COMMUNITY COMMENTARY:Greenlight’s fix for city hall impasse

In it’s March 4 editorial (“Council decided. Newport voters elected them. And that settles it”), the Pilot supports the fact that an elected City Council made a decision even though the editors disagree with it. On our part, we thank council members Edward Selich, Michael Henn, Nancy Gardner and Keith Curry for protecting a previously committed park from being changed to accommodate a new city hall.

There is a basic problem in Newport’s inability to find a suitable site for its new city hall. That is because the City Council defers to the interests of the multibillion-dollar Irvine Co. instead of the interests of its residents.

The City Council recently awarded the Irvine Co. $300 million to $400 million of new development entitlements. Despite that, they can’t get the company’s cooperation.

We in the Greenlight residents group offer to negotiate with the Irvine Co. by writing an initiative to take back all or part of its recent huge development-entitlement gift. The City Council would need to place the initiative directly on the ballot for what would be certain approval by the voters.

That would give the Irvine Co. the choice of losing its highly profitable development entitlements or negotiating in good faith to sell the city its original first choice for a city hall site in Newport Center.

Additionally, Greenlight questions spending our tax dollars on a new city hall instead of fixing our city streets. The huge development entitlements given away citywide by the City Council will cause 18 intersections in the city to become excessively congested. The city should fix them first before building plush quarters for its government employees.