Paul Clinton
NEWPORT-MESA -- Gov. Gray Davis slashed $3.18 billion in spending from
the state budget Tuesday, but projects in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa
are not expected to be affected.
Davis, in his revision of a 2001-02 budget first released in January,
didn't cut funding for a major dredging project in Upper Newport Bay that
is scheduled to begin after 2003.
State and local officials representing Newport Beach have tentatively
secured $13 million of park bond money to help fund the project.
The 2001-02 state budget includes $7.52 million for the project from
the $1.25 billion available via Proposition 12, approved by voters in
March 2000.
"We're optimistic that since it's in the governor's budget now, it'll
stay there," said Dave Kiff, Newport Beach's assistant city manager.
"It's bond money."
Bond funding is usually on more solid footing than money from the
general fund -- which absorbed all the cuts -- because it is earmarked
for specific projects.
But state belt-tightening has jeopardized other pots of money city
officials had hoped to tap.
One of those is a reduction from $100 million to $10 million in Davis'
plan to fund projects that reduce beach closures.
"Like many of the one-time projects, it was reduced," said Hilary
McLean, a spokeswoman for the governor. "This is part of a federal effort
toward a balanced budget due to the fact that the economy has slowed
down."
Kiff said Newport Beach hopes to secure a portion of the beach-closure
money to fund projects that would remedy the growing problem in the city
of beach closures and postings resulting from sewage spills into Upper
Newport Bay and the harbor.
The budget cutbacks also aren't expected to hamper the city's effort
to buy land from the state's Department of Transportation for a park at
Coast Highway and Superior Avenue.
State Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) has floated a bill that would
transfer the land to the city at the reduced price of $1.13 million.
Caltrans wants a market rate, about $4 million.
The stalemate, expected to be resolved later this month, is more a
result of a difference of opinion on the land's value, Kiff said.
"They don't want to take the write-down," Kiff said. "If this bill
doesn't pass this year, we're back to our stalemate. We can't go any
higher."
The city has earmarked an additional $5 million to develop a park at
the area, known as Sunset Ridge.
