Newport relaxes park naming rules as part of a policy overhaul

The Newport Beach City Council has amended rules to allow parks to be named in honor of people, part of a comprehensive update to a lengthy and dated policy manual.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday to eliminate 32 of 128 policies and revise 26. Most of the changes were minor, updating or tossing dusty policies and taking stock of what was being ignored or not followed.

The park-naming amendment acknowledges variations from the official city stance, which since 2003 has discouraged them because there are more worthy locals than parks to honor them. Earlier this month, the Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission denied a request to name a park after the late longtime civic leader Ralph Rodheim, who died this year.

But this spring, the council voted directly, without parks commission input, to rename a park for film legend and one-time city resident John Wayne.

John Wayne Park is one of three named after people. Prior to the 2003 policy revision, the city named parks for Newport Beach police Officer Bob Henry, not long after he died in the line of duty in 1995, and a park and youth center for community volunteer Grant Howald before he died in 1996.

A line in the park-naming policy now allows parks to be named after a person who has been dead for at least 15 years.

Assistant City Attorney Mike Torres said this change makes policy consistent with practice.

“I think this a change that’s designed to reflect reality. I mean, the reality being, there are parks and facilities named after individuals,” he said. “Having a policy that prohibits it doesn’t actually show what the council has done. So this change isn’t necessarily a change, it’s just a reflection of what the council practice is.”

Councilwoman Diane Dixon – who voted against the Wayne park because she wanted it to go through the parks commission first – recommended drawing up detailed criteria for park honors.

“I think there should be some established criteria of a person’s, individual’s contributions to the community,” she said.

Councilman Will O’Neill, along with Mayor Kevin Muldoon and Councilman Brad Avery, set about earlier this year to weed the council policies with the help of city staff. Their revisions cut 72 pages and 12,000 words from the policy manual.

One rule required an annual policy review. That hadn’t been done in some time, O’Neill noted.

Other neglected or dated rules covered a comprehensive seashore plan that hadn’t been substantively updated in 20 years, a developer fee set-aside for arts facilities (the city no longer owns any arts facilities after selling the historic but aged Balboa Theater last year), scripts for staffer voicemail greetings, and antiquated council voting technology that explained pressing a switch to illuminate colored lights.

“No one at this dais has ever done any of that, but that’s what our policy calls for,” O’Neill said.

The council’s vote eliminated all of those sections, plus the one calling for the annual review, although the council maintains the ability to update rules at any time.

“A lot of these policies are almost treated like gotchas, like somehow we can’t do something,” Muldoon said. “And the truth is, we can do all things that we’re allowed to do through the charter or the 10th amendment of the United States Constitution, which gives states the right to decide public welfare and policing powers.”

“I could care less about the red tape. They’re nice guiding principles but they don’t bind us to anything,” he added. “Our morality and the laws on the books bind us, and really, these are nice guiding principles, but at the end of the day those of us who answer to the people directly… that is where our authority comes from. It does not come from these internal policies.”

hillary.davis@latimes.com

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