What’s the most important issue facing the...

What’s the most important issue facing the city?

I feel the most important issue facing the city is the General

Plan Update.

We had a visioning festival in Newport Beach that asked us how we

wanted to see our city in the year 2025. It started at Hoag Hospital

and ended at the Oasis Senior Center. We placed different color dots

on different maps, showing the city what we wanted and where. We has

small meetings, the closest thing to town hall meetings that I can

remember, all over the city, and we again reviewed what we said we

wanted. More than two years later, the General Plan Advisory

Committee, with 36 caring and dedicated volunteers, has come out with

a document that is probably 1800 from what we had said that we

wanted.

We need to get the plan out to the public, but the plan is now the

size of an elephant, and the only way to eat an elephant is one bite

at a time. We need to get the General Plan update out to the people

in bite-size pieces, so they can understand what they will be voting

on. I feel that Town Hall meetings will be the best vehicle by which

to get the public again involved in the process for the 2025 vision

of our city. The more public participation, the more involvement, the

closer we will get to taking the plan to the ballot and all of the

city being happy with the results.

What is your opinion of how the Greenlight law is affecting the

city?

The Greenlight ordinance places before the voters the most

important projects before the city. Greenlight trusts the

intelligence of the voters to make rational decisions about the

future of our city. Greenlight ensures that when the voters of the

city go to vote on a project, they have all the information, so they

can vote intelligently and vote on the facts.

Newport Beach has a very intelligent electorate, and I feel that

we are very lucky in our city that we have the opportunity to go to

the polls and vote on those projects that will effect the rest of our

life. There are many people that live in other cities that wish they

could go to the polls and vote. Due to the Greenlight Ordinance being

in place, it will be difficult for people in Newport Beach to ever

ask “How did that happen?”

And what is your position on plans to build a hotel at Marinapark?

I am against building a hotel on the last piece of bay-front

property. I believe in property rights, and this property belongs to

the people. Also, there are too many unknowns in this project, so it

is virtually impossible for the voters to make an informed decision.

Since the project has yet to go before the Coastal Commission, we

really have no idea as to what will really be built there. The plans

are for 110-room hotel, which could end up being an 80-room hotel,

nobody knows. If that does happen, then the fiscal impact analysis --

which is based on 110 rooms -- would not be worth the paper it is

written on. The suggested $1.1 million yearly income from the hotel

would dwindle to what, we, the voters don’t know. Another problem are

the fractional units (timeshares) that are not allowed on tidelands,

and that is also another unknown, the tideland boundary. The city has

yet to go to the state lands commission to determine the tideland

boundary.

We are not a poor city and do not need to sell or give away our

last piece of bay front.

Are city leaders doing a good job handling the budget and the

pressures on it from the state?

Yes. We are one of the wealthiest cities in the country, and we

have some great businesses here that contribute to our sales tax --

Fletcher Jones, Sterling BMW, the (planned) Lexus dealership. Having

some of the most expensive properties in the county also helps to

bring in excellent property tax revenue. We are blessed.

How should the city handle possible expansion of John Wayne

Airport and St. Andrew’s Church?

They shouldn’t. The current size of the John Wayne Airport,

although much larger than what the people had ever wanted, appears to

be working well within the city of Newport Beach, but enough is

enough. There needs to be another plan besides John Wayne. Orange

County, especially South County, keeps growing and growing with no

end in sight. It is virtually impossible to believe that John Wayne

ever could or should handle the needs of the entire county in a

residential beach town.

The city needs to works with the Airport Working Group, Air Fair

and all of us. There is a tremendous amount of expertise and talent

within our city. Town-hall meetings would be an opportunity for the

residents of Newport to voice their concerns and their plans for what

needs to be done. It would give them all the opportunity to help join

in the fight to help stop further expansion at John Wayne airport.

It is my understanding that St. Andrew’s Church is remodeling

their sanctuary and remodeling the rest of their facility to

accommodate the needs of their parishioners. Unfortunately, the

neighborhood and families that live next to St. Andrew’s Church just

can’t handle any more people, traffic or parking. This is a

neighborhood, and 28,000 square feet for a gymnasium with underground

parking appears to be too much for the neighborhood and its families.

I hope this becomes an opportunity for St. Andrew’s, the

neighborhood, the school district and the city to sit down and make

this a win-win situation for everyone. I feel that our Planning

Commission is doing an excellent job of helping to guide them. The

hearings have been beneficial in letting everybody understand what

the issues are that this area of our city is facing. Again, I am

hopeful that in the end this will be a better project than anyone

ever anticipated, and I am hopeful that we will all remember that

this is a neighborhood with families.