city council district 6 v corona del mar & newport coast
Nancy Gardner
mayor v newport beach, california
newsletter: june 2012
IT’S OPEN!
As of May 30, the Buck Gully trail is officially open. Accessible from dawn
to dusk from both Poppy and 5th Avenue and San Joaquin Hills Road, the trail
offers 3+ miles of hiking and biking trails surrounded by sage, sycamores and
other native plants—an amazing natural environment in the middle of the city.
The area is managed by the Irvine Ranch Conservancy which will be providing
docent-led tours to observe birds and wild flowers as well as the occasional
moonlit walk, but you don’t have to wait for a docent. The trail is open to all
bipeds (meaning dogs not allowed). Note of caution—I picked up a tick on my
hike.
IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE—YES, IT’S A PLANE
A few months ago, those who live along the coast were startled by the roar
of low-flying fighter jets. It wasn’t a terrorist attack, rather a memorial to a
deceased veteran. The problem was that no one had notified the city that this
was going to take place, so when people called the police, the department had no
information. We spent several months pursuing the Navy to get some assurance
that in the future the city would be notified, only to find out that the planes
weren’t Navy planes but belonged to the Marines. We will now climb up the Marine
ladder to see if we can get a heads up next time.
WHAT A BARGAIN—MAYBE NOT
I had a meeting in the Foothill Ranch area, and being a little vague about
that part of the world I gave myself plenty of time to get there. Since it
wasn’t quite as much at the edge of civilization as I expected, I was early.
Fortunately, the meeting was at the library, and even more fortunately, there
were shelves of used books outside—a buck a bag. As someone who