Let residents decide development direction

Two issues pending before the Newport Beach City Council will determine the quality of life for all of us who live in Newport Beach now, and for the generations of residents to come.

The questions presented are: Shall the City Council have a blank check to incur long-term debt without voter approval? And shall the City Council have the last word on allowing large development projects to add traffic beyond the capacity of our current road system?

Fortunately, the residents can participate directly in deciding these issues by signing petitions to place these questions on the ballot for decision by all the city’s voters.

The assumption that our City Council represents the varied interests of this community is deeply flawed. In a recent Politically Correct column, Mayor John Heffernan exhorted the residents of Newport Beach to shun the initiative process and urged us instead to place our entire reliance on the wisdom and dispassionate discretion of our City Council. But the majority of our seven-member council earns its living from real estate development, including Heffernan and Councilman Tod Ridgeway, and it is hard to ignore the influence of historical relationships between the development community and council members elected from their ranks. The majority of our City Council does not represent our interests.

Most people acknowledge certain political realities that deprive voters of truly representative government. For example, fair-minded observers recognize the advantages of incumbency. Whether elected or appointed, incumbents receive the benefits of media attention.

Check out Adelphia Cable Channel 3 any time and you’re likely to spend a half an hour with a member of the council posing with adorable puppies or in a beautiful Back Bay setting fielding softball questions. And at election time, voters receive expensive mailers and costly automated phone calls from the public employees’ unions touting incumbents.

In the past two years our council has bestowed the advantages of incumbency upon its own chosen appointees not once, not twice, but three times. Three members of our current council obtained their seats by appointment, and even now two have never been elected as our representatives.

These vacancies occurred due to mid-term resignations, and in each case, the council had the discretion to call an election, but instead chose the route of appointment. Why? Because in the candid words of Ridgeway, who was quoted in the Pilot, “We probably get a better person appointed than we would get elected. We know what we’re looking for.” Hmmmm ...

Representative government? I don’t think so!

The playing field is not even. That’s why we need these initiatives: to ensure that the future character of Newport Beach is determined by all the residents, not just a select few.

Would the majority of voters allow hundreds of new condos to be built along Coast Highway through Corona del Mar and Mariner’s Mile? Would the majority of voters allow the city to borrow more than $50 million to build a new City Hall on the peninsula?

If this council truly represents all the residents’ interests, it l should embrace these initiatives as an opportunity to learn how the residents want to proceed.

* JOHN BUTTOLPH is a spokesman for the Newport Beach residents group Newporters for Responsible Government.