COMMUNITY COMMENTARY:

Council members, we residents all appreciate your hard work. As former mayor for part of 2005, however, I believe the council should provide residents answers regarding the following important city business items:

1. In this heavily Republican voting community, do the voters approve the city extracting $5 million from Lennar Corporation for its planned 75 home developments adjacent to the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel? What about $45 million that the City Council is attempting to have The Irvine Company pay in exchange for granting it new development rights in Newport Center, which were part of our recently voter-approved new General Plan? Is that money better in city hands or left in the private sector? Who pays in the end? Once paid to the city, how does the city use that money to reduce the impact to the rest of us from those projects? What are those fees being paid for?

2. If the answer to Item 1 is “let the city take those fees,” then why was city staff excluded from negotiations with Lennar and The Irvine Company?

If the city were a private business, wouldn’t senior management be involved and use advisors to ensure market rates and terms?

During my recent years on the council, city staff was always part of negotiations. What has changed? Per the City Charter we have a “Council-Manager” form of government: The city manager shall be responsible for the proper administration of all affairs of the city.

3. Why did the City Council allocate spending of the $5 million Lennar fee without much, if any, public notice or public discussion as follows: $4.8 million for park development next to our Central Library and the balance to the Jamboree plus PCH Park? Does that snap judgment give residents much comfort that the money is better used in the city hands versus leaving it in the private sector? Much less the pending $45 million from The Irvine Company? Were any other pressing adjacent city needs even discussed, such as fixing the worsening traffic mess at Avocado, San Miguel and PCH intersections, which abuts the planned Central Library park site — and which intersection will be worsened by the Lennar and The Irvine Company’s projects? How many more people are impacted daily by that intersection versus how few will use these two park sites to which the $5 million was targeted?

My bet is more are impacted each day than have ever used the PCH plus Jamboree park to date. Is it still the City Council’s plan to borrow from its reserves to spend that $5 million even before Lennar pays that fee to the city? Is that wise given the poor state of our housing market and also for publicly traded homebuilders in general?

4. Why is the council negotiating a lease with The Irvine Company even after the City Hall in the Park Initiative has been approved for an upcoming citywide voter decision? If there is a possibility of getting $45 million in cash, that seems to dictate that it be the sole objective of what I expect are pretty intense negotiations. Why weaken the city’s chance of getting that large cash amount by asking the same payer, The Irvine Company, to design, build and lease to the city its new City Hall? Why does the city need to be a tenant since it can build on land it already owns?

Who ever prefers paying rent versus owing if you don’t need to? Who has the final say what it will look like and how it will be laid out inside if the city is the tenant — not the owner? Further, why become a tenant of the most powerful landowner in the city, The Irvine Company? Will city staff’s judgment be more limited in deciding The Irvine Company’s future needed city permits and approvals if the city is a tenant of the applicant and city staff is located almost in the shadow of The Irvine Company’s headquarters at 550 Newport Center Drive? In what other city is the local governing body a tenant of the comparable largest landowner?

5. Should our City Council consider reserving the combined $50 million to build a new City Hall next to the Central Library — so our residents thereby end up with an asset we own, we can all use and all be proud of — like we now enjoy the Central Library? That construction would also fix the parking shortage at the library, and also bring users for the park which will be developed on the 9-acre balance of that 12-acre site.

Yes, I am responsible for the status of these issues above by resigning before my term expired. I needed to for personal reasons, though that does not excuse me.

But it has not lessened my keen interest that our council govern on an open, fiscally conservative and logical basis — and be willing to take heat from time to time from our residents in doing so. Fifty million dollars is a lot of money — even in Newport Beach.

JOHN HEFFERNAN is a former mayor of Newport Beach.