Unknown group enters fray

A mysterious group with a Sacramento mailing address calling itself Newporters for Ethical Government has jumped into the Newport Beach District 2 City Council race, sending out negative direct mail about incumbent Steve Rosansky. Newporters for Ethical Government has not yet filed any campaign disclosure statements with the city or state, so the source of the group’s funding remains unknown.

“They’re calling me Steve ‘Halfway House’ Rosansky — how childish is this? Are we back in the third grade here?” Rosansky asked.

The most recent flier that appeared in Newport Beach mailboxes last week accuses Rosansky of profiting from drug recovery homes in his district.

“What irritates me the most is that I have done more work on the group home issue than certainly any other council member, barring Councilman [Mike] Henn,” Rosansky said.

The negative campaign mailer accuses Rosansky of renting a duplex to a man who runs a drug and alcohol rehabilitation home in Newport Beach and shows a cut-off copy of a signed lease Rosansky negotiated for a friend who owns a Newport Beach duplex in 1999.

“We have an opportunity to stop Steve ‘Halfway House’ Rosansky and his drug rehab buddies ... before he does this to our entire city,” the flier reads.

What the mailer doesn’t show, is the top of the lease, which stipulated the residence could not be used for a drug recovery home, Rosansky said.

A copy of the document supplied to the Daily Pilot by Rosansky supports the councilman’s claim. A city-commissioned independent investigation last year into the matter also cleared the councilman of any wrongdoing. The investigation revealed that Rosansky provided property management services to his friend, Karl Princic, until April 2007, according to city documents. The mayor helped Princic broker a deal to purchase a duplex on the 200 block of Cedar Street in the late 1990s. Rosansky later helped Princic lease in 1999 on one unit of the duplex to a man the mayor later learned operated a group home in Costa Mesa.

Rosansky brokered another lease on the other unit of the duplex in 2004 with the same group home operator, who told the mayor he wanted to use the unit as his home office. Concerned the duplex could be used for business dealings of the rehab home, Rosansky stipulated in the lease the second unit could not be used for that purpose. The terms of the lease obtained by the Daily Pilot states “premises are not to be used for recovery housing.”

“I made it very clear he could not do any type of group home housing at this property, the mailer is totally false,” Rosansky said.

An earlier Newporters for Ethical Government mailer blames Rosansky for an over-concentration of rehabilitation homes in the city and calls the councilman “a drug rehab’s best friend.”

The source of the group’s funding is still a mystery. Documents filed with the Newport Beach City Clerk’s office show Newporters for Ethical Government filed a statement of organization dated Oct. 1 — the day after the last deadline to file campaign disclosure statements. Because the group registered with the city Oct. 1, it does not have to disclose who its donors are until the end of the next filing period on Oct. 23, according to the City Clerk’s office.

Rosansky’s challenger for the District 2 seat, Gloria Alkire, said she knew nothing about the fliers.

“I don’t know where they’re coming from and don’t know how true they are,” Alkire said.

Laura Ortega, a treasurer for Newporters for Ethical Government based in Sacramento, said she acts as treasurer for several other political groups across the state. Ortega declined to give the names of the group’s organizers Wednesday and said the group has filed all of the documents necessary to be in full compliance with the law.

“The disclosure statements will be filed when they’re due,” Ortega said. “They’ve done everything that is required of the group.”

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