Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
The city and state continue to crack down and fine citizens by passing more and more water restrictions, but a simple question lingers… do they follow their own rules?
The city has been caught watering in the middle of hot days on numerous occasions, and it has taken citizens to point out the problems each time. Each time, they say “okay we will fix that”, but there has still remained no comprehensive plan to reduce when the city waters their areas.
Now, the the Marina Park project on Balboa Peninsula next to the American Legion (by 15th Street)? They are watering dirt. In the middle of the day. On the hottest day of the year. By spraying water into the air. Just look at the spray in the article photo and guess how much of that you think actually gets delivered into the ground.
In case you are not familiar with the Marina Park project: This project evicted many long-time residents of Newport Beach who lived behind the old tennis courts order to make room for a FOURTY MILLION DOLLAR park which will require multiple full-time employees with countless millions in maintenance and labor over the next 10 years alone.
In otherwords, the city took a revenue-generating piece of land (from rent) and spent $40,000,000 to turn it into something that costs money year after year. Who will use this park? Well, I am guessing that nobody outside of Balboa Peninsula (my home area) will fight the beach traffic to come down to the beach in order to hang out in a grassy park. Therefore, the cost of this should be calculated by those it serves: the 11,000 people on the peninsula, which breaks down to a little over $3,600 per resident, assuming all residents used the park.
And how do they go about doing this? Well, at least in part, they are executing the construction by watering dirt. In 78 degree weather. In the middle of the day. With sprinklers designed to cast water furthest by spraying it into the air– something repeatedly advised against by water authorities. Here are some photos:
The painful irony here is that– just hours after these photos were taken– the city posted a Facebook promotion to give away free gifts if you knew the correct answers about helping with drought problems.
The city has been caught before wasting water during this drought on city property, and has promised on several occasions to review itself and cinch up any holes. Now, in this case, the city could very well blame it on the contractors hired to develop the land– but that still begs the question: Are contractors generally immune to reviews by the city about its own services? If so, why?
Now, normally I would reach out to the councilperson who oversees this area, but sadly this is in District 1, and newly-elected Councilwoman Diane Dixon is the only councilperson who has a near-zero response rate to emails, despite the fact that she is the only councilperson who is retired (from a job in PR, I might add). I asked her why she doesn’t reply if she ran a campaign on “Listening”, and she said “I read all emails”. Politicians, eh?
If we as citizens were to water our lawns like this, we’d be drought-shamed. So why is this acceptable behavior from the city?
