MAILBAG:

The Daily Pilot is not providing the correct facts.

Newport Center Park was created and named in 2005. Check out the minutes of the June 28, 2005, City Council agenda. The park exists today and is in the process of being improved with turf grass lawns, park amenities and parking areas for public access. A City Hall in the Park would take up the best area of the park with views of the ocean, the harbor and the coastline up to Palos Verdes.

The park location for city hall is a very poor location, encumbered by the necessity of excavating the hillside, the ground water below and view restrictions above. It’s like building city hall in a bunker, and very expensive. No mention is made by the Pilot of the $6.5 million of site work necessary for placing city hall there as identified in the official report done by the city in July 2007, nor the expensive parking structure, identified as costing $13.9 million.

In all, the cost of building City Hall in the Park is more than $55 million. Leaving city hall at its current location is $48 million, much less expensive than City Hall in the Park. These costs make the park site more costly than the alternatives despite the city owning the park land. These restrictions are hardly conducive to being the envy of anyone, let alone other cities, the county, state or nation.

Measure B forecloses the consideration of leaving City Hall where it is, or other locations in Newport Center like Block 500, which don’t have the same restrictions as a City Hall in the Park. Cost of a parking structure in Block 500 is $25,000 a parking space as opposed to the $53,000 a space at the park, due to the necessity of underground parking for City Hall in the Park if only 3 acres of the park are taken by the City Hall. Measure B also gives a gift of a 72,000-square-foot office building to the Irvine Co. if city hall is not built at Block 500, along with the aggravation of traffic caused by this new building and the traffic imposed in the area by a City Hall in the Park.

All in all, Measure B, which locks city hall into a location behind the library as a charter amendment is an unwise choice. There are other options for city hall that are better and less costly, while still preserving the park behind the library. Other than the official report done on the costs in July 2007, there are no other studies that detail the problems of building behind the library. Everything else is speculation and conjecture, including the claim that City Hall in the Park only takes up 2.8 acres of the park, while the official city report identified 3.7 acres.

The wisest choice is for the citizens to vote No on Measure B, so a full EIR can be done on the different locations for city hall, including the park site, Block 500, and rebuilding at the current location on the peninsula, thus allowing for a more informed vote by the electorate.

JAN VANDERSLOOT

Newport Beach

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