Newport Coast could get left out

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- More and more, it looks like the city will become a

house divided.

If the city finalizes its likely annexation of Newport Coast in

January, it is set to become one of three cities in the county split

between two supervisors.

The unincorporated community is not expected to be put in Supervisor

Jim Silva’s district, as leaders in that unincorporated community had

hoped, Supervisor Tom Wilson said Thursday. Instead, the community is

expected to stay in Wilson’s district.

“It’s highly unlikely,” Wilson said. “Everything I’ve heard is that

the numbers don’t work.”

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a redrawing

of the district map using 2000 census numbers. At the time, Silva said he

hoped to tweak the map to bring Newport Coast into his 2nd District.

Silva could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Leaders in both Newport Beach and Newport Coast have lobbied for the

unification of the two. Newport Beach Councilwoman Norma Glover said she

was disappointed that the coast isn’t likely to join the city in the same

district.

“It’s really unfortunate that it worked out this way,” Glover said.

“It would be nicer to have the city under one supervisor.”

Jim McGee, the chairman of Newport Coast Committee of 2000, could not

be reached for comment, but he has said he is concerned about the current

situation.

During the redistricting process, supervisors had to ensure that the

population in each new district was fairly evenly distributed. Wilson’s

5th District -- which went from the largest to the smallest of the five

-- would be too far out of alignment with the others without Newport

Coast, the supervisor said.

Once Newport Beach annexes the area, it would join Anaheim and Garden

Grove as the only cities in the county that were split between two

districts.

Aside from the population distribution, a legal question has also

surfaced.

The previous county counsel, Lon Watson, had advised supervisors that

they had until Aug. 31 to finalize the map. But an 11th-hour letter from

Secretary of State Bill Jones, which the board saw for the first time

Tuesday, threw a wrench into that plan.

There’s confusion about when the county received the memo. The memo

from Jones was dated Aug. 7, Wilson said. The supervisors also said the

county was sent an Aug. 3 memo from Jones.

Still, the legal question of whether the 2,600 residents of the

community could be moved into Silva’s new district isn’t decided,

officials said. The supervisors are set to consider the issue again at

the Aug. 21 meeting.

But Wilson, for one, doesn’t see much likelihood of a change.

“It’s just not going to work,” Wilson said. “I’m just not going to

take on Bill Jones to try to do this.”