Commentary: Undergrounding decision should follow clearly stated rules

I recently attended a Newport Beach City Council meeting for the first time, and was I in for an education.

I wanted to speak on an item that was on the evening’s agenda, the undergrounding of utilities. It certainly seemed that this issue, as it pertained to the Newport Heights area, should have long been over.

However, somewhere along the way, communication between the resident groups got heated, and communication between the city and the residents broke down.

Several questionable things happened during that City Council Meeting on May 10. First of all, only four council members were present for that important discussion; one was absent for personal reasons while two chose to recuse themselves.

Second, the rules had been set up in the very beginning of the process for the adoption of underground utilities at the initial meetings that the city officials had with the homeowners. Rule 1 was that 60% of the residents had to sign the petition in favor of undergrounding to initiate an expensive cost study.

Finally, an election would be held, decided by majority rule. At the council meeting this numerical goal of 60% was reiterated by the City Council members present. The petitioners of Assessment District 114, whose fate was up for discussion that evening were only able to get 51.8%.

Clear enough, it would seem. No undergrounding for AD114!

An easy decision for the City Council, AD114 would not qualify for the cost study and subsequent election. The representative of the Heights area voted in accordance with the rules in play.

But the three other council members voted to continue the discussion at a later date. What discussion? Are they changing the rules in midstream?

If that wasn’t surprising enough, one of the council members said that the large group of people who had shown up to speak as opponents to the undergrounding of utilities represented “bullies.”

It was unclear whether he meant the speakers, their constituents or both. I am not sure of the logic involved in this conclusion, other than the fact that opponent speakers outnumbered the proponents by 2 to 1.

Were they bullies because they outnumbered the others? A majority of the speakers who were opponents were over 50 and several like myself, over 65.

Bullies, we are not.

Another action that was contentious took place before the meeting. That was the gerrymandering of AD 114b (mostly an alleyway) out of homes in part of AD118 that had already failed to achieve the amount of signatures necessary during the petition process.

The city simply gave the proponents a new name, AD 114b (even though it was previously part of 118), and allowed a petition to be passed around again to this “new” district where the majority of homeowners were against undergrounding as recently as July 1, 2015.

Are these “redos” in the rules?

LYNN LORENZ lives in Newport Beach.