Newport Growth Foes Falling Short of Goal

With only one day to go, leaders of a petition drive to put the Irvine Co.’s $300-million Newport Center expansion plan on the Newport Beach ballot in November said Monday they were just halfway to their goal of 4,500 signatures.

“We all went out this weekend and worked like crazy,” said Alan Beek, who is spearheading the initiative effort. “But I just don’t know if we’re going to make it. We’re just a little over halfway there.”

Beek is the leader of Gridlock, the group that opposes the expansion, which was approved by the City Council at a July 14 meeting.

He said canvassers would be out again today and that the group would tally the signatures late tonight, delivering them to the city clerk’s office by the 9 a.m. Wednesday deadline.

“We’re (the Irvine Co.) not going to speculate on the outcome,” said Dave Dmohowski, the Irvine Co.’s director of government relations with the City of Newport Beach.

The city’s approval of the expansion plan has united several citizens groups in Newport Beach concerned about the rate and type of development in the city and with increasing traffic congestion.

Under Beek’s direction, Stop Polluting Our Newport (SPON), Newport 2000, the Corona del Mar Community Assn. and other concerned residents joined forces to create Gridlock.

Time May Be Running Out

But it seems the group may be running out of time--and steam.

Early Monday afternoon local shopping centers were bereft of signature gatherers, though Beek says an army of canvassers were stationed at local shopping centers over the weekend.

Although the development plan includes $40 million worth of road improvements to be made at the expense of the Irvine Co., Gridlock says the planned traffic-abatement efforts won’t be enough.

Gridlock contends that the approved developments will increase traffic congestion along Coast Highway and on the Balboa Peninsula, and that the Irvine Co. will be responsible if the traffic situation becomes worse.

But the Irvine Co.’s Dmohowski said that, in meetings with many Newport Beach citizens over the past year, the plan was well received by several groups, including the Harbor View and Irvine Terrace homeowners associations.

While the slow- and no-growth activists have enlisted several hundred supporters, many prominent Orange County names show up in the ranks of the 261-member Citizens for a Better Newport, which supports the Irvine Co. plan. Among them are James Roosevelt, County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley and Walter Gerken, president of Pacific Mutual Insurance Co.

Polarization Noted

Beek, who positioned himself at the Newport Hills shopping center at the corner of Ford Road and Harbor View Drive on Saturday, said the group of shoppers he encountered were “quite polarized. Either they love the Irvine Co. or they hate it.”

“There is a lot of resentment as a whole,” Beek said of sentiment about traffic conditions. “And it gets directed at the Irvine Co.”

Roger Vandergrift, who spent several hours last week collecting signatures, said opposition to the plan among Balboa Island residents seems almost unanimous.

“I’ve got 103 signatures,” Vandergrift said Monday morning. “And I’d say only 5% of the people I talk to turn me down. It shows that we as a people have come to wonder if the council represents the Irvine Co. or the people who elected them.”