Battle of city hall ballot plan

A proposed ballot measure to build Newport Beach’s city hall next to the central library is “a colossal and unfortunate diversion,” City Councilman Keith Curry said Tuesday. And it won’t stop the City Council from evaluating another site down the street, he said.

Architect Bill Ficker on Monday filed papers with the city clerk as a prelude to getting signatures for a ballot measure. The measure would change the city charter to say that city hall will be located on a 12.8-acre parcel next to the Avocado Avenue library.

The council has rejected the idea of a city hall there because the site has long been reserved for a park. In April council members voted to formally study another site on Avocado Avenue that’s now an Orange County Transportation Authority park-and-ride site.

Curry said Tuesday that the possibility of a ballot issue won’t impede the council’s consideration of the transportation site.

“We’re within days of having a plan to locate city hall within a block of this [park] site that I think is going to be very viable,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any reason we would be stymied because they filed this ballot measure…. Frankly the OCTA site allows us to move forward much more quickly.”

Ficker expects considerable support for his measure, and some of that could come from the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber board hasn’t taken a formal position on the ballot measure, President Richard Luehrs said, but it has said the council should consider all sites, including the park parcel.

“Our position is not to take any site off the table until all have been completely vetted,” Luehrs said. “In our opinion … the Ficker plan has not been completely and totally researched.”

He added that the chamber may support the ballot issue.

Others, not surprisingly, won’t be supporting the measure. Councilman Ed Selich, who has supported plans for a park by the library, said Tuesday he doesn’t know if the city charter should be used to designate a city hall site.

“I’m disappointed that they [Ficker and his supporters] chose to go that route,” Selich said. “He says his plan wasn’t given adequate consideration, but I think it was. He just didn’t get the answer that he wanted.”

Parks commissioner Debra Allen, a staunch supporter of the park plan who in March was told she may have a conflict of interest on the issue, questioned the language in the ballot measure.

As written, it doesn’t appear to put any limits on the size or height of a city hall building, and other than in the suggested title for the measure — “City Hall in the Park Initiative” — makes no mention of a park.

“I’m consistently against ballot box planning,” Allen said. “I don’t think it’s the proper way to decide land use, and that’s not going to change with this petition.”

To qualify for the February 2008 ballot, Ficker and his supporters must gather about 9,000 signatures. As to the park-and-ride site, the council is waiting for results of the study and then would have to negotiate with the Orange County Transportation Authority.