Measures top debate in District 1 race

With no incumbent running for the District 1 seat on the Newport Beach City Council, the four candidates on the Nov. 7 ballot have to slug it out based on their own merits.

Councilman Tod Ridgeway, who now holds the District 1 seat, will leave in December having reached the city’s two-term limit.

The four candidates vying to replace him are real estate brokers Marcia Dossey and Brenda Martin, businessman Mike Henn, and corporate controller Jack Wu.

Candidates have talked about where they stand on Measure V, the city’s general plan update and Measure X, an issue that would tighten control over development, but those measures are not necessarily make-or-break issues for the candidates, said Debra Allen, president of the residents’ group Speak up Newport.

“As far as I’m concerned that’s not my litmus test,” she said. “I’m more interested in getting good council members, because I think if we have good council members who have good communication skills and the citizens as their first priority, we wouldn’t have to go to ballot measures.”

Two of the candidates — Henn and Wu — have had to explain themselves to voters a few times.

Henn, a former financial executive for builder KB Home, was named in a civil suit that alleges company officials illegally backdated stock options. He has said he had no part in any such activity.

Voters also have asked why Henn, as a city planning commissioner, recused himself from votes pertaining to a sober living facility. His explanation is that he’s a business advisor to one of the owners of a pharmacy that sells prescriptions to clients of the sober living home.

And Wu has been criticized for his past opposition to an El Toro airport. Some people think its demise will mean more flights at John Wayne Airport, but Wu has said he doesn’t believe Orange County needs a large airport anywhere — including at John Wayne.

Sober living homes are probably the issue that has District 1 residents most frustrated, said Paul Watkins, president of the West Newport Beach Assn. People have complained for years that rehab facilities pop up all over the place with little or no regulation and that clients of the facilities generate noise and litter.

All candidates have said they’ll do whatever the city is allowed to control the homes, Watkins said, but voters may expect more than that.

“I think a lot of people feel that the city ought to be in the state legislature’s face more than they have been,” he said. “It does seem to me that there’s been a lack of willing effort by the city folks to take this on.”