Newport Beach and Its Image

Zoo-port. New-pit. These are names that Newport Beach is being called by visitors and locals alike. Is this the image that we want for our beautiful city? Are we doing anything to change it? Are we cleaning up our act?

The traffic and parking problems are only worsening. The litter and public urination and defecation are atrocious.

During peak weekends and summers, the entire peninsula and surrounding beach areas become one big parking lot. Why not handle it like one? Consider the following measures to improve our image and reputation as a clean, fair city:

Set up booths at each entry point to the peninsula: A day rate could be prepaid on the way in. Residents, merchants, employees and renters would pass with prominent, dated stickers.

Multilevel parking garages: Located at the base of the bluff, they would provide day-rate, hourly tickets for merchant validation and Disneyland-type free shuttle service.

Do away with parking meters: The revenue now earned from parking tickets that infuriate residents, merchants, employees and visitors alike would be increased with parking fees.

Plainclothes personnel to write tickets for littering.

Permanent restrooms every two to three blocks along the beach.

Realistic litter tickets are long overdue. The $500 litter ticket just isn’t written unless someone dumps a truckload in the middle of the freeway. Litter tickets would be more justifiable and deserved than parking tickets.

The traffic, parking and litter problems are intolerable and wholly unwarranted. Instead of being called Zoo-port or New-pit, by next year at this time we could be known as “Clean Beach City, USA.”

Karen Sanford

Newport Beach