Council will consider moving city hall

Committee recommends that city leaders look at other locations and how to pay for multi-milliondollar civic center project.After spending about $625,000 to build a new civic center where City Hall now stands, the Newport Beach City Council on Tuesday will consider whether to move the city hall.

The Newport Beach City Council’s building committee is recommending a return to the drawing board to look at locations and consider how best to pay for a civic center and other long-term facility needs.

The proposed city hall is part of a $48-million package that includes a parking structure and a fire station at the current City Hall’s Newport Boulevard location. Including interest and fees to finance the project, it could end up costing close to $100 million.

The council began considering a new city hall in 2001, but some residents and council members have persistently questioned the location and the expense.

The building committee’s proposal would answer those reservations with two ad hoc committees: one would evaluate possible city hall sites and the other would look at the city’s building needs over the next 15 years and the best way to pay for them. The committees would include two council members and seven to 10 residents, and their meetings would be public.

Council members who support forming new committees -- who include councilmen Ed Selich, Don Webb and Dick Nichols -- said Thursday that taking another look at city hall sites will help build vital community support that’s been lacking.

In the last four years, other sites have been suggested, but there was never a comprehensive analysis on paper. That’s an important step, said Selich, who was appointed to the council in June.

“If someone says to me, why did you build a new city hall on the existing site, I can say, well, I looked at all these options, and I decided it was the best way to go,” he said.

Whether a site study would change anything is questionable, however. Nichols seems to be the only council member with strong objections to the peninsula site, and Councilmen Steve Rosansky and Tod Ridgeway favor building the $48-million project as proposed.

“I’m prepared to move forward with the project because nothing’s getting any cheaper and I think that we have demonstrated a need for a city hall, and I don’t know that any of these questions will be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction 100%,” Rosansky said. “At some point I think you’ve got to be a leader and make a decision.”

Mayor John Heffernan and Councilwoman Leslie Daigle could not be reached for comment.

The finance committee likely would advise the council on whether to pay for the city hall with certificates of participation, the other main controversy in the civic center discussion.

Some residents contend that city officials suggested using the certificates to avoid seeking voter approval, which is required for general obligation bonds but not certificates of participation.

A residents group, Newporters for Responsible Government, is now circulating petitions for a ballot measure that would require a public vote on any project that requires the city to borrow more than $3 million.

John Buttolph, the group’s spokesman, said he’s pleased that the council may reconsider the city hall project, but he plans to press on with the ballot measure.

“Many of us who support the initiative also believe the city needs a new city hall. That being said, the location is flawed, [and] the decision by which the current location was arrived at was clearly flawed,” Buttolph said.

Buttolph’s group has until April to gather signatures to put the measure on the November 2006 ballot. So far, he said, more than 1,000 residents have signed.

“The city hall project and the method of financing was the catalyst for this,” he said, but “it’s a much broader issue than the city hall.”

It’s become increasingly clear that the broader issue is how the city should be governed. The council and residents have gotten into a land-use tug of war over not just the civic center project, but also the Marinapark property and other development issues, and the contests have spawned three ballot measures.

Referring to the financing initiative Buttolph’s group is backing, Selich explained the issue this way: “When you look at it, it’s are going to continue to have representative government or are you going to go and vote on everything?”

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