New City Hall

DOLORES OTTING EDITOR'S NOTE: Today the Daily Pilot begins a new Forum page feature, "Watchdog," in which city activists will be given a regular opportunity to put a microscope on the action of our two city's civic leaders. Like many of you, I watched the last Newport Beach City Council meeting from home and it was well into the night -- close to 11 p.m. (so what else is new) -- before one of the hottest and most expensive projects to hit a city agenda in Newport finally appeared before the public for discussion: the new City Hall.

John Heffernan has usefully documented what most residents of Newport Beach already suspect (“City employee salaries remain a threat,” May 29). The city’s costs have spun completely out of control, with salary and benefits of the chief of police rising from $166,160 in 2000 to $322,575 now and the fire chief currently earning $296,650, library director $198,795, and the city’s operating costs have increased 80% over eight years. Heffernan didn’t even mention the ever-cost-escalating new city hall.

It should come as no surprise that the land where Newport Beach's City Hall now stands is worth a tidy sum of money. But $23 million? Surely that is enough to make the City Council give serious consideration to putting the land up for sale and building a new civic center elsewhere in the city. That figure, provided this week by Councilman Ed Selich, is the latest ? and arguably greatest ? twist in the nearly yearlong discussion about building a new home for the city's government.

Here are a few items the council considered Tuesday. NEW CITY HALL The council inched toward replacing the overcrowded City Hall facilities, voting to hire Griffin Structures Inc. for $578,185 to get public input and create a preliminary design for a new City Hall. No cost estimates are available for a new facility, but it would be built where the current complex stands and would include a new fire station and parking structure. Council members agree that city workers need more efficient facilities, but not all of them were convinced that a new City Hall on the old site is the way to go, and some questioned whether the community wants to spend money on the multi-million dollar project.

And you thought Hillary Clinton had trouble taking a hint. Allan Beek’s got it all over her in that department. Beek’s quixotic crusade to upend Newport Beach’s new city hall plan appeared even more hapless as Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter Polos rejected Beek’s request for an injunction to halt spending for the architectural drawings. Let’s break this down, so you can see how desperate this effort has become. Voters in February, by nearly a 53% margin, approved the new city hall.

The Newport Beach City Council is poised to adopt a $265 million budget Tuesday with an emphasis on new parks and building projects including a new city hall and senior center. Most of the money for the larger projects would come from outside sources such as fees from big land developments and private donations, but the city also would fund some with bond issues. The city expects $224 million in revenue next year, $32 million less than its projected spending. Looks can be deceiving though, said Councilman Mike Henn, a member of the finance committee.

Alicia Robinson With discussions about Newport Beach's 2005-06 budget and plans for a new city hall underway, the latest buzzword in the city has been "outsourcing." While debating the need for a new city hall, several residents have suggested the city could cut costs and save space by contracting services out to the private sector. But city officials say the city just does some things better than private business, and the quality of service is a high priority for people who live here.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is one in an occasional Forum feature in which the Daily Pilot gives critics of the paper an opportunity to sound off about the paper. As spokesman for Newporters for Responsible Growth, I need to point out two inaccuracies that have cropped up recently in the Daily Pilot's reporting and commentary concerning the group and the pending municipal debt initiative in the city of Newport Beach that it supports: 1. The Pilot has incorrectly characterized the group as opposing the new city hall project.

A Newport Beach citizens group that wants a public vote on major city borrowing on Monday moved its ballot proposal a step closer to qualifying for the November election, filing petitions with more than 7,400 signatures of support. Newporters for Responsible Government filed the petitions with the city clerk Monday. The ballot measure would require voter approval before the city could pay for public improvements using Certificates of Participation if they would take longer than two years to repay or cost more than $3 million.

There are several very important things that every American should expect from his government. Among them, he should expect that his property will not be seized by the government for the purpose of eminent domain. The prospect of having one's property seized by the government against the will of the owner because it wishes to use it for its own purposes is a move of such horrific proportion that it conjures up images of dictatorships and closed societies. Several months ago, when Triangle Square — Costa Mesa's failing, ailing mall — finally made it onto the radar of the City Council, one of the options expressed by a council member was to exercise the power of eminent domain.

