Official running on his record

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a series on Newport Beach City Council candidates.

Councilman Steve Rosansky first got interested in city politics working as an assistant Scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 90 at Newport Sea Base.

“I like working with kids and watching them grow up into young adult leaders,” Rosansky said.

Meeting parents through scouting made him want to get more involved in the community, he said. Rosansky was appointed to fill the empty District 2 City Council slot in 2003 after 50 parents wrote letters to the city on his behalf. He won the right to keep his seat in the 2004 election.

Up for reelection this year against retired school Supt. Gloria Alkire, Rosansky says he’s running on his record. Alkire said she wants to give voters an alternative to Rosansky.

“I will provide a new voice for all citizens rather than just a few,” Alkire said. “I will keep all citizens informed regularly about projects and concerns in our city.”

During his tenure on the council, Rosansky helped negotiate the North Newport Center development agreement with the Irvine Co. last year that will give the city more than $40 million for parks, traffic improvements, and money that will go toward building a new city hall and senior center.

Rosansky also spearheaded plans for landscaped traffic medians on Superior Avenue and helped negotiate an agreement limiting expansion at John Wayne Airport.

Rosansky has butted heads in the past with rehabilitation home activists in the city, who say the councilman has not done enough to stop numerous sober living homes from moving into his district.

A political action committee called Newporters for Ethical Government has been sending out negative campaign mailers to area residents in the past few weeks, accusing Rosansky of profiting from drug rehabilitation homes and inviting sober living facilities to set up shop in the city. The group has yet to file a financial statement with the city to disclose the source of its funding.

“It’s a small group of people that are angry,” Rosansky said. “It’s all lies.”

The latest flier, mailed to Newport Beach residents Friday, shows photographs of a battered house with peeling stucco in West Newport that Rosansky owns. The flier also includes photographs of garbage bags filled with medical waste such as used urine sample containers for drug tests, implying Rosansky rented the home to a drug rehabilitation home operator.

Rosansky said the house is under construction and the tenant moved away a year and a half ago.

“I don’t know when that picture was taken. I managed that property over a year and a half ago,” Rosansky said.

“The tenant no longer even lives there. I don’t know how they would get a picture like that. It’s not true. It’s a creative picture.”

Rosansky doesn’t know who is paying for the negative mailers, but he’s bracing himself for more before election day.

“I really think the fliers insult the intelligence of the people in Newport Beach,” he said. “Most people will throw them away.”

Despite the public attacks and scrutiny, Rosansky said he enjoys being a councilman.

“I like what I do,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it unless I did.”

DISTRICT: 2

YEARS IN NEWPORT BEACH: 23

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Juris Doctor, UCLA School of Law

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