Sights on Coast Highway

S.J. CAHN

I always look forward to Joseph N. Bell’s columns after he’s been on

vacation because he returns with a bundle to say. He’ll screech

through three, four or even five issues without once hitting the

pause button.

Perhaps if I ever have as much work to my credit as he does, I’ll

be able to produce the same volume. Lacking that, two ideas struck me

while I was away from the Daily Pilot office -- though not that far.

Both came as I was driving along East Coast Highway.

The first was as I was heading west into Corona del Mar. It was

there I saw, or at least recognized, for the first time this year’s

quickly multiplying number of campaign signs.

This one happened to be for Corona del Mar resident Cristi

Cristich. I’ve seen quite a few for her and one for her opponents

running for the 70th Assembly seat, Don Wagner (who’s calling himself

the “conservative” Republican). I’ve noticed fewer for Balboa

Peninsula resident Marianne Zippi. I’ve not spied any for candidate

Chuck DeVore, even though he is the second-leading fundraiser, behind

Cristich.

The signs aren’t just in Newport Beach. I’ve come across them

throughout the South County cities that make up the bulk of the

district. The only city of note I haven’t driven through is Irvine,

where DeVore -- a resident of that city -- could have put up his

first round of signs.

These signs, I suspect, will end up playing a significant role in

this specific election, with its six Republican participants. Name

recognition, always an important factor in a race, will be critical,

especially with only a few percentage points possibly being the

difference between heading to the November general election and

heading home.

Direct mailings will be the other key, and given that as of the

end of the year Cristich had $437,000 and DeVore had $200,000, it’s

likely both will make a strong play to the mailbox.

(I’ve also heard, but not seen, that Cristich has a TV ad on the

air.)

The other idea struck me as I was driving south on East Coast

Highway, just past Jamboree. Looming before me were the formerly

multiplying houses of Newport Coast. Now they are legion.

At what point do they -- or their owners, anyway -- become a

political powerhouse?

My thought was: For just about every $800,000 home on the west

side of Newport Beach (the lady streets, Westcliff and West Newport,

itself), there is a $1.5-million (or more) home in Newport Coast.

That means both that the owners are, theoretically, wealthier and

that the homes are producing more in property taxes each year.

And that strikes me as a recipe for political clout. What

politician, whether in City Hall, Santa Ana or Sacramento, would not

want to please residents of such an area? And could it come at the

price of people in older, more established parts of Newport Beach

that may not have the same property tax base?

Now, before anyone at City Hall calls up angry, keep in mind this

was the thought of a person on a nice, pleasant vacation. I’m not

suggesting a conspiracy to drop parts of Newport Beach off to Costa

Mesa or Huntington. But there certainly would seem to be a new

dynamic that still is coming into being. And I wonder what it will be

like when it settles down. Will Newport Coast residents galvanize,

breaking down the community’s many gates, and become a unified force?

Those gates also came to my mind as I stared at all the homes. I

remembered that after the 2002 election, leaders of Greenlight

complained about their inability to canvass the area because they

were, literally, locked out.

At the time, the Pilot reported that the “race ironically

reinforces something [Allan] Beek said nearly two years ago and that

Greenlight leaders have said all along: The gated communities of

Newport Coast could put grass-roots campaigns at a disadvantage

because they discourage door-to-door campaigning in favor of more

expensive campaign mailers.”

If Newport Coast’s political clout grows, the repercussions of

that disadvantage will increase as well.

* S.J. CAHN is the managing editor. He may be reached at (949)

574-4233 or by e-mail at [email protected].