Council focuses on top goals

Cleaner water, smoother traffic and a tighter set of benchmarks for government effectiveness are among the goals this year for the Newport Beach City Council, which held a special public meeting Saturday morning to lay out its priorities for the coming 12 months.

About one dozen residents attended the meeting at the Newport Beach Public Library, where council members and other city officials discussed eight possible goals for 2008. One of the items, a move by Councilwoman Nancy Gardner to set environmental guidelines for the city, was voted down, but members agreed to put the other seven priorities on a project list along with five others remaining from last year.

Before the meeting, council members rated their top three priorities, and their choices were displayed on a list distributed to attendees. All members except Gardner ranked the new city hall among their top priorities for 2008, while the city’s facilities financing plan, which includes construction at the Oasis Senior Center and Sunset Ridge Park, got the second-most attention.

“I was expecting a lot of different priorities, and I was amazed how similar our priorities are,” Mayor Ed Selich said.

Also present at the meeting was Phil Batchelor, a consultant who has worked with the city for the last few months to evaluate the government’s performance and conduct a survey of residents’ satisfaction with city services. Batchelor said the responses were being evaluated and would be presented to the City Council Feb. 12.

The responses, Batchelor said, would give the city a solid set of benchmarks to rate its performance. On the whole, he was impressed with Newport’s efficiency.

“I see a lot of governments in action, and this city works well,” he said. “We are doing very well, but we don’t want to rest on accomplishments. We want to build on them.”

Council members outlined plans to install new traffic signal controllers and to get city authority to dredge lower Newport Harbor. Councilman Steve Rosansky recommended establishing a sinking fund for the latter project, which officials hope to begin by gaining control of the harbor from the Army Corps Of Engineers.

“The issue is, the harbor has needed to be dredged for years,” he said. “It’s the Army Corps Of Engineers’ responsibility to do it, and every year when the project list comes out, our project is always low on the list.”

City Manager Homer Bludau is expected to provide a final report on Newport Beach’s priorities to the council Feb. 12.

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.