I want to say: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Only a few months earlier, before voters overwhelmingly approved

Greenlight and put three new faces behind the dais, council members had

faced harsh criticism from the city’s residents.

They weren’t listening and put developers’ interests before the

community’s concern, some said. Others -- several City Council candidates

among them -- lambasted the council for a lack of direction and

leadership, leading Councilman Dennis O’Neil to refute the allegations

during a meeting last October.

“I’m afraid that [our critics] are not aware of what we are,” he said.

Fast forward to the present and it seems as if O’Neil’s comment got to

the problem’s core.

“I’m not really sure that we weren’t listening before,” said Mayor

Gary Adams, who stepped to the helm of city government in December.

“There was a perception that we weren’t, and I don’t think we helped it.

It was a lack of effective communication and perhaps, to some extent,

leadership style.”

So far, attempts to remedy the situation remain subtle. The cordial

atmosphere during three study sessions on Greenlight guidelines -- six

council members opposed the initiative -- might give initial pointers

that things are changing. Some, ranging from Beek Newport Harbor Chamber

of Commerce president Richard Luehrs, said it’s still too early to pass

judgment on the new constellation of folks down at city hall.

But Beek’s not alone with his praise for this new chapter in Newport

Beach’s history. A sense that council members are making a sincere effort

to involve residents exists throughout the city.

“It’s kind of like [President] Bush,” said Dolores Otting, a resident

who ran for a council seat in 1996.

“He’s doing a good job and Gary Adams is doing a good job,” she said.

“It’s different than when he was a council member. He’s really trying...

It seems like it’s shaping up to be a good council.”

A wake-up call

Adams, who made a passionate case against Greenlight just a few weeks

before the election, said the overwhelming approval of the measure had

got him thinking about what had gone wrong.

“Greenlight was a real wake-up call for me that we needed to be

listening better,” he said. “I have been trying to do that.”

Like several of his predecessors, Adams called for a retreat to give

city officials a chance to review major issues such as the proposed

annexations of Bay Knolls, Newport Coast and Santa Ana Heights,

affordable housing for seniors and the city’s financial shape.

Several sessions during the day-long meeting, which took place in late

January at a local hotel, dealt with the role council members have in

city government.

Adams has made reports on actions by planning commissioners a regular

item on meeting agendas. Beginning with the Feb. 27 meeting, council

members will have an opportunity to report on the various city and

regional boards and committees they sit on as well.

Councilman Tod Ridgeway said the new City Council had already shown

greater involvement at the committee level than the previous one.

“We used to not have as much participation or attendance by council

members at those meetings,” he said.

While only the evening council meetings have been broadcast on public

access channels until now, city officials are trying to get the afternoon

study sessions on television as well.

“I sat down and tried to think of ways to make it easier for people to

know what’s happening,” Adams explained.

Going even further, last Tuesday, council members unanimously voted to

hire a public information officer for the city. Informing residents about

the pending general plan update will be one of the first duties of

Newport Beach’s new spokesperson.

While still struggling to adjust to their new roles, some of the new

council members said they are trying hard to stay accessible to

residents.

“So far, I’ve returned every e-mail and every phone call that I’ve

received,” said Councilman Steve Bromberg, who replaced former Mayor John

Noyes as the representative for District 5.

“I hope it stays with me,” he said. “I hope I don’t get desensitized.”

Slow-healing wounds

Despite a new, amicable approach to resolve their differences, the

nerves of council members and community activists still seem raw after

last year’s battles.

A fund-raising letter Greenlight leaders recently sent to supporters

soliciting money to pay for a legal advisor had Bromberg and some of his

colleagues up in arms.

“Five city councilmen are attorneys,” read the letter, signed by

former mayor Evelyn Hart, community activist Tom Hyans and Greenlight

spokesman Phil Arst.

“They have the full-time support of the city attorney,” it continued.

“Our opponents have a large law firm aiding them. Needless to say, it is

essential that we have the continuing advice of our own legal counsel to

ensure that the possibilities for future legal challenges to Greenlight

are minimized.”

Sensing that the letter implied a reluctance or opposition from

council members to put Greenlight to work, Bromberg said that he could

not believe his eyes when he read the letter.

“That’s outright deceitful,” he said, adding that while originally

opposing the initiative, he and his colleagues had put a lot of effort

into making Greenlight work.

“The challenge that I have to the three authors of that letter is,

‘Either put up with prove or publicly apologize to us,’ ” Bromberg said.

Ridgeway seconded his colleague’s feelings, saying the letter was

“very offensive to me personally.”

Hart, who said that she was encouraged by the new council’s approach,

said the letter was not meant to put city officials in a negative light.

But “if there is a challenge to Greenlight, we must be prepared to

voice Greenlight’s opinion,” she said. “None of us are attorneys.”

Hart added that she would personally apologize to council members

should they have perceived the letter differently.

While Arst was out of the country and could not be reached for comment

last week, Hyans, the third author of the letter, took a less

conciliatory approach.

“I think they’re honest people,” he said. “I’m sorry if they were

offended, but that’s too [darn] bad.”

An inherent problem

A widespread problem -- that residents are wary of elected officials

-- plays a role in Newport Beach as well, Ridgeway said.

“I can’t undo the distrust of citizens at large,” he said.

Since Newport Beach, like many other cities, relies on sales and hotel

taxes for much of its revenue, Ridgeway said it was easy to conclude that

developers get an easy ride from council members.

“That perceived relationship between business and government has

created mistrust,” he said. “With the economy running as good as it has,

people don’t want any more growth in their city. And the perception that

the city’s too cozy to business [interests] becomes very real

“When the economy goes bad and we’re not providing services and people

are being laid off, you see a different constituency out there . . .

There’s nothing better for a developer than a good recession, because all

of a sudden, people want what I have to bring to the table.”

O’Neil, who laid out the city’s achievements in a six-page letter to a

concerned residents just a few days before the last election, took a

different approach.

“It’s disturbing to me that there’s a perception out there that

[Newport Beach] is totally not functioning,” he said. “That the city’s

just in terrible shape, when everybody and their brother wants to move to

Newport Beach. It’s a phenomenon that I can’t understand . . . I hope

that we could get on with running the city and look for the next issue.”