Newport’s Harbor Commission is full again after 2 new appointments

The Newport Beach Harbor Commission has two new members, filling openings created when Brad Avery was sworn onto the City Council and Joe Stapleton moved to the Finance Committee.

The City Council this week selected Scott Cunningham and John Drayton to fill out the seven-seat commission. The council had six finalists to choose from out of 14 applicants.

Cunningham has spent 33 years in semiconductor sales and is currently president of the Beacon Bay Homeowners Assn., according to his application for the commission.

Drayton is director of engineering for the Los Angeles County Metro transit system and has written about sailing for local media, including the Daily Pilot.

Council members selected the commissioners at their meeting Tuesday, filling in paper ballots from the dais.

Councilman Will O’Neill, who was on a subcommittee to select the finalists, said culling the list was hard. Several council members agreed that all the applicants were well-qualified and encouraged those who weren’t chosen to try for future openings on the commission.

Water restrictions lifted

The council Tuesday also repealed a resolution declaring a Level 2 water supply shortage in the city after Gov. Jerry Brown ended California’s drought-related state of emergency this month. The council action pulls back restrictions on watering days and fountain and pool refilling and a required 15% reduction in water use. The city put those restrictions in place last year.

The State Water Resources Control Board will maintain water-use reporting requirements and prohibitions on wasteful practices such as hosing sidewalks, irrigating during and after rainfall and irrigating road medians with drinking water.

Proposal to rename Balboa Island Park is rerouted

A request to rename Balboa Island Park after late island resident Ralph Rodheim has been rerouted to the city’s Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission.

Councilman Jeff Herdman, who made the renaming request last month, said he was surprised to see it on Tuesday’s council agenda and asked that it be sent to the parks commission first.

Rodheim, a longtime Newport Beach resident and businessman who was honored as Citizen of the Year in 2010, died Feb. 5.

The city has a policy against naming parks after people, but it will make exceptions.

Another park renaming that was considered, and approved, Tuesday will name Ensign View Park after late actor and Newport resident John Wayne. The proposal met with opposition from council members Avery and Diane Dixon, who felt it should have gone to the parks commission first.

In voting for the John Wayne Park proposal, Herdman argued that Ensign View Park is already named after a person — Horace Ensign, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s first teacher-principal.

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