NEWPORT BEACH — Residents have griped to their City Council members recently about rehab homes popping up in their neighborhoods. Now it might be the council members' turn to complain about an undesirable land use on property they control: parking. Trying to balance the city's financial needs with civic considerations and their surrounding landowners' goals, public officials are planning the reuse of the current City Hall complex on Newport Boulevard, which is slated to close when the new one opens on Avocado Avenue.

COSTA MESA — Thursday night's Feet to the Fire Forum, a candidates' debate organized by Orange County media, began with an issue right out of recent headlines: Planning Commissioner Jim Righeimer's decision to get out of his car during a DUI checkpoint and speak with officers over the wisdom of staging the screening on Harbor Boulevard during the evening rush-hour. When Orange County Register columnist Frank Mickadeit asked Righeimer about whether he would seek a law banning DUI checkpoints at such hours, Righeimer took the opportunity to say that the tapes released from the Sept.

Even as Newport Beach city officials broke ground this week on a new $128-million civic center on Avocado Avenue, plans on what to do with the old City Hall site on the Balboa Peninsula remained up in the air. Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff said he’ll feel sorry for the Starbucks employees across the street when the 240 people who work at the old City Hall at 3300 Newport Blvd. clean out their desks and move to the new building in late 2012. “We really are an economic engine for this area,” Kiff said.

Newport Beach will break ground Tuesday on a new civic center next to the Newport Beach Central Library. The project includes building a 99,800 square-foot city hall building, a 14.3-acre park and a 17,000 square-foot addition to the central library. City officials will host a brief groundbreaking ceremony near Avocado and Farallon avenues at 11 a.m. before work begins on the site. The 16-acre park and city hall site at 1000 Avocado Ave. will be fenced and screened within a week after work begins.

The Newport Beach City Council on Tuesday settled its lawsuits with Irvine over a developing residential complex near the city border. In a closed session, the city reached a $3.65-million settlement over the Irvine Business Complex, near John Wayne Airport. The money, which Newport Beach shall receive within 20 days, will go toward widening Jamboree Road near the 405 Freeway. Newport Beach is counting on that corridor to expand with traffic as Irvine’s project, which will include about 15,000 residential units, is completed.

A California court of appeals has upheld Measure B, the 2008 ballot measure that requires Newport Beach to build its next city hall on a 12 acres next to the central library in Newport Center. Newport Beach voters passed Measure B in February 2008 by a 53% margin. Allan Beek first sued Newport and City Clerk LaVonne Harkless over the legality of Measure B, which requires the new city hall to be built on land next to the central library. The City Council later voted unanimously to support the measure, reconciling its earlier 3-4 split.

A California court of appeals has upheld Measure B, the 2008 ballot measure that requires Newport Beach to build its next city hall on 12 acres next to the central library in Newport Center. Newport Beach voters passed Measure B in February 2008 by a 53% margin. Local activist Allan Beek first sued Newport and City Clerk LaVonne Harkless over the legality of Measure B. The City Council later voted unanimously to support the measure after voters passed the initiative. The City Council vote reconciled its earlier 3-4 split on the issue.

John Heffernan has usefully documented what most residents of Newport Beach already suspect (“City employee salaries remain a threat,” May 29). The city’s costs have spun completely out of control, with salary and benefits of the chief of police rising from $166,160 in 2000 to $322,575 now and the fire chief currently earning $296,650, library director $198,795, and the city’s operating costs have increased 80% over eight years. Heffernan didn’t even mention the ever-cost-escalating new city hall.

It’s a nightly, pre-dinner ritual: I sit on the deck, enjoying a glass of wine or a cigar, while my significant other surfs the net. We converse through a screen door. Sometimes, the cat, who can be loud but hardly loquacious, weighs in. Wednesday night, the infusion of $17.3 million in federal stimulus money into the dredging of Upper Newport Bay came up. “See, I don’t agree with that,” she — my significant other, not the cat — said. “The Upper Bay is a precious natural resource,” I pointed out. “And by most all accounts, and despite the vigorous fundraising efforts of city officials, the bay is turning into a meadow.

Mayor Ed Selich glossed over the nation’s current economic malaise during the annual State of the City address on Wednesday night, instead focusing on what he hopes Newport Beach will look like in the year 2025. Selich briefly acknowledged the city’s recent $2 million in budget cuts to cope with a sluggish economy before launching into a vision of Newport’s future that includes a water taxi service, an “iconic” new city hall and no traffic jams. “We still need to be vigilant, and we are closely monitoring the situation,” Selich said of the current economic climate.