Advisor quits due to attacks

Former Newport Beach City Attorney Bob Burnham has severed his consulting contract with the city of Newport Beach, after repeated allegations by a resident that he is responsible for an over-concentration of drug- and alcohol-recovery homes in the city.

Burnham was city attorney for more than 20 years and retired in 2004. He has since worked for the city as an advisor on airport issues, according to city officials.

He terminated his contract with the city Thursday in a letter to City Manager Homer Bludau, commenting that “a few individuals have, for an extended period, publicly and personally attacked me for what they allege was a conflict of interest stemming from my wife’s work with the Orange County Drug Court while I was involved with efforts to strengthen our ordinances related to recovery homes more than three years ago.”

Those attacks, he wrote, have created “a climate of fear, anger and distrust,” and he said he feared that climate would spread to and damage the work he and others have done to control the growth of John Wayne Airport.

Efforts to reach Burnham were unsuccessful, but City Attorney Robin Clauson, who worked under Burnham for years and took over the post when he left, said she hasn’t seen any evidence of a conflict of interest.

Three residents have raised the issue, but chief among them is Bob Rush, who has actively pressed the city to beef up regulations regarding recovery homes. Some residents say the over-concentration of homes ruin their neighborhoods with noise, litter and other problems.

In 2004, the City Council changed the requirements to operate a group home, at Burnham’s advice. Rush told the City Council in April he believed Burnham had a conflict of interest at the time because he also was involved with a drug court foundation that raised money to help recovering addicts in various ways, including finding them beds in recovery homes.

At a Sept. 25 council meeting, Rush demanded the city get Burnham to file economic disclosure forms or he would take legal action.

“I believe he was the main cause of over-concentration,” Rush said Friday. “I want him to file the conflict of interest forms. He is obligated by law to file those — and if he doesn’t, I want his superiors [Bludau and Clauson] held accountable. They should lose their jobs.”

The forms are required for some city officials and employees, including council members, but Clauson has said she doesn’t believe Burnham needs to file the forms now that he only does limited work for the city.

Clauson said Friday that Burnham has offered to file the forms voluntarily, and Mayor Steve Rosansky said he will ask the city’s special legal counsel, hired to address group home issues, to give a second opinion on whether Burnham had a conflict in 2004.

Among the documents Rush showed the city in April are a 2006 e-mail, allegedly from Burnham, in which he asks about getting a grant for a drug court foundation he is developing; and minutes from a Santa Ana City Council meeting that show Burnham accepted a federal grant from the city for the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence of Orange County.

Burnham told the Daily Pilot in April the allegation of a conflict arises from a misperception of what his wife does.

“My wife’s work does not involve, nor does she participate in, any decision regarding a participant’s residence,” Burnham wrote in an April 22 letter to the Daily Pilot.

A 2006 economic disclosure form he filed in the city of Laguna Beach, where he was hired to coordinate recovery after the 2005 landslide there, showed his wife earned less than $10,000 from a contract with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Prevention.

He also reported his income from advising the city of Newport Beach — between $10,001 and $100,000 — and a list of assets, including 19 businesses in which he holds between $2,000 and $10,000 worth of stock, and his Laguna Beach home, valued at more than $1 million.

Bludau said Burnham’s departure as an advisor is a loss.

“Bob is irreplaceable as far as his technical knowledge and understanding of airport operations,” Bludau said. “It’s a huge loss to the whole community, because John Wayne Airport issues are at the top of the list of our residents’ priorities.”

ALICIA ROBINSON may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or at [email protected].