Council votes for upgrades to hall project

Today’s price tag for a Newport Beach civic center is $46.3 million.

After about 30 years -- because of interest on borrowed construction

money -- the project will have cost the city between $80 million and

$100 million.

Those aren’t the final costs of the project, which includes a

72,000-square-foot city hall, a rebuilt fire station and a roughly

350-space parking garage. The City Council will hear more complete

numbers before voting Oct. 11 on whether to build the facilities.

Council members on Tuesday agreed to add 4,000 square feet to the

city hall, to modify the building so it could be expanded someday and

to upgrade its appearance. Those changes pushed the civic center’s

cost up from an earlier $41.5 million.

It’s the most expensive public project the city has ever

undertaken, and some council members will be closely scrutinizing the

final budget.

Councilman Steve Rosansky, who cast the sole vote against the

additions to the project, said he was frustrated by the climbing

costs, especially because the plan includes things -- such as more

bathroom stalls or extra seats in the council chambers -- that

wouldn’t help city employees better serve residents.

“Yeah, we could have a bigger empty room, but what’s the point?”

he said. “As the costs continue to escalate, I think we need to look

hard at the numbers because this is not an unlimited budget.”

A residents’ group, Newporters for Responsible Government, has

called for a public vote on the project, citing its overall costs and

questioning the proposed borrowing method. City Manager Homer Bludau

agreed that the end figure sounds high, but he likened it to

financing a house or any other building that’s paid off over time.

“A hundred million dollars is a huge number, there’s no question

about that, but the money is going to be worth a lot less over the

30-year payoff than it is today,” Bludau said.

The city would pay for the city hall package with certificates of

participation, which are sold like bonds but don’t result in a tax

increase for residents.

The civic center is to some extent just the beginning. Bludau said

by spring 2006 city officials expect to draw up a plan to replace a

number of aging facilities, such as the lifeguard headquarters and

police facilities, over the next 10 years. Those projects also would

be funded by certificates of participation.

If Newporters for Responsible Government is successful with a

proposed ballot initiative, the public will get to vote on the civic

center and anything else that requires the city to borrow more than

$3 million or takes at least two years to pay back.

John Buttolph, the group’s spokesman, said he expects the ballot

proposal to hold up any financing arrangement for the civic center.

Rosansky said that will effectively kill this project and prevent

the council from doing its job in the future.

“Just like the Greenlight initiative has hamstrung certain types

of development in this city, this will hamstring the city government

in providing what we feel are necessary services for the residents of

the city,” he said. “At some point we could just do away with the

City Council.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at

[email protected].