Apology, Ouster Request on Newport City Agenda

The Newport Beach City Council is expected to apologize to the Latino community tonight for comments by Councilman Richard Nichols that many say show a pattern of bigotry.

The council will also formally ask Nichols to resign, said Mayor Steven Bromberg.

Although the council cannot force Nichols out of office, tonight it will consider stripping the first-term member of all his committee assignments, Bromberg said. Since all other council members have privately asked Nichols to resign, the only dissenting vote in each case is expected to be cast by Nichols, who said he would attend tonight’s meeting.

Bromberg said he hopes Nichols will step down, allowing Newport Beach to distance itself from what the mayor called his embarrassing conduct.

“It’s a black eye,” he said, “when you have a public official who appears to have a pattern of racially insensitive comments.”

In remarks reported by the Daily Pilot last month, Nichols said he opposed the expansion of grassy areas at Corona del Mar State Beach because “with grass we usually get Mexicans coming in there early in the morning and they claim it as theirs and it becomes their personal, private grounds all day.”

After a firestorm of criticism, Nichols said he would apologize to anyone who was insulted by his comments but would not resign because they were taken out of context.

“Do you think that a person who has had his name sullied by a newspaper should automatically resign? I don’t believe so,” he said.

The point of his remark, Nichols said, was that the small beach should not be shrunken by adding grassy picnic areas, Nichols said.

“I did not mean to imply in any way that they were not wanted on the beach,” he said.

Bromberg said the controversy around Nichols transcends the beach comment. What has emerged during Nichols’ short tenure as a public figure is a pattern of racially derogatory speech, he said.

As for the council’s plan tonight, the mayor said, “This is not about being politically correct; this is about doing the decent thing.”

The resolution requesting that Nichols resign “for the good of the city” notes comments by Nichols in a council meeting last year during which he called a motorist involved in a car accident a “Mexican,” although he did not know the driver’s national origin.

The resolution also accuses Nichols of making other disparaging comments about Mexicans during his campaign for the council seat.

Nichols said Monday his remarks have been taken out of context by political rivals who want to make trouble for him.

“To get this [meeting] rip-roaring ... they [council members] contacted everybody in the Mexican community, including many of those who are for Mexico, including those that feel this is their country,” he said. “They are trying to activate many of the pro-Mexican organizations. In general, most of those organizations want to see California turned over to Mexico.”

Nichols said the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group, is among the organizations that take such a position and attack him. Steve Reyes, a staff attorney for the organization, said his group does not promote the return of California to Mexico.