Newport denies it needs a Greenlight vote on resort

June Casagrande

City officials are standing firm on their decision to put a luxury

resort on the November ballot not because they think the project

requires a Greenlight vote but because they believe voters should

decide.

City Atty. Bob Burnham sent a letter this week to John Buttolph, a

resident who had asked the city to explain its rationale for putting

the Balboa Peninsula resort proposal on the ballot. That resident’s

request prompted a statement by Greenlight that the group’s leaders

believe the city is acting outside the law and setting a bad

precedent.

Burnham disagreed, defending the legal basis for the City

Council’s decision in February to send the matter to a non-Greenlight

vote.

“The decision, the process leading up to the election and the

election itself fully comply with the letter, spirit and intent of

[Greenlight],” Burnham wrote.

According to the city’s Greenlight rule, which voters passed in

2000 as Measure S, any project that significantly exceeds General

Plan guidelines for traffic, homes or square footage must go to a

vote of the people. During meetings before the Greenlight Initiative

was adopted, officials discussed holding hotels to slightly different

criteria, basing the Greenlight question solely on the traffic

factor.

Anticipating that the 110-room luxury resort they hope to build on

the Balboa Peninsula at the site of the Marinapark mobile home park

would not exceed the threshold for traffic, the council nonetheless

decided that the matter would best be decided by voters. Acting under

a provision of the city charter that lets the council put such

decisions into the hands of voters, they agreed to put the Marinapark

question on the November 2004 ballot, which will include the

presidential race and other general election races.

Greenlight supporters recently questioned this approach, saying

that it undermined the intent of Greenlight. But Burnham said he

believes that the City Council adopted this guideline with Greenlight

supporters’ blessings during a series of meetings in March 2001.

On Wednesday, Greenlight spokesman Phil Arst said that the group

had not yet analyzed Burnham’s letter and was not prepared to give an

opinion. Buttolph, too, said he needed more time to consider most of

Burnham’s points, but the hotel matter, he said, is cut and dried.

“This is a big change from what the voters thought they were

enacting,” said Buttolph, who is not a member of the Greenlight

Committee but believes that the move is a threat to the

voter-approved initiative. “This the first hotel project since

Greenlight, and to me, this is a time when you definitely don’t want

the camel sticking its nose under the tent.”