Counting on chance to serve the hometown

Alicia Robinson

After fighting to stay out of the shadow of the 1901 Newport

condominium complex, Terry Shaw wants to move from the audience at

City Council meetings to the dais.

A Newport Harbor High School graduate who grew up in Costa Mesa,

Shaw is running for the City Council. His professional experience is

in accounting and banking. He now works as an account manager for

Orange County Business Bank, and he’s been an accountant for local

computer manufacturers.

“I like working with the numbers, and I like the people that I’ve

been working with,” he said. “It’s been a good career overall.”

Shaw said he’s running for the council because he became

interested in city government a year and a half ago and wants to get

more involved.

“It goes back to when I was opposing the 1901 Newport Plaza

condominium project,” he said. “I started attending all the meetings

after that, and there were just a number of decisions that I didn’t

concur with, and so I thought I’d give it a shot.”

He lives across the street from 1901 Newport and encouraged the

council to limit the buildings to three stories, but he wasn’t happy

with what was finally approved, he said.

If he is elected, one of his priorities will be “reasonable land

development,” he said. The city needs some growth, but it doesn’t

have to be high density, he said.

“I just don’t buy into that philosophy [of high density],” Shaw

said. “I don’t think we need to be another high-rise town.”

He’s also concerned about the city using its fiscal reserves and

thinks officials should cut costs, raise fees or a combination of

both.

“If you have to draw from savings to meet your bills, and you’re

not getting it from current income, that’s not balancing your

budget,” he said.

In his free time, Shaw’s pursuits tend toward the physically

active. He enjoys camping and has hiked Mount Whitney twice, he said.

He’s also a graduate of the Newport Beach Citizens Police Academy.

Shaw said the ideal City Council member should be a person of

integrity who has an understanding of how city government works.

“I think they should be willing to listen to different points of

view, and I think they should be someone that’s going to seek

solutions that, while it may not please everyone, it will answer most

people’s concerns,” he said.

Solving problems and making things fit together is what Shaw likes

about his job. Someone once told him what accountants do is put

numbers in little boxes, and he said he applies that method to the

city.

“I guess I look at the city as, the people are the numbers and the

houses are the boxes and it’s a matter of making everyone fit in the

city and helping everyone find a spot where they feel comfortable,”

he said.