INSIDE CITY HALL Here are some decisions...

INSIDE CITY HALL

Here are some decisions coming out of Tuesday’s meeting of the

Newport Beach City Council.

VISION STATEMENT

About a month ago, Assistant City Manager Sharon Wood said she was

worried that asking the City Council to approve a citizen committee’s

“Vision Statement” would politicize and bog down an otherwise

straightforward issue.

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Councilman Tod Ridgeway pulled

from the consent calendar an item to make official the “Vision

Statement” of a subcommittee of the General Plan Advisory Committee.

The document sums up the committee members’ feelings that Newport

Beach is primarily a residential city and that quality of life for

residents should be a priority of the general plan update process.

Ridgeway suggested adding a sentence to acknowledge the importance of

city’s shopping and employment offerings.

But his casual suggestion drew a passionate outcry from committee

Chairwoman Nancy Gardner and even from Councilman Gary Adams, who

explained how committee members had labored for hours over every

detail of the document. In the end, even Ridgeway was convinced. The

council voted to approve the statement as is.

WHAT THEY SAID

“After hearing all the work that went into this, even I’m ready to

support the Vision Statement.”

-- Councilman Tod Ridgeway, retracting his suggestion that a

sentence be added

NEWPORT TERRACE

A study will take place on the possible presence of methane gas

near the Newport Terrace condominiums, the council decided Tuesday.

The council approved an item to spend about $76,000 to survey the

land site near the condominium buildings that in the 1950s and ‘60s

was the city’s landfill. Though a report in 2000 showed no immediate

health threats, county health officials have suggested the study as a

precaution.

-- June Casagrande