Last Update:  02/05/2012

RED TAPE AND CONTRIBUTIONS
While the harbor is plenty deep for me on my paddleboard, it’s not plenty deep for many boats—sailboats, in particular. To rectify this, the Army Corps of Engineers and the city are funding a dredging project. It can be a pretty big project or a not so big project, depending. The Port of Long Beach which took all the Rhine Channel spoils and saved us the expense of trucking them off, still has capacity to accept more, so we have designed the project to take advantage of this—targeting areas that are unsuitable for offshore disposal. If we make the port’s deadline with the cost savings that goes along with that—pretty big project. If we don’t, the cost of disposal skyrockets, and we have a smaller project. Here’s the rub, as they say in Shakespeare. Before the Corps can start the project, it needs the city’s money, but it can’t accept the money without a Memorandum of Agreement between the city and the Corp, and Congress has to approve the MOA. Aha, you say. Aha, indeed. The MOA is mired in the mud of Washington. We’ve got our lobbyists, our congress people, anyone and everyone we can think of working on this, and so far we haven’t been able to jar it loose, and if it doesn’t get loose in time, everybody loses. The city has a smaller project, and the federal government is that much further from living up to its responsibility toward the harbor. Thinking about this makes me want to tear my hair or cry, I can’t decide which.

SMOKING OR NON
Our last council meeting was a long one, so there were a couple of issues we didn’t get to. One was to extend the no-smoking provision of our beaches to our parks. The other part of the proposal would bring instructors who use public facilities (parks, stairways, streets) under city control. In CdM, Ocean Blvd. has become a prime target for workouts, and as usual, there are some who abuse the situation—getting indignant when someone has the gall to interrupt their class by actually trying to use the stairway for the original purpose of getting to or from the beach. The thought is if they use city property, they should pay a fee like other instructors and also abide by certain rules, like not starting boot camp at 4:30 am, say. We will review this at the next council meeting.

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email:  ngardner@newportbeachca.gov

PARKING
Some years ago a parking study was done for CdM’s commercial district, and it’s been somewhat of an albatross. The study determined that there was adequate parking (defined as 15% availability), so any time programs are suggested to alleviate parking problems (spillover into residential areas, for example) it’s easy for the council to deny funds by pointing to the study—even though the study didn’t address residential areas. Now there are new studies going on, this time of Balboa and Lido Marina Villages, but this time, the studies are looking at both residential and commercial parking, and in speaking with the consultants I am cautiously optimistic that we will see some fresh thinking emerge that will benefit the city as a whole on this thorny issue. Of course, if we can get more people on bikes and Shank’s mare, it would be that much less thorny—the focus of the Bicycle Safety Committee.

JOHNNY MAC
(OR YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS)
I do not pretend to understand the Coastal Commission. As I’ve said before, I’m a huge believer in California’s Coastal Act, a landmark piece of legislation. How it is enacted—can you spell arbitrary? Picture this. A homeowner on the Grand Canal, Little Island, needs to repair the stairs to his tiny dock so that he can get down to his small boat. CCC staff says, “Yes, you can do the repairs, but this is now public access.” The resident doesn’t want public access to his boat, but he also isn’t looking forward to challenging the commission, so the city, which sees an unfortunate precedent looming for everybody with a dock, steps in and volunteers to build a viewing deck for public access. Now understand: the viewing deck is attached to the sea wall--which is public--and is next to the Little Island bridge—which is public. So you can stand on the bridge and enjoy the view, stand or sit on the seawall and enjoy the view—or now you can stand on the deck and see the same view in almost the same spot with an extension of maybe four feet. Public access to our beaches and harbor is vital, but this is just silliness.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with your ideas and opinions on these and other topics that should be addressed in future issues.