MAILBAG:

Allan Beek’s lawsuit is completely in accord with all he has done and hoped for in Newport Beach. It was obviously motivated by his lifelong commitment to the environment, to preserve parks and ocean views for the current population as well as the future. It thus shares the logic of Greenlight. The Ficker initiative is not about the environment or the future of our city; it is about a city hall in his image.

Greenlight was broad and legislative in nature; the Ficker initiative is just about where to build a building the council hasn’t even decided to build, and it is administrative in nature. So ultimately it will be struck down I imagine, but the courts like to evade such decisions until the vote is taken.

So we just spend more taxpayer money — and Allan spends his own.

IRYNE BLACK

Public should not decide city hall location

Your editorial (“Beek should be consistent with positions,” Dec. 2) castigates Allan Beek for suing the city of Newport Beach over its decision to allow the Ficker initiative on the February ballot whereas he himself was instrumental in the passage of the 2000 Greenlight ballot which put brakes on development.

There is a difference, though, between legislative decisions, which can later be reversed, such as capping taxes or traffic, and administrative decisions, such as what make of computers the city should buy and, of course, where it should locate city hall.

Greenlight’s teeth were, in fact, subsequently blunted by the General Plan update, passed by the voters in November 2006, but once we have a new city hall that’s it for the next 100 years.

This is no decision for the public to make and Beek has legitimate grounds for a legal challenge.

TOM MOULSON

Corona del Mar

Newport Center site less expensive overall

The cost difference between the Newport Beach city hall at the 500 block of Newport Center and the park site has been confusing, principally because proponents of Measure B, including Daily Pilot Publisher Tom Johnson, are addressing only part of the story.

Building up on flat land is cheaper than building down, excavating 75,000 cubic yards of dirt and building 20-foot retaining walls to maintain the sides of the hole you have dug.

Parking for almost 400 cars requires almost 3 acres. With the view plane restriction at the park site, that means a lot of underground parking. Any contractor will tell you that underground parking is much more expensive than above-ground parking.

The city hall site in the 500 block is on flat land with above-ground parking and no view plane restrictions. That’s why the 500 block city hall site is $7 million to $10 million less expensive than the park site, even after purchase of the 500 block site for $7.7 million.

HUGH LOGAN

Newport Beach