Patron insists B not bought

It was a celebration he paid about $670,000 for, but longtime Newport Beach businessman Jack Croul was nowhere to be found at the City Hall in the Park election night watch party as early returns showed the group ahead by 10 points.

Croul spent election week in the Caribbean on a chartered boat with a bunch of old high school friends. The retired businessman and philanthropist said he doesn’t know much about politics, and he claims his generous donations to City Hall in the Park were done out of nothing more than a sense of civic duty.

“It was my contribution to the city I love,” Croul said. “I thought I ought to give back. It’s the right thing to do.”

Measure B, which amends the city charter to require the next city hall to be built on a 12.8-acre parcel of city-owned land next to the central library, passed with little more than a 5% margin. It was a vote so close some critics accuse Croul of buying the election. Croul gave the pro-Measure B group City Hall in the Park more money in the last few weeks before Feb. 5 than its opposition Newporters Vote No on B raised the entire year.

“Divide the vote total by $700,000 and that’s how much they spent per vote,” said Councilman Keith Curry at a No on B election night party. “It may be the most spent per vote ever in the United States.”

Rumors abounded in the weeks leading up to the election that Croul has designs on the old city hall site on Balboa Peninsula. Critics accused Croul of wanting to purchase the property and develop it as condominiums.

“I’m not a developer,” Croul said. “I’m an anti-developer.”

He said he hopes to see the old city hall site become a municipal park one day.

Croul said he never meant to spend as much as he did. “One thing led to another,” Croul said. “We were doing surveys from time to time and we thought we might not be winning as well as we thought. We had to do more mailers and more signs.”

Croul’s generous donations were “not exactly chump change, but ultimately, the residents decided where city hall should go,” said Councilman Steve Rosansky, who supported the measure.

If anything, Croul’s money might have hurt the City Hall in the Park campaign, Rosansky said.

“If I had to handicap it, the Yes on B people lost votes because of it,” he said. “The No on B people used that against us.”

With lower turnout than election officials had earlier predicted, Measure B won by 1,661 votes. Croul’s money must have made a difference in such a close race, Mayor Ed Selich said.

“The amount of material that was mailed out had to have had an influence,” said Selich, who opposed Measure B. “Pieces were being mailed every day — sometimes two pieces a day ... I think at the end of the day it did have an influence.”

Exactly how much money City Hall in the Park spent during the critical last week leading up to the election was not immediately available Monday. But the group raised a total of $731,126 during the course of the campaign. That’s about $48 raised per vote. The measure garnered 15,081 votes to win, or about 53%, according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

The opposition group Newporters Vote No on B only managed to raise about $150,000, most of it from heiress and philanthropist Audrey Steele Burnand.

Croul is the former chairman of the paint manufacturer Behr Process Corp. and owner of The Cannery restaurant on Balboa Peninsula. He also serves on the board of advisors of the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum and Croul Hall at UCI bears his name.

The philanthropist donated $6 million to build the UCI facility, which houses faculty offices and laboratories for the university’s department of earth systems science.

Croul also collects vintage foreign cars and planes. His holdings include a Lockheed P-38 lighting, a World War II-era American fighter plane. The Croul Family Foundation, which Croul oversees, donated more than $1 million in 2005 alone to nonprofit organizations across Southern California like Boys and Girls Club and the Salvation Army, according to tax documents.

Lead Measure B proponent Bill Ficker balks at charges Croul bought the election.

“Such a big thing has been made out of it,” Ficker said. “We had to go out and get signatures to go on the ballot. We had to come up with a plan and we didn’t have a pulpit to preach from. We didn’t represent any special interest group.”

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.