READERS RESPOND

Frankly, I don’t think it does need to be decided by the voters. I think the council should do their own thing and just agree to it. It’s a perfect place for city hall. It’s not a perfect place for a park, but at least it will be a park with a purpose if it surrounds city hall, and I think they ought to just do it.

WENDY BELL

Newport Beach

I want to register our vote for not putting the city hall in the Newport Beach library location. We think it is an incredibly bad idea, primarily because if you’re anywhere near the library at about 3 o’clock, traffic backs up.

Additionally, at Corona del Mar Plaza — where we do our shopping at Bristol Farms and various places — there’s barely enough parking for the employees. I can only imagine that if the city hall is built there, people will be parking in the medical building parking lots — there’ll be no place for us to shop. It’s just a really bad idea. I’m registering two votes against the city hall being put by the library.

VALERIE and ARTHUR HIDALGO

Newport Beach

We do not need to vote on this. This was voted on two years ago, and also last year again in July.

It is a park.

So I don’t know what’s going on or what the Daily Pilot is trying to get going here, but we do not need to vote on it.

It is a park.

KEN CARR

Corona del Mar

It would be nice for the residents of Newport Beach to be able to weigh in on the city hall decision. I support the idea of building the new city hall on the Newport Center Park site because I believe it can be a dual-purpose site with a low-lying city hall and a park surrounding it. I’m not clear as to the purposes of the site as a park, except to protect the views of the residences across MacArthur and as a place for Newport Center workers to have lunch.

I believe that that it is a poor use of city land; however, both of those purposes could still be attained by careful placement and planning of the city hall there. I would vote in favor of that.

MARIANNE SCOTT

Newport Beach

We think it is important that the residents vote on the building of a new city hall.

TOM and LUANN BAKER

Newport Beach

I am very much in favor of voters deciding whether or not to put the new city hall building at Newport Center Park.

PHYLLIS WEINBERG

Newport Beach

The new city hall at Newport Center Park should not be decided by the voters. It has already been decided that it is a park, and it would be inappropriate for the voters to determine that a park use should be changed to an office use.

KAREN CLARK

Corona del Mar

No, I don’t think it should go to a vote. I think it was already decided that it was going to be rebuilt in the existing location and then changed after Bill Ficker’s comments.

The park was dedicated a park and should remain a park, and I’d love to see the city hall built right where it’s at, to keep the businesses that are surrounding it intact. It’s the last institution we have on the peninsula, and we’d like to keep it.

BILL GUIDERO

Newport Beach

If the voters are to choose where to locate a new city hall, a method should be used that lets them consider all the possibilities simultaneously, such as instant run-off voting or acceptance voting. If they vote on the possibilities one by one, they might accept choices three or four, or they might accept none. Neither of those would be useful.

ALLAN BEEK

Newport Beach

We’re very excited for the park site to be made into a park, and there’s no vote necessary because it already is a park. That has been decided twice already.

MIKE LeCLERK

Corona del Mar

I think the city hall should go to a vote, though if they’re planning to build it over in Newport Center, I know the costs, being a contractor, of the hillsides and foundations and all, and it would be more expensive there than it would be on the flatlands where the city hall already is. That would be my suggestion — build it where they can build it cheaper.

LLOYD MASSEY

Newport Beach

I’d like to tell you as a former Fifth District council candidate in Newport Beach that this was not the mayor’s idea. This was my idea, which he was 100% in opposition to during the campaign. All of a sudden when the wind blows in the right direction, he decides he’s going to change his mind. He was adamantly opposed to a city hall location at that park site during the campaign, and all of a sudden it’s a brilliant idea on his part now that he’s mayor. I resent the mayor trying to claim that it was his brilliant idea. I hope the Pilot has the integrity to publish what I’m saying right now.

ROBERT SCHOONMAKER

Newport Beach

I’m all for city hall on that 12-acre site behind the library. I haven’t talked to anyone who would appreciate a park there. In the first place, that land would be filled by a park, with no place for parking. Or if you had parking, half the park would be taken up with cars. So my friends and I all think that’s a silly place for a park, and we don’t know anybody who’d use it since it’s in the middle of a shopping center. But that would be a nice place for city hall, and we certainly need a new place because the other one’s just outgrown. So, put my name down for city hill in that site instead of a park.

BERYLL UNGER

Newport Coast

The residents of the city should vote on whether the city hall is to be built at the Newport Center Park or not. Of course. No question about it.

And then once it’s built the city employees who park there should be required to pay the going rate for parking for office parking that the Irvine Co.’s tenants pay up there, which is a pretty penny and probably would pay for the city hall itself.

TOM HYANS

Newport Beach

I want to express my support for the park above the library site but no city hall at that site. I also want to express my desire to have the city council decide the issue. There’s no need to put it to a vote of the city.

LEN LOGAN

Newport Beach

I support the mayor. I think the new city hall should be built at Newport Center where the park would be used.

JACK

and CANDACE SCHWARTZ

Newport Beach

I believe that we should be allowed to vote where this new city hall will be placed. I think it should be on the ballot.

JACQUELINE SMITH

Newport Beach