Community has a right to vote

Are taxpayers wrong to demand a say in the expenditures made by their

elected representatives? Is it really ballot box planning when voters

seek redress of their council by insisting that voters have a say in

the city’s proposed massive indebtedness program that, frankly, will

encumber them long after the current council has left the dais? Of

course not.

To answer in the affirmative is to deny the very essence of our

representative democratic process.

Proposition 13 is a classic example of the use of the initiative

process by public-spirited people to control excessive government

expenditures. In Newport Beach, a group of concerned residents have

recently filed an initiative that will require all large debt issues

by the city government to be approved by the voters. This will

accomplish a form of needed fiscal control for the city while

providing the flexibility to approve worthy and necessary city

projects.

A Daily Pilot editorial (“Council can do its job,” Sept. 18) has

attacked that residents group, whose goal is to protect residents’

interests regarding the new city hall and other city-incurred

indebtedness that must be repaid by the taxpayers.

The Pilot conveniently overlooked why the initiative is needed.

That is because the city government is currently attempting to evade

the spirit and intent of city charter section 1109, which clearly

states:

“No bonded indebtedness which shall constitute a general

obligation of the City may be created unless authorized by the

affirmative votes of two-third of the electors voting on such

proposition ... “

The city has found a legal way to circumvent this clearly stated

intent of the city charter by incurring debts using certificates of

participation. These are not general obligations of the city and so

evade the spirit and intent of the charter, even though we owe the

same amount of money under either approach. However, they carry a

higher rate of interest and cost more for insurance and

administration fees than the municipal bond debt financing envisioned

by our city fathers when they wrote the city charter. Therefore, it

is clear that the council sees this as an opportunity to circumvent

and evade any voter approval requirement of the city charter. What

could be more undemocratic?

It is the right of the residents to formulate initiatives, as

guaranteed by section 1003 of the city charter. Voter approval of

both the indebtedness and of the purpose of the indebtedness is

crucial for keeping government expenditures affordable and to insure

that expenditures serve the residents and not the oversized

bureaucracy our city government has become.

This is a bureaucracy that, to date, can’t figure out how to

adequately dredge the Back Bay, control John Wayne Airport growth,

find parks and fields for our youth sports teams nor control

unfettered traffic congestion. But they do have the means to build a

Taj Mahal-type city hall to further insulate themselves from the

public they are obligated to serve.

A pro-development majority of the council appointed three out of

the five council votes supporting the new city hall. Appointees have

helped appoint additional appointees. It is insulting to suggest they

are merely carrying out our wishes, when our wishes were not

considered in their appointments.

We in Greenlight have found that initiatives and ballot

propositions we have sponsored or endorsed before the voters on a

single, clearly defined subject have received an average of 63% of

the votes. We have also found that when we endorse candidates for

City Council who represent the residents, that the developer-friendly

portions of the city spend three to four times the amount a resident

can raise to insure their election and maintain developer control of

the City Council.

The initiative is the solution for the problem of a heavily

appointed, nonrepresentative City Council. Like Proposition 13,

residents have to step in when the government is out of control.

For the Daily Pilot to editorialize against those who do nothing

more than insist on a say about how their tax dollars are spent, when

they didn’t even have a say in how a majority of the council was

picked, is disingenuous. But we have seen this type of bias from the

Pilot in the past -- its limited coverage of salient and timely

election issues or its generally universal support of pro-development

council candidates, merely guaranteeing more of the same.

The right to petition leaders and to representative government

make America a shining example to the world. Accordingly, No City

Council, much less a newspaper, the self-proclaimed watchdogs of this

democracy, should ever question these inalienable rights.

* PHILIP ARST is the spokesman for Greenlight. * RICHARD TAYLOR is

a steering committee member of Greenlight.