Commentary: Overhead utility hazards shift attitudes in Newport Heights

Re “Stop undergrounding petition in Newport Heights. We don’t need or want it,” Aug. 30

Portia Weiss’s recent commentary substantially misrepresents the views of Newport Heights residents and contains factual errors. Portia, her husband Richard and others associated with the “no undergrounding” group try to project the impression that they speak for the majority of today’s Heights property owners. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

We have already obtained “Yes” signatures from hundreds of Heights property owners, well on our way toward achieving our goal of 360 signatures, 60% of the approximately 600 properties in the district.

While it is true that the last undergrounding effort failed, that was in 2016, 10 years ago. In that time, the make-up of the residents has changed significantly and so have their attitudes toward the safety risks of overhead utilities. Moreover, many other assessment districts in Newport that initially failed were re-proposed and approved. The most recent example of that is the nearly completed Balboa Island district of 1,200 homes.

The assessment district approval process is conducted in accordance with state law and overseen by the city to assure compliance. Step one is to see if enough owners want to sign a non-binding petition to ask the city to develop specific costs for each property. If so, in step two, the city will conduct a binding ballot process. It is a democratic process in which the majority of voters determine the outcome. Both the proponents and the opponents have an equal ability to prevail, with the result binding on all. That’s the way democracy works.

Regardless of what has been included or inadvertently excluded from our mailers, we have made sure that every petition signer has been given the full petition document. We are very confident that any process complaints raised by opponents will be found immaterial or without merit and will have no bearing on the outcome.

In her commentary, Weiss also stated utilities make no contribution to the cost. That is flatly wrong. The city estimates that Edison will be required to contribute $3 to $6 million to the project cost, about 15% to 20% of total construction cost. The opponents also make much of the county maps showing that the Heights is a low urban wildfires fire risk area. True enough, but that is not the same as a no fire risk.

Aside from urban fire risk, overhead utilities innately have other risks, such as downed power lines like the one a Heights resident stepped on in the dark in July and was shocked. The firefighters were surprised she wasn’t seriously injured.

Newport Heights also sits immediately adjacent to the Newport-Inglewood fault, one of the most active and dangerous faults in SoCal.

While it may be that any one of the dangers of overhead utilities is low probability, if it happens, it can be disastrous, and we think that justifies reasonable action to eliminate or minimize the risks.

The estimated $50,000 assessment cost is a lot of money for anyone. Those that can’t or choose not to pay it up front can amortize it through their property tax bill at an estimated semi-annual cost of about $1,900. To help those neighbors that are severely financially constrained, the city is considering a proposal to defer costs for them, similar to what has been done in Laguna and Manhattan Beach.

The city is not a participant in this resident-led petition process, so it’s useless for the opponents to appeal to the city to stop it. Instead, we appeal to all of our neighbors to join us in this effort for a safer, more reliable and yes, more aesthetically pleasing Newport Heights. For more information, see our website at Safernewportheights.com.

— Henn is a member of Safer Newport Heights