Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
Happy Ash Wednesday! With the things I said under my breath at the council meeting last night, I am glad all my sins are now forgiven. Here’s a reminder about how to NOT resolve a dispute:
Tuesday night, the council chambers were filled with opposition for the Museum House, a 100-unit condo proposal which violated our city charter. The previous council had voted it in (despite it proposing 100 units in an area that has an allowed maximum allotment of just 21 units, unless it went to a public vote), but activist group Line in the Sand gathered a thousand signatures per day for two weeks straight to force the issue to either be rescinded or be taken to that required public vote.
While there were clearly not 14,000 people in the chambers, the opposition to the project was just as overwhelming. Person after person spoke about how the project would be bad for the community.
In the end, Councilman Jeff Herdman proposed rescinding the project in its entirety. Councilman Brad Avery agreed. Mayor Pro Tem Duffy seemed to be on their side. There was only one more vote needed.
Out of nowhere, Councilwoman Dixon proposed to keep the Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”) intact, but still reject the project as a whole. This means that the company can come back within a certain amount of time and re-propose a “substantially different” project, but that this particular one was rejected– pleasing none of the sides (since it’s Ash Wednesday, remember the biblical story about “splitting the baby“?). Mayor Kevin Muldoon asked Herdman if Dixon’s proposal was an acceptable one, and Herdman said it absolutely was not, but after some admittedly slick talk, Councilman Will O’Neill offered the exact same proposal, Herdman voted to support Dixon’s amendment along with everyone else on council.
When the amended proposal went to the final vote, O’Neill and Councilman Scott Peotter both voted against it, leaving Dixon’s watered down proposal alive, and keeping the EIR intact as they split baby in the rejection of the Museum House– it is officially rejected, but the EIR is still good to propose another project there, soon.
There is still a lawsuit pending against the Line in the Sand petition stating that the 1,000 pages which council forced them to attach to the petition were too small to read, and that it should have been a whopping 4,000 pages, instead. If the courts decide to reverse the ruling by the Registrar of Voters which validated the voter petition in the first place, the council could potentially come back and reverse-their-reversal, essentially approving the project once again. However, that would be a very tough fight, as it does not appear that Avery, Herdman, or Duffy are ready to make that leap, and would require full consent of the other four councilpeople.
In the aftermath of this reversal, we can expect the company behind Museum House to sue the city of Newport for reversing their vote and essentially breaking their contract for approval.
Congratulations to the Line in the Sand activists for a half-win.
Congratulations to Museum House for a half-win.
Congratulations to Dixon for proposing a “solution” that once again makes all sides upset.
This is really ridiculous.
