Commentary: The disappointing state of Newport Beach politics

What a mess local politics has become in Newport Beach. We see it in the upcoming election.

First we had the disgraceful episode of campaign consultant Dave Ellis and resident Bob McCaffrey, supporters of candidate Lee Lowrey, trying to disqualify candidate Jeff Herdman from the ballot. The courts quickly rejected this dirty tactic, but not before Herdman was forced to spend precious campaign funds to defend his right to run.

Then we had the shameful effort by Councilman Scott Peotter’s brother to force Fred Ameri to run under a different name. Once again, this was quickly rejected by the courts. It seems that bigotry knows no bounds with the Peotters.

To his credit, candidate Will O’Neill repudiated the Peotter effort. My guess is it will not be the last time he is forced to denounce the campaign tactics used by his supporters.

With Measure MM, we saw Scott Peotter, Mayor Diane Dixon, Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Muldoon and Duffield hijack a measure I authored, put their own names on it as ballot signers, and add O’Neill to help his campaign.

What kind of integrity and ethics does that demonstrate? This kind of game-playing belongs in Sacramento, not in Newport Beach. At least this time they stole a good idea.

Voters may wonder about the newspaper editorials by council members and McCaffrey emails regarding this issue when the very authors themselves had already pulled it from consideration.

What they are trying to do is raise a general level of anxiety on debt and confuse voters without any real proposals or intent to advance their flawed debt limit or to do anything about it.

Basically, they are too lazy to come up with new issues, so they want to rerun the 2014 election. The duplicity and cynicism of this is indicative of their whole approach.

For the second time we are seeing candidates, those supported by Ellis and McCaffrey, declining to participate in candidate forums, such as Feet to the Fire, most likely to expose their positions on the issues.

When they do show up, they simply decline to tell voters where that stand on major development issues, including the Museum Tower project. Voters should be outraged by this demonstration of contempt.

Puppet masters Ellis and McCaffrey need one more vote to fully control the council. Unless voters play close attention to the election, they may get it.

KEITH CURRY is a Newport Beach councilman.