The Newport Beach City Council recently adopted a $263 million budget, then boasted about a $100 million surplus, and talked about moving into a $130 million new City Hall by December.  Then they told us they need more of our money to maintain the Tidelands.

Now they are considering a 20% tax on marinas and residential docks because they “need more money.”

80% of the budget goes to salaries and benefits for city employees.  Newport Beach has more employees per capita than any city but Laguna Beach.

According to some fine research done in 2010 by Jack Wu while writing for the Newport Beach Independent (he now writes a weekly column in the Daily Pilot), every 88 Newport residents have their own city employee.  Costa Mesa’s 116,000 residents have 170 city employees per resident.  Huntington Beach, another full service city with miles of beaches and a significant pleasure boat harbor, has nearly 200,000 people.  Huntington Beach services a community with a population twice the size of Newport’s and geographically larger with about 300 more employees.

Friends, there is a reason the city wants to tax our docks – the insatiable thirst for new money to fund employees and pensions never ends. 

We need to fight back.  We need to make our voice heard.

YOU CAN HELP BY DISPLAYING A STOP THE DOCK TAX SIGN.

Last week our counsel, Kristine Thagard, requested a forensic audit of the City’s Tidelands Fund.  This is a state required fund for the preservation and maintenance of the Tidelands.  Since the City of Newport Beach is the “grantee” of the Tidelands the state allows the City to operate the Harbor with fees and taxes collected from residents, businesses, and tourists.

The Tidelands Fund can only be used for the Harbor – it can’t be used for any other municipal purpose.

For many years we have heard rumors that the City has used the Tidelands Fund for purposes other than those allowed by state law.

We don’t operate on rumor.

We wanted to give the City a chance to open the books to a transparent forensic audit, and Stop the Dock Tax would pay for half.

The City has denied our request claiming the Fund is audited every year and a new audit would be redundant and unnecessary.

While disappointing, this is not surprising.

Using the Public Records Act, counsel has requested the last five years Tidelands Fund audits conducted by the City.  It’s a start and we will report to you our findings.

The marina owners are protesting a large potential rent increase from the city, but their request for an additional audit was rejected recently.

By Mike Reicher

Newport Beach city officials recently rejected a request from a group of commercial marina owners who wish to audit the city’s Tidelands Fund.

Marina owners contend that the tidelands finances are mixed up with those of general city services, and they shouldn’t pay higher rent until the fund is inspected.

City officials have sought to wring more money out of mooring holders, businesses and other harbor stakeholders in recent years, as the city invests millions in dredging and other harbor projects.

The marina owners are protesting a large potential rent increase from the city, which charges waterfront businesses that use public tidelands.

The owners offered to pay for half of a forensic audit, but City Manager Dave Kiff says that the fund is already inspected.

“We don’t see the need to have the city’s taxpayers fund another audit (or half of another audit) of a major fund that already receives an annual public audit,” he wrote in an email.

Lawyers from an organization called Stop the Dock Tax sent the city a letter last week that claimed the city was “improperly allocating certain expenses.”