NEWPORT BEACH : Council to Select New Commissioner

Council members are scheduled today to select a planning commissioner to replace Janice A. Debay, who left a seat on the commission when she was elected to the council.

Three candidates are Jerry L. Cobb, an engineer; Tod W. Ridgeway, a real estate broker, and Louis H. Masotti, former Chicago planning commissioner.

Masotti, 58, a professor of management and urban development at UC Irvine’s Graduate School of Management, moved to Newport Beach last year from Chicago, where he served as a planning commissioner in 1980.

The scandals that have rocked this beach town don’t scare Masotti, he said.

“Compared to Chicago, this is kiddie stuff,” he said, referring to the past year’s firing of the city’s police chief after 10 women filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and the million-dollar embezzlement by a former city official.

“I think the city has to take a good, hard look at its structure. . . . As for planning issues, I’ve got 30 years experience in teaching, research and practice in urban development, and although I don’t know what the ideology is as to what is good growth or not, I am prepared to offer my objective opinion,” said Masotti, who has worked for the past 25 years as a consultant on urban development issues as well as a teacher on the subject at Northwestern University, Stanford University, UCLA and most recently UCI.

Ridgeway, 47, a former criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles County, also has hands-on experience in development issues. He opened Ridgeway Development Co. five years ago and has developed 15 shopping centers throughout California, including the 50,000-square-foot center in Newport North for the Irvine Co.

“I got a lot of background in this; I might as well apply it,” he said. “I want to give to the city by getting involved in the process.”

A former president of the West Newport and the North Bluff Bayview associations, Cobb is director of special studies and projects at McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach, where he has worked for the past 30 years.

“I think this city has some unique problems and it’s going about them the right way,” Cobb, 57, said. “It’s time to put the scandalous problems behind us and look forward toward future improvements of the city that are being planned.”

Cobb, who served as a Marine fighter pilot from 1958 to 1962, was involved in getting massive improvements made on Pacific Coast Highway, including its widening in the West Newport area when he served as president of the West Newport Assn. three years ago.

“We got an awful lot of good people volunteering in this city, and I’d like to be part of that positive contribution,” he said.