Letters to the Editor: Team Newport veered from the old guard’s ways, and the city is better for it

With our City Council elections approaching, you’ve been reading a stream of letters to the editor yearning for the old days of big, expensive and bloated city government.

The small and loud old guard lost power in 2014, and they don’t like it. There was a time when you had to be anointed by the Chamber of Commerce. Thankfully, those days are over.

They did some good things, but consider what they left us with: $200,000 lifeguards, a $350,000 city manager, a $280,000 assistant city manager, a $150,000 recreation manager, and $1.5 million in librarians, to name a few. If you think about the responsibilities of those positions and benefits you have to ask, “What were they thinking?”

Our unfunded pension liability exploded from $2 million in 2007 when the old guard was elected to $253 million in 2014.

Let’s talk about the old guard and City Hall. The original thinking was to sell the old site and use the free land deeded to the city by the Irvine Co. for open space. They agreed, and we had the elements of a deal – money, no debt, service and free land. Even Steven; a good deal for all was hatched. What did the old guard do?

Without voter approval they leveraged our city’s financial future on a $140 million Civic Center, replete with $225,000 bunny statues. Through 2041, our city will pay $280 million with some federal subsidies kicked in for that project.

And the land was free. What happened to Even Steven? Over the next few weeks I will keep reminding residents how much the old guard cost us.

Bob McCaffrey

Volunteer chairman, Residents for Reform

Balboa Island

A Line in the Sand against Team Newport

This is a crucially important election year for our city, and voters need to have their facts and priorities straight. As in 2016, Line in the Sand is endorsing candidates who are longtime residents and have no agenda other than to serve. Joy Brenner, Roy Englebrecht and Tim Stoaks are running independently of one another and us, individually challenging the members of the “team” that got elected as a slate in 2014 and who vote as a bloc on most major issues, including the Museum House project, which Brenner, Englebrecht and Stoaks helped defeat.

In addition to dramatically changing the Newport skyline, the Museum House condo tower Team Newport wanted to see in Newport Center would have set a terrible precedent for more high-rise, high-density development in that area. Have you ever seen a town with only one high-rise condo tower in it? Neither have I.

As one of the citizens who lugged around the 10-pound petition to force the council’s approval to go to a citywide vote, I must note that team members Kevin Muldoon, Marshall Duffy Duffield and Scott Peotter all voted to add the 3,800 unnecessary pages to the Museum House petition. That sent quite a clear message about their disdain for the public’s views on out-of-place development and citizens’ 1st amendment right to petition government without fear of punishment or reprisals.

Line in the Sand is also supporting candidates who support campaign finance reform. Englebrecht, Stoaks and Brenner have grassroots campaign teams and are raising money from residents who care about preserving the character of our town. They are not building up giant war chests with funds from developers, out-of-towners and special interests.

With Englebrecht, Stoaks and Brenner on the council, we can get back to being a citizen-run coastal town that is paradise for its residents and businesses, not for developers and the politicians they get elected. It really is time to take our city back.

Dennis Baker

President, Line in the Sand

Newport Beach

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