Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
For the last several years, efforts by Shawn Dewane to lobby both Newport/Mesa councils have fallen on ears uninterested in water cleanliness, supply, or cost. Their proposals would have brought independence to Newport Beach water supplies while simultaneously making them cleaner and cutting our prices in half (and in some cases, a quarter).
How? Very simple. There is a pipe that runs adjacent to Newport’s supply which contains Mesa Water’s supply. They need only to connect the two. This would take Newport off the reliance of State Water (currently in a massive drought) and tap us in to an 800 year supply of underground water for our area. Additionally, because State Water is 4x more expensive and we get more than 25% of it from up north, this would cut our acre/foot water price from about $500 to about $250. Yes: This means your water bill would be cut in half, you wouldn’t need to worry about droughts, and the water would be cleaner than the recycled water that some areas currently use (those areas would see water cuts to nearly one-quarter of what they are currently paying). This would also allow Newport to reassign our water union workers to other locations where we are lacking staff– without hiring any new staff members.
How did the responses to this win-win-win idea go? Leslie Daigle and Wendy Leece (opponents of the incumbents who are currently terming out from both Newport and Mesa councils) ignored them. They declined to work with the water companies to decrease cost, increase purity, and create an 800-year stability in our water supply… and now they want to run for the Water District?
The efforts by both Dewane and Sheldon have been fantastic, but they have faced strong opposition to getting their ideas implemented by the current council members. Thankfully, those council members are terming out, but they are now running for the very positions that they neglected while serving as council members.
In a rare case of us staunchly, loudly, and passionately supporting the incumbents, the best vote for Newport on the Water District is SHAWN DEWANE and STEVE SHELDON. Having great people in office is rare– we need to keep them there!
