New council members share goals for city

FOR THE RECORD

A story in Thursday’s paper, “New council members share goals for city,” should have said that Newport Beach City Councilwoman Nancy Gardner is 64.

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He’s a former corporate finance executive for Fortune 500 companies who moved to Newport Beach full-time two years ago. She’s a water quality activist who was born here and grew up body-surfing at the Wedge.

In some ways, Newport Beach City Councilman Michael Henn and Councilwoman Nancy Gardner come from opposite ends of the spectrum. But the city’s newest council members say they want the same things for Newport Beach: to update the traffic light system, to address the proliferation of drug rehab homes, and to restore voters’ trust in the council.

Henn, 58, got his start in banking in the Midwest, where much of his family still lives. He eventually became an assistant to Roger Stangeland, a business partner with whom he completed what was then the largest-ever leveraged buyout of a retail business. They acquired several companies but subsequently sold most of them off, but they kept the Vons supermarket chain, and Henn became chief financial officer.

He later moved on to builder KB Home, where he led mergers and acquisitions. Henn left that company in 2000, but he was recently named in a civil suit alleging illegal backdating of stock options, something he has denied knowledge of.

Henn now does some consulting but mainly handles business affairs for the family of his old mentor, Stangeland, who died recently.

Henn said his corporate experience will serve him well on the council — he’s handled large budgets and overseen human resources and employee benefits.

But what’s new, he said, is the direct contact he has with critics as well as supporters.

“While I was in business I had a large impact on people’s lives … [but] that’s a little different than having a large impact on people’s lives where they live and families are involved. It seems to me so far it’s a more intensely personal experience to be on the City Council.”

Gardner’s background is more intimately entwined with Newport and includes a variety of careers, but she’s not as different from Henn as she may appear.

She has taught junior high school, worked as a paralegal, and handled marketing for real estate broker Century 21. Her last job, with Butterfield Savings, ended when the company was sold after a federal takeover. Gardner knew it was coming, so she saved as much money as she could.

As she tried to find a new job, she realized she didn’t want to go back to the corporate world because none of her old jobs had mattered to her.

“It didn’t help the world in any way, didn’t make me famous,” she quipped.

Now 53, she considers herself retired. With more time on her hands, she began working with Surfrider, a water quality advocacy group, helping to found a local chapter. But she already had an environmental background — when she lived in New Jersey in the early 1970s, she helped start a recycling program.

Gardner also has written two novels, one a fairly tame romance — no sex or swearing — and the other, never published, a detective novel that was a collaboration with her father, the late Judge Robert Gardner.

When she decided to run for council, it was a classic case of being the one who showed up. Gardner and some others in the community wanted a change from Councilman Dick Nichols because they felt he didn’t always listen to the community.

But no one else wanted to do the campaign, so Gardner agreed to run.

“I’m not a very social person,” she said. “I didn’t want to have to be out every night. That was going to be a duty, not a pleasure for me.”

But she also felt like her life had become “too comfortable — I did nothing but what I wanted to do,” she said, so she decided to leave her comfort zone.

Coming from those varied backgrounds, Gardner and Henn have surprisingly similar goals for the council, at least at the moment.

Each said road improvements and traffic signal synchronization are priorities.

When voters in November rejected the growth control restrictions in Measure X, Henn said, “They did not say to us, ‘We’re not concerned about traffic.’ We need to move ahead now with specific suggestions to reduce traffic.”

Both council members also said they don’t want to see another Greenlight measure, because they want residents to feel it isn’t needed.

“I always felt that the last vote [Measure S in 2000] was not so much about Greenlight, it was about the council,” Gardner said. “It was like, ‘Hey, we don’t think you’re listening to us, so we’re going to yank your chain.’ ”

What’s the solution? To Gardner, it’s public outreach. She plans to send out a monthly electronic newsletter, and she wants to bring environmental activists into discussions about development early on so they can air their concerns and make suggestions.

Overall, both new council members don’t have big ideas about their own importance. They’re simply residents of Newport Beach, like everyone else in the city.

Gardner said she’s been poised to suggest people complain to the council about something when she remembered she’s one of the decision makers now.

And for all his corporate experience, Henn said, “I view myself as kind of a regular person, a regular guy. I’ve had a fair amount of success in my life, but I’ve had to work very hard for it.”