Deirdre NewmanNature and the environment had always...

Deirdre Newman

Nature and the environment had always been important to Tom Billings,

but sailing halfway around the world reinforced on a more spiritual

level the preciousness of the Earth’s resources.

“Sailing changed my whole outlook on life and what’s important,”

Billings said. “I call it my Henry David Thoreau experience.”

That transcendental time helped fuel Billings’ passion for keeping

the Marinapark site -- where mobile homes now sit -- zoned for

recreation and open space.

Hotel designer Stephen Sutherland has created a plan for a luxury

hotel on the site, as well as amenities to neighboring buildings. On

Tuesday, voters will decide if they want to adopt a general-plan

amendment that would change the zoning of the site to allow for a

hotel such as Sutherland’s.

Billings, 50, was born in Los Angeles, and his family moved to

Newport Beach when he was 6. He attended Newport Elementary School,

Ensign Intermediate School and Newport Harbor High School.

He worked as a lifeguard during high school and college and

learned to sail on the bay. He witnessed his parents treating the

environment with care as he was growing up, he said.

Following college at USC, he worked overseas, then domestically

and went to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin.

After working in Los Angeles for a while, he embarked on his

sailing odyssey, circumnavigating half the globe.

“Ever since I was a child, I’ve been inspired by solo sailors who

went on these adventures,” he said. “I read stories like about Josh

Slocum, the first person to sail solo around the world.”

Billings bought a Vancouver 32-foot cutter rig, similar to a

sloop, designed for open-ocean sailing. He spent a year getting it

ready for his voyage and took off for the open seas in April 1987.

For the next year-and-a-half, he sailed to exotic locations in the

South Pacific, including Marquesas in French Polynesia, New Zealand

and Fiji. His last stop was Hawaii, and instead of returning to the

American continent, he ended up dropping anchor there. He found work

as a management consultant and diversified into marketing and

advertising as well. He also served on an economic-development board,

a private/public partnership that tried to generate balanced growth

in Honolulu.

There, his environmental awareness came of age.

“[It] evolved from being a lifeguard to water quality, nature and

not wanting to take that for granted,” he said.

He returned to California in 1999, after his father passed away,

to help his mother, which he continues to do.

The West Newport resident said he wasn’t aware of the Marinapark

hotel proposal until the end of 2002. Concerned about the

ramifications of changing the zoning from open space to allow the

hotel, Billings proposed a meeting for others who felt the same way.

They had one meeting, then another and decided to form an

organization.

“We said, ‘OK, we have so many months before the campaign, let’s

preserve the parkland,’” Billings said. “It wasn’t just me. Once we

were all in one room, it was like ‘Wow!’”

The group calls itself Protect Our Parks, although a park is not

the definitive alternative to the hotel, Billings has said. The

battle to preserve the open-space zoning is a natural evolution for

Billings, considering his profound respect for the environment.

“It’s a kind of deep, instinctual feeling that it’s wrong to take

away parkland,” Billings said. “Whether it’s Marinapark or in Santa

Ana Heights, I would feel the same way.”