Navigating city hall

When you meet Bill Ficker, it’s almost impossible not to like him. He’s soft-spoken, thoughtful, deliberate — the kind of guy who that brings “salt of the earth” to mind.

But human beings are complex, and Ficker has another, more determined side. The man who is now backing a ballot measure to build Newport Beach’s city hall on a controversial site was described in a book about the America’s Cup as “a master of psychological gamesmanship.” He won the cup , by the way, in 1970.

Ficker knows Newport Beach intimately. He started coming down in the summers as a small boy, and he’s lived here since 1953. He worked as an architect and planner based in Newport from the time he got his license in 1959 until he closed his firm in 1990, and he’s done consulting work since then from an office on 30th Street, just down the road from City Hall.

While his clients included BMW, Marriott Hotels and the U.S. Postal Service, locals may recognize as Ficker’s work the Harbor Justice Center on Jamboree Road and the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club. He also worked on the restoration of the Balboa Pavilion in the 1960s.

But perhaps people associate him most with sailing. A one-page resume describes Ficker as the first person — and one of only two in history — to successfully defend the America’s Cup and also win two other prestigious yacht races, the Star Class World Championship and the Congressional Cup.

“I liked the challenge,” he said recently. “I liked competition, so I kept pursuing higher levels of sailing.”

A photo of Ficker from 1970, when he skippered the Intrepid to defend the America’s Cup, shows that he apparently never had hair. He looks a little older today, with a few more wrinkles, but in essentials appears much the same.

The spirit of competition may still burn. as well. When the City Council was puzzling over where to build a new city hall in 2006, he suggested putting it on a city-owned site that was thought of as a park, because part of it had been promised as one for more than a decade. His take was that you could have a city hall and a park in a central location without buying a new piece of land.

A majority of the council repeatedly rejected his plan, but the mayor stuck up for it, and others in the community thought it made sense. So he went out with petitions for a ballot measure and came back in August with more than 15,000 signatures, representing nearly a quarter of the city’s registered voters.

Opponents question his single-mindedness about this one site, arguing park space shouldn’t be thrown away when there are other viable locations for a city hall.

Some have cast nebulous aspersions on his motives.

, and longtime environmental activist Allan Beek called ballot measure supporters “park destroyers.”

Ficker versus Beek is an old rivalry, but not a bitter one, Ficker said. “We’ve been life-long friends, and we’ve stayed that way on opposite sides of issues,” he said. As much as Ficker tries to say he’s not into politics, he keeps getting thrust into political issues — and with the city hall measure set for the February ballot, this one is just getting warmed up.

“The hard work is starting up now,” he said. “We’re going to make every effort to run a campaign, as we have, and keep wanting to draw people into our circle rather than out.”

That last comment draws on a poem by Edwin Markham, but another poem Ficker listed as a one of his favorites may be more appropriate to his present situation. Written by Edgar A. Guest, it begins:

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

Bill Ficker

Age: 79

Occupation: consultant, retired professional sailor and architect

Residence: Newport Beach