Explaining the Greenlight to sue

Phil Arst

We’re lucky to be living in Newport Beach. An outstanding quality of

life, beach and bay amenities, they’re all here. Another unique

attribute of the city is that we voters have the power to keep the

city as an outstanding place to live because of the Greenlight law.

This voter initiative requires voter approval of major developments

that could create excess traffic congestion and change the character

of the city.

Cities from all over the state are considering Greenlight-type

measures because of encroaching traffic congestion and

over-development. It took a great deal of volunteer residents’ work

to get the Greenlight Initiative -- also known as Measure S -- on the

ballot and to withstand the developers’ heavily funded campaigns to

defeat it. Few other cities have been able to muster enough

volunteers and contributors to do the same.

Greenlight was founded to give the voters control of what kind of

a city Newport will be. Should we maintain our pristine beach and bay

environment and high-caliber residential community? Should we become

another metropolitan Santa Monica? It was all about letting you

decide. The work of the Greenlight Residents Committee, since then,

has been to preserve your right to vote on the future of the city, as

described below.

The law is set up so that the voter decision process can accept

projects that are beneficial for the city and reject those that are

not. An example of a good project that we support is the reported

plan of Hoag Hospital to buy a property located close to the hospital

known as the Newport Technology Center.

Hoag Hospital has an urgent need for medical offices to

accommodate the many doctors needed to staff its expanded new

facilities. Greenlight believes that the best use of this property is

for medical offices.

The technology center property has currently applied for 50%

general office usage. We believe that its resultant traffic will

impede patient and emergency vehicle access to Hoag. Disturbingly, we

allege that the city’s handling of this proposal would be still

another attempt to bypass your Greenlight vote on the merits of the

general office approach, versus its legally permitted use by Hoag

Hospital for medical offices.

We support the reported efforts of Hoag Hospital to either buy

this property themselves or support a medical office management firm

to create a high-class medical office center to serve our community.

As you may know, the Greenlight Residents’ Committee regretfully

filed a lawsuit against the city of Newport Beach on March 26. This

was the last day permitted to file under an interpretation of statute

of limitations laws.

The goal of the lawsuit is to maintain your right to approve or

disapprove all major developments and to not exclude hotels and some

other developments as was being attempted by the city. It also

requires a full City Council examination of the development and

disclosure of all relevant facts to the voters.

There are currently two new hotel developments either in process

or in the talking stage. Both would be located on the shores of the

bay and take us a step further into a Santa Monica-type shoreline. We

think you, the voters, should have the final say as to what kind of a

city you want. Our lawsuit was precipitated by the need to retain

public overview of these and other projects.

Now that we have explained the goal of the lawsuit, we must

examine the process leading up to it and our attempts at dialogue

with the city.

We notified the city more than three months ago and offered to

work together to resolve these concerns about your right to vote.

Normally, this should produce a dialogue that can achieve a workable

solution. Instead, in a desperate effort to bypass debating the facts

describing this legally mandated ratification by the voters and other

issues, the City Council has turned to personal attacks to try to

discredit the volunteer Greenlight Residents’ Group.

There is an old saying: If you can’t beat your opponent on the

facts in a debate, turn to “ad hominem” attacks. As the personal

attacks by the City Council have been intense, we know we are on the

right track.

This type of political conduct has no place in Newport Beach. The

voters are too smart for that and demand information. We in the

Greenlight Residents’ Group promise to continue to furnish you with

the facts and hope that if we all exercise our constitutional rights

to question and dissent, a dialogue can be created that will keep

progress in the city on the right track.

* PHIL ARST is a Newport Beach resident and spokesman for the

Greenlight Steering Committee.