Activist asks Supreme Court to review ruling on city hall

A Newport Beach activist hopes to take his fight against the construction of a new city hall in Newport Center to the California Supreme Court.

A petition activist Allan Beek submitted to the state Supreme Court last week asks the court to review the legality of a 2008 election that determined where Newport Beach will put its next city hall.

Beek wants the Supreme Court to decide whether it was legal for local voters to pass Measure B in February 2008. The controversial charter amendment requires the city to build its new city hall on a piece of city-owned land in Newport Center.

Newport Beach City Atty. David Hunt said Tuesday that it was unlikely the court would take up the matter.

The court typically only hears cases where there is some pressing legal issue that needs to be resolved quickly, Hunt said.

“I would suggest this is no such case,” Hunt said.

Hunt estimated Beek’s legal challenges to Measure B have cost the city about $49,000 in legal fees.

Attorney James Lacy, who wrote the text of Measure B, also said he thought it was unlikely the court would take up Beek’s case.

“This is more evidence of a fruitless clogging of judicial procedures by Allan Beek,” Lacy said. “I think the whole thing is very sad. Society does not need more vexatious litigation; it needs less.”

Beek first sued Newport Beach and former City Clerk LaVonne Harkless over the legality of Measure B in an attempt to stop the election from moving forward. The City Council later voted unanimously to support the measure after voters passed the initiative with about 53% of the vote.

Beek then filed a second lawsuit claiming the council’s vote violated the California Environmental Quality Act and the city’s general plan. He alleged that the council’s vote to support Measure B was illegal because the city already dedicated the land as open space.

In June, the California Fourth Appellate District Court upheld the voters’ right to decide where to put the city hall.

The panel of three judges unanimously upheld Measure B and rejected all of Beek’s claims. The appeals court also rejected Beek’s request to rehear the matter in July.

Beek could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.