Newport Beach finalizes general plan committee

June Casagrande

NEWPORT BEACH -- Tom Hyans, Marian Bergeson and Phil Bettencourt are

among the residents who have won hotly contested seats on the city’s

General Plan Advisory Committee.

After some angry debate that pitted Greenlight supporters against some

officials, the City Council on Tuesday made its 38 final picks from the

52 nominees who, in turn, emerged from more than 250 applicants. The

advisory committee will help craft updates to the city’s general plan.

Alleging that the City Council has a pro-development bias, Greenlight

spokesman Phil Arst noted that 12 of the 52 nominees were either in the

building or development industries or had land-planning degrees.

“There are more people with development backgrounds than there are

Greenlight supporters,” Arst said. “I don’t think that’s representative

of the people, 63% of whom voted for Greenlight.”

Councilman Gary Adams fired back that Arst’s characterization of the

council as pro-development was misrepresentative and that such statements

were an affront to the officials who worked hard to ensure a fair and

balanced committee.

“I think you’re doing a disservice to the public,” Adams said. “I bent

over backward to accommodate everybody. . . . Just about every prominent

Greenlight person in the community was nominated for the committee --

Evelyn Hart, George Jeffries and Tom Hyans.”

Hart, Jeffries and Hyans all made the final cut.

The selection process reopened another simmering controversy.

Committee appointments were to include three representatives each from

the business and environmental communities, one representative from each

of 10 issue areas, such as airport issues and the arts, plus three people

from each of the seven council districts.

But recent council redistricting nearly doubled John Heffernan’s

District 7 by adding the recently annexed Newport Coast, making that

district nearly twice the size of any other council district in the city.

“This district has about 20% of the population of the city, but they

only get three representatives to the committee, just like districts half

their size,” Heffernan said.

The council agreed to appoint four representatives from District 7 to

the committee.

THE FINAL LIST OF 38

Business Representatives -- Roger Alford, Ron Yeo and Philip

Bettencourt

Environmental Representatives -- Louise Greeley, Jan Vandersloot and

Nancy Gardner

Issue Areas -- Larry Root (airport issues), David Janes (waterfront

residential impacts), John Saunders (airport area land uses), Florence

Felton (residential density), Don Webb (circulation), Evelyn Hart

(parking), Dorothy Beek (environmental quality) and Jennifer Wesoloski

(culture and arts), John Corrough (harbor issues) and Joseph Gleason Jr.

(older commercial areas)

At-large representatives: 22

District 1 -- Julie Delaney, Tom Hyans and Brett Shaves

District 2 -- Karlene Bradley, Mike Johnson and Alan Silcock

District 3 -- Marian Bergeson, Todd Knipp and Mike Ishikawa

District 4 -- Carol Boice, Carl Ossipofff and Jackie Sukiasian

District 5 -- Heather Johnston-Reynolds, Ed Siebel and Phil Lugar

District 6 -- Seth Darling, Laura Dietz and George Jeffries

District 7 -- Robert Shelton, Bob Hendrickson, Catherine O’Hara and

Yvonne Houssels