Open houses are not marked by acrimony, but opponents are on hand to drum up support for legal action.
By Jill Cowan
February 20, 2013 | 9:21 p.m.
At the first of two open houses designed to help dock owners navigate Newport Beach’s new residential pier permitting process last week, a handful of residents sat scattered throughout the old City Council Chambers — not a huge turnout compared to the hundreds that showed up for hearings on the same subject just a few months ago.
And while the tone of the Feb. 14 discussion wasn’t exactly chipper, largely absent was the bitter anger that characterized the fight between Newport Beach harbor stakeholders and the City Council over fee increases for the use of public tidelands.
Absent, that is, until Stop the Dock Tax Chairman Bob McCaffrey stood up to announce a lawsuit aimed at halting the increases on residential piers, which are set to be phased in through 2017.
The lawsuit, which was filed last week in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that the council violated the state’s open-meetings law, the Ralph M. Brown Act, by acting on suggestions developed by an “ad hoc committee on updating harbor charges,” which rose to the level of a standing committee.”What we’re discussing here today will be moot,” he said.
ATTEND THE CITY’S MEETINGS ATTEMPTING TO JUSTIFY THE LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN NEWPORT’S HISTORY
WHEN: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14
WHERE: OLD NEWPORT BEACH CITY HALL (NOT THE TAJ MAHAL)
3300 NEWPORT BLVD.
TIME: 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
WHEN: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19
OLD NEWPORT BEACH CITY HALL
WHERE: 3300 NEWPORT BLVD.
TIME: 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Residential dock owners recently received a letter from the city notifying us of the procedures to implement the Dock Tax. The letter announced two public meetings where City Manager Dave Kiff will present the city’s plan to collect the largest tax increase in Newport’s history. As a reminder the Dock Tax passed on a 5-1 vote;
Before the very exciting election year that just passed, one of the recurring themes in my writing was Newport Beach’s unfunded pension liability and how the city is addressing it.
According to a November 2012 independent analysis performed by Stanford University Professor Joe Nation, Newport Beach has an unfunded pension liability of $265.5 million, which means that every man, woman and child living in Newport Beach would have to pay the city $2,983 each to cover the shortfall.
This was accomplished through a combination of underperforming investments by the California Public Employee’s Retirements System and the very popular and extravagant 3-percent-at-50 pension arrangement that many of the city employees were given.
Couple that with Newport Beach having more city employees per resident than almost every other Orange County city and you create the perfect unfunded pension liability storm.
How did this happen in Newport Beach? How did this Republican-dominated City Council allow this to happen?
Mayor Keith Curry recently outlined how healthy Newport Beach’s fiscal picture is, with more than $100 million in reserves, low-interest certificates of participation to fund the $138 million-plus Civic Center and Dog Park Bridge.
He also talked about how Newport Beach has reduced its government workforce by 10 percent and how City Manager Dave Kiff has done a fabulous job getting employees to agree to contribute more to their own pensions.
However, let’s revisit what life was like in 2006, when Curry was first appointed to the Newport Beach City Council, to see how he was actually partially responsible for the pension crisis.
In early 2006, before the full-time lifeguards’ contract was up, the firefighter union (which negotiated on behalf of the lifeguards) figured out that they didn’t have enough votes on the City Council to get the lifeguards the same benefits that the police and firefighters enjoyed, so they waited until the November 2006 election to hopefully get a union-friendly slate elected.
Sure enough, pro-union candidates replaced the anti-union incumbents, and the tide had turned.
The votes were taken in March 2007 to give the lifeguards 3-at-50 benefits, retroactive to July 2006, when their contract initially expired.
Yes, the same Mayor Keith Curry who was trumpeting fiscal responsibility last week voted for that retroactive 3-at-50 pension spike – twice – for the Newport Beach lifeguards.
All this unfunded pension liability will become a real issue when the Government Accounting Standards Board will require these pension liabilities on Newport Beach’s balance sheets starting in 2014.
The Stop the Dock Tax folks are suing the city of Newport Beach alleging that, as far back as 2010, council members involved in talks on harbor fees didn’t adequately follow the state’s open meeting laws and violated the Brown Act.
City officials say they did nothing wrong.
When O.C. Register reported the news about the lawsuit last week, I was a little surprised by some reader comments that painted residents opposed to the fees as basically wealthy whiners.
Over the past months, I have spoken with organizers of the Stop the Dock Tax movement and residents who consider the fee increases unfair.
I found the majority weren’t so upset by the fee increases as much as they were about the process the Newport City Council took with them.
After the council voted to hike the fees, it didn’t take a crystal ball to predict a lawsuit would ensue.
The city could have easily avoided this if the council had taken more time to listen to residents and quell concerns.
The Newport Beach City Council voted in December to raise yearly tidelands dock fees from a flat $100 to 52.5 cents per square foot. Some affected residents continue to resist. A lawsuit was filed Feb. 12 in Orange County Superior Court by the group Stop the Dock Tax, alleging violations of the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act open-meetings law.
The Brown Act mandates that all meetings of a quorum of a public body must be held in public view after adequate notice is given. For the seven-member council, a quorum is four members. Permanent committees also must abide by the quorum rule.
A Register news story on the lawsuit says it alleges the “the subcommittee looking at harbor user fees met without public notice and posted no public agendas – in violation of the Brown Act.” In response, the city insists that the committee was not permanent, but ad hoc.
The lawsuit further alleges: “Although [the committee] was initially only to meet for a limited period of time and for a limited issue, the committee has extended past its initial mandate. The committee, in effect, became a standing committee of the City Council. As such, it was required to comply with the requirements of the Brown Act. Here, this committee failed to do so.”
A dock-owners’ association claims a subcommittee did not abide by the state’s open-meetings laws.
BY TAYLOR HILL/ ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
NEWPORT BEACH – A contingent of private dock owners have filed a lawsuit against the city in response to the recent increase in dock fees.
Filed Feb. 12 in Orange County Superior Court, the lawsuit lists the plaintiffs as the Newport Beach Dock Owners Association and Stop the Dock Tax Chairman Bob McCaffrey.
Bayfront homeowners and others pack the Newport Beach City Council Chamber before the start of the City Council meeting in December. The Council was hearing public comment on a proposed dock tax.
The lawsuit alleges that, as far back as 2010, City Council members involved in talks on harbor fees did not adequately abide by the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act, meaning their informal meetings were not properly conducted in public view or with legal notice.
During November and December 2012 public hearings on private-dock fee increases, Newport Beach Dock Owners Association attorneys Kristine Thagaard and Steve Baric, along with other private dock owners, threatened a lawsuit, claiming the subcommittee looking at harbor user fees met without public notice and posted no public agendas – in violation of the Brown Act.
ATTEND THE CITY’S MEETINGS ATTEMPTING TO JUSTIFY THE LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN NEWPORT’S HISTORY
WHEN: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14
WHERE: OLD NEWPORT BEACH CITY HALL (NOT THE TAJ MAHAL)
3300 NEWPORT BLVD.
TIME: 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
WHEN: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19
OLD NEWPORT BEACH CITY HALL
WHERE: 3300 NEWPORT BLVD.
TIME: 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Residential dock owners recently received a letter from the city notifying us of the procedures to implement the Dock Tax. The letter announced two public meetings where City Manager Dave Kiff will present the city’s plan to collect the largest tax increase in Newport’s history. As a reminder the Dock Tax passed on a 5-1 vote;
Newport Beach counsel dismisses allegations that subcommittee violated open-meetings laws.
By Lauren Williams
Newport Beach residents opposed to fee increases on residential docks that span public waters said Tuesday that they made good on their pledge to sue the city.
Stop the Dock Tax and the Newport Beach Dock Owners Assn. alleged in a statement that small-group discussions by City Council members assigned to a working group examining harbor fees were not legally noticed or conducted in public. The group said it filed suit in Orange County Superior Court, however, a copy of the complaint could not be immediately reviewed.
The state’s opening-meetings law, the Ralph M. Brown Act, requires that elected officials conduct a majority of government business in public sessions that are noticed in advance. Those small committee meetings, the group alleges in a statement prepared by attorney and state Republican Party Vice Chairman Steve Baric, were improper.
Are we getting the representation that we deserve in Newport Beach?
In the 2012 City Council election, the two incumbents drew no challengers, and one candidate ran unopposed for the open 2nd District seat.
While former Mayor Ed Selich and current Mayor Keith Curry have been vetted by the community through their many years in service and prior elections, newly anointed Councilmember Tony Petros hasn’t. He wasn’t challenged and wasn’t pressed; his views weren’t disputed or broken apart, as a challenged candidate’s normally would be, so any blame for him being a lousy councilmember (hypothetically) would not fall on the voters.
Or would it?
Let’s take Mayor Pro Tem Rush Hill as an example. One of the most controversial issues for Newport Beach in 2012 was the raising of tidelands fees, and I have met with many of the affected parties. As I was sitting with these angry people, I wondered how many of them had voted for Hill, who supported the fee increases. And I wonder how many of the people Hill cursed at during the December City Council meeting had also voted for him.
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