Play-by-play and color from council meeting

Since the appointment of Keith Curry to the Newport Beach City Council is more than a day old already, I’m going to try something different in this column. In part, it’s a matter of the medium trumping the message -- for the first time, I have a laptop computer with me at the meeting.

And so, here’s a run- ning tab on Tuesday’s council meeting. There will be minimal editing on Wednesday. [Note: That turns out not to be entirely true. I wrote far more than we’d ever have room to print, and I’m going to cut things down to fit in the paper. A full version, though, will be posted online at www.dailypilot.com/columns.]

6:30 p.m.: The doors to the Council chambers are locked. This seems the first sign that the appointment process, now in its fourth incarnation, is old hat.

6:38 p.m.: The chamber doors get opened. 6:55 p.m.: Council- man Steve Rosansky comes over to talk to me, and he is the only member of the coun- cil not running for reelection this fall.

6:57 p.m.: Mayor Don Webb, Councilwoman Leslie Daigle and Councilman Ed Selich enter the chambers. 6:58 p.m.: Councilman Dick Nichols enters and makes his lonely way to the end of the dais. 7 p.m.: The meeting starts. There are 19 people in the audience, includ- ing the five applicants and one member of the press. 7:02 p.m.: City Clerk LaVonne Harkless announces that the order of the applicants will be picked out of Webb’s hat. Of course.

7:04 p.m.: Rosansky encour- ages those the council doesn’t pick to consider running for office in the fall. This may be the first public sign of what I’ve been hearing the past few days: The interviews among the can- didates and the members of council have been cordial and substantive.

7:05 p.m.: Nancy Jones gets picked as the first candidate. City Atty. Robin Clausen escorts the rest out.

7:09 p.m.: Selich asks what her No. 1 goal would be -- hey, the Daily Pilot asked that too. Count Selich among our readers.

7:16 p.m.: Councilman Tod Ridgeway focuses on “quality of life.” Ridgeway complains her answer was “touchy feely.” She points to: diversity, harbor, air, water, the “feeling that you can relax and feel like you’re on vacation even though you are working hard.” She may have stayed too touchy feely, I think.

7:28 p.m.: Jones talks of the council members’ dedication and says it is too bad that members of the community don’t realize just how hard they work. Ditto for the city staff. The comment passes too quickly. Someone ought to pick up that sentiment and try to drive it home. Greenlight? Chamber of Commerce? Council? That’s a point that could turn the debate around in town, bring an opening for some true discussions.

7:30 p.m.: Webb welcomes Keith Curry to the podium. Curry’s more polished and direct than Jones. I imagine the council members see him as being more like themselves. And I imagine that alone gives him a leg up. 7:41 p.m.: Ridgeway calls Curry a “very impressive” candidate. That’s always a set-up for something. “How are you in dealing with people, one-on-one, not in a business environment.... I want you to take your business hat off,” Ridgeway says. Good question: How will Curry handle people and constituents? Curry’s answer: His business dealings have been with government. “You treat people as people.” I’m guessing Ridgeway’s going to support him.

7:56 p.m.: Scott Peotter is the next candidate. Peotter says he had pulled papers to run when it looked like former Councilman John Heffernan wasn’t going to run for reelection in 2004. Interesting. Peotter was on the planning commission. 8:02 p.m.: Nichols points out Peotter was on the Irvine planning commission. There’s an interesting twist. 8:21 p.m.: Otting’s the next up. Daniel Wampole will be last.

8:22 p.m.: Otting’s citing her number of votes in the 2004 election and mentioning Heffernan’s suggestion that the council appoint her as his replacement. 8:32 p.m.: Ridgeway’s next. I’m looking forward to whether he comes out with a tough question. He comes out soft with a friendly joke and goes to the question about the three most pressing issues in the city. Otting: getting information on the general plan update out to the public; emer- gency preparedness; “our harbor.” Actually, “hah-bour.” Otting’s been here 17 years, but she hasn’t lost her accent. Good for her.

8:43 p.m.: Otting finishes by talking about her 2004 vote total again. Otting just announced she is running for council in the fall, setting up a committee and taking contributions. So we definitely will have a race in the fall, unless the council picks her. And she’s the first to get applause from the audience.

8:54 p.m.: Wampole’s going to answer the three-biggest-issues question. But first off, he says, Newport Coast doesn’t have any really big issues right now. Past that: new city hall; the airport (always); water quality.

9:09 p.m.: Wampole’s done. It took almost right on two hours to do the interviews. 9:11 p.m.: Oh, no. Public comment time. The empty speaker box was a cruel tease. Former council candidate Ron Winship is down front and pointing out that rather than three minutes, the speakers should get five min- utes. He wins that argument. Now he’s talking about all the people on the dais who have been appointed and that six council seats will be up for grabs. “You are not getting the consent of the governed to do this,” he says. And he says that if the council doesn’t change the city’s charter, the members should be thrown out.

9:40 p.m.: First vote is about to happen. The excitement in the air is so great that the cameraman in front of me just sat down. Will it be Curry on a first ballot? Five for Curry, one for Otting?

9:41 p.m.: And the vote is: Nichols for Otting; Daigle for Curry; Selich for Curry: Rosansky for Curry; Ridgeway for Curry; Webb for Curry. “Keith Curry is the new council member for District 7,” City Clerk Harkless says. If only I could do so well on sports bets.20060209ipny9okn(LA)