Madelene Arakelian: A return to a quaint city

June Casagrande

Madelene Arakelian envisions a Newport Beach defined neither by

Fashion Island nor tattoo parlors. She sees a hope for a return to

the days of her youth, when Newport Beach embodied terms like

“quaintness” and “community.”

“Newport Beach was a very special place when I was growing up,”

said the 68-year-old Arakelian, a semi-retired businesswoman and

waste industry consultant. “We need to grow, but we need to grow

sensibly.”

In her bid for the District 1 City Council seat, Arakelian lists

as her top priorities: traffic, improving communication between the

City Council and the residents, bringing Newport Beach back to a

community rather than a metropolis, water quality and the city

budget.

“There’s no system of checks in the budget to provide

accountability,” she said, adding that the current system for

verifying receipt of lease payments on city-owned land is

insufficient.

As the Greenlight-endorsed candidate for the district that

includes the Balboa Peninsula, Arakelian will compete with incumbent

Mayor Tod Ridgeway and activist Marianne Zippi for the council seat.

She’s quick to say that Greenlight doesn’t mean no-growth, it means a

resident-guided approach to careful growth with the ultimate goal of

a single community in mind.

“I didn’t support annexation of Newport Coast, but that’s no

longer the issue,” she said. “They’re part of the city now. It’s a

city of different areas that need to all start working together. I

see the city backing away from its promises to Newport Coast and

that’s not right -- things like median maintenance.”

Arakelian’s solutions for city traffic problems include

controlling growth and finding case-by-case solutions for traffic

problem areas, including possibly better synchronizing lights,

widening roads and creating some one-way streets.

Greenlight’s newest refrain -- that city officials need to be more

respectful and communicative with residents -- is also near and dear

to her heart.

“I want to be able to have community forums where we just sit down

and talk, like a fireside-type of communication,” she said. “I want

to get elected because I want to listen to the public.”