City attorney requests extra $295,000 for legal expenses

The city of Newport Beach has had a challenging year, legally speaking.

It sued the city of Irvine over housing plans for the Irvine Business Complex, and it got sued over the environmental report for the general plan update and the ballot language for one of three initiatives on Newport’s November ballot.

It typically costs the city about $160,000 a year to hire outside legal counsel for time-consuming cases or technical expertise. Because of the unique year Newport has had, it may cost nearly triple that.

The city attorney’s office is asking the City Council to approve another $295,000 to cover extra legal expenses in the 2006-07 fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Initiatives on the November ballot, City Atty. Robin Clauson explained, were part of the reason. One was the update to the city’s general plan. Its required environmental report was challenged in court by local group Stop Polluting Our Newport.

Another was Measure X, which would have placed more voter controls on new development. The Greenlight committee, which wrote the measure, challenged the city’s ballot description of it as confusing and misleading.

Both challenges eventually were dropped by the groups that brought them, but Clauson said she needed other lawyers to defend the city’s position in court.

And the city had its own legal concerns about development. Newport Beach City Council members in October sued Irvine over two housing projects slated for the Irvine Business Complex, which they thought would affect traffic and parks across the border in Newport.

Newport officials argued Irvine didn’t fully study the projects. One development was scrapped and the legal challenge dropped, but the other suit is pending. And there could be more to come because Irvine continues to approve new housing, Clauson said.

The city also is using outside lawyers to make sure any new regulations on drug and alcohol recovery facilities would hold up in court.

Clauson said she’s used six law firms to address the city’s legal issues. While concerns over Irvine development and drug recovery homes could go on for some time, she said she expects the extra costs to be unique to this year.