The Greenlight divide

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- When their 87-year-old sister, Angela, died Oct. 22,

Bill and Sue Ficker spoke on the phone to console each other.

But there was one topic the siblings made sure to avoid -- their

differing views on the two growth-control measures the city’s voters will

decide on Tuesday.

“It’s just best to allow each of us to go into our direction,” said

Sue Ficker during a phone conversation Thursday from Palm Springs.

An environmental activist who lived in Newport Beach for 40 years and

moved to Cambria a few years ago, Sue Ficker supports Measure S. The

initiative proposes to put before a citywide vote any development that

allows an increase of more than 100 peak-hour car trips or dwelling

units, or 40,000 square feet more than the general plan allowance.

Bill Ficker, an architect and renowned sailor, still lives in the city

and is one of Measure T’s strongest supporters. A counter initiative to

Measure S, Measure T would add parts of the city’s traffic phasing

ordinance to the city charter and nullify Measure S if voters approve

both measures.

The current campaign isn’t the first time the brother and sister have

disagreed. In a 1982 Daily Pilot article, the Fickers were profiled as

siblings divided over the city’s future.

“We all answer to a different drummer,” Sue Ficker said Thursday. “The

drummer that my brother listens to is the same drummer the City Council

listens to. He’s simply a mouthpiece of the Irvine Co.”

She added that despite their disagreements, family ties still counted.

“We’re a very loyal family, a very close family,” she said. “We may

have had differences, but there’s no doubt about loyalties. I’ve just

always felt close to my convictions.”

Bill Ficker declined a request for an interview.

The Fickers are not the only prominent pair in the city to find

themselves on different sides of the growth-control debate.

Although friends since the early 1970s, former mayors and council

members Evelyn Hart and Jackie Heather have always “agreed to disagree.”

“She came [to the City Council] from the Planning Commission, I came

from the parks commission -- there’s a philosophical difference there,”

Measure S supporter Hart said and laughed. “Jackie was always

philosophically pro-development. I was more for moderate growth.”

Heather, who appeared in a newspaper advertisement opposing Measure S,

said she made Hart mayor pro tem when she became mayor “because I thought

she was an important person -- one that I wanted to influence. And she

wanted to influence me. It was a contest.”

Hart said she had tried to explain Measure S to Heather. Before she

had the chance to do so, her friend had already sided with the

opposition.

While the outcome of Tuesday’s election will disappoint one of the

women, they’ll still meet for bridge games to talk about “the things that

women in this town talk about,” Hart said.

“We both just think the other one’s wrong,” she said. “But we’ve

thought that before.”

Heather said that no matter what voters decide, she’ll still talk to

her friend Nov. 8.

“Oh sure, we do this all the time,” she said. “It’s part of our

friendship to disagree. We try our best to lobby each other. And if that

fails, we keep our mouths shut.”