FAIR GAME:

I almost choked on my bagel Wednesday morning reading about Allan Beek’s attempt, or more aptly put, lawsuit, to halt the vote on whether city hall should be built above the library.

You remember the Ficker Plan? Build a centrally located city hall above the library on a city-owned parcel of land between MacArthur Boulevard and Avocado Avenue.

Bill Ficker is an architect, legendary America’s Cup winner, former Newport Citizen of the Year and a longtime Newport Beach resident.

When presented with the Ficker Plan, few people on the City Council would even give Ficker’s idea a sniff. In fact, I’m convinced a couple of them probably snickered in the hallways hoping the ol’ geezer would just go away.

So what did Ficker do? Ficker went out to the voters and gathered what’s probably a record-number of signatures and got an initiative on the upcoming February ballot.

Ficker says he collected more than 15,000 signatures. Consider that Greenlight was put on the ballot with 10,251 signatures and the Anti-Greenlight initiative fetched 9,720, according to the city clerk’s office.

His idea was “let’s put it in the hands of the voters.”

It hasn’t been an easy quest.

First, he watched the potential Debra Allen-conflict of interest issue. That’s where Allen, as a Parks Commissioner, voted on the use of this same parcel of land while living only some 460 feet or so away.

That’s a no-no.

Then there were Councilmen Keith Curry and Ed Selich desperately running around trying to find an alternative site.

It’s funny where apparent campaign promises get you.

Anyway, they first decided on a narrow sliver of land currently used as a bus turn-around, saying this was a better place for city hall.

When the convincing for that failed, they turned to the 500 block on Newport Center Drive. Curry, in fact, tried to say that even though the city had to buy the land for some $8 million, it would be cheaper. Huh?

Free versus $8 million?

Am I missing something?

And getting back to Beek, while all this was going on, he and a group called Parks Are Priceless tried to work against Ficker, begging people to remove their signatures from Ficker’s ballot drive, with the mantra Parks Are Priceless. Even though there’s no park there.

Apparently, that, too, failed.

Must I remind you again, probably a record number of signatures.

So Beek now files a lawsuit asking that Ficker’s initiative be removed from the February ballot. His reasoning is simple: “It’s up to the City Council to make sure it’s safe and put it on the ballot.”

This is the same Allan Beek who twice led initiative drives against previous city councils to get Green Light measures on the ballot.

Apparently, it wasn’t up to the City Council then, but it is now.

Beek was also part of a group that stopped the Sutherland plan for a hotel on the peninsula, arguing a park/marina be built there instead.

By the way, he won this one and his group has never followed through to have that park/marina built. Where is Parks Are Priceless when you need it?

Perhaps that, too, is up to the City Council.

My sources tell me that if the Ficker Plan does get to the ballot in February that it’s going to be a runaway train heading downhill and pass convincingly.

And when that happens, watch all the political U-turns that are sure to happen around town. Remember, there’s more than one election in 2008.

TOM JOHNSON is the publisher. Send story ideas to [email protected].