Petitioning for new city hall site begins

NEWPORT BEACH — The quest to gather 12,000 signatures began with a few pen strokes Thursday, when supporters of building a city hall in Newport Center kicked off their ballot drive.

The initiative would change the Newport Beach city charter to say that city hall will be on the 12.8 acres on Avocado Avenue next to the central library. To get the measure on the February ballot, proponents have until Aug. 29 to gather signatures from 15% of the city's registered voters.

That's actually about 9,000 people, said Bill Ficker, a retired architect and the issue's main backer, but he's aiming to get as many as 12,000 signatures in case some are invalid.

Ficker and about 20 supporters, including former state Sen. Marian Bergeson and former Mayor John Heffernan, officially started the signature drive on the steps of the current City Hall.

The question of where to build city hall has dogged Newport leaders for years. In 2005, they were poised to rebuild at the existing Balboa Peninsula site, but some residents began questioning the costs and why other locations weren't considered.

Ficker suggested using the land on Avocado for city hall about a year ago, but the council wouldn't bite because the property has long been reserved for a park. But today, council members are split 4 to 3 on the issue, and residents also seem divided. Supporters say the land is big enough for both a city hall and a park. To people like Bergeson, the idea just makes sense.

"It seems like the ideal solution," she said. "I've visited many city halls throughout the state, and I'd say that Newport Beach really needs to reach a higher standard."

If the issue gets on the ballot and wins, proponents acknowledge they may need to go to a second vote to satisfy the requirements of Measure S, the city rule known as Greenlight that applies to large developments. So why try to change the city charter instead of the general plan, which governs zoning? Ficker said a different approach would have required more complicated legal language in the ballot measure, and "we wanted to keep it as simple as possible."

He is pitching the measure as "city hall in the park" — that's already printed on T-shirts and signs — but the language on the petition and charter amendment doesn't actually specify a park.

It doesn't need to, Ficker said. "The initiative is to place the city hall on that site, not to debate what other things might be on that site. Our initiative isn't to develop a park."

Opposition to the measure likely will be vehement and some of it may come from the dais. Councilman Keith Curry on Wednesday called the initiative "an incredibly divisive and unnecessary intrusion into the process of locating city hall."

Within a few weeks, the council should have a report on an Orange County Transportation Authority site down the street from the park parcel, and if all goes well construction of a city hall there could be underway before Ficker's measure reaches the ballot, Curry said.

As to the measure, he said, "I think there will be significant opposition. A lot of people are concerned about the loss of open space, a lot of people are concerned about broken promises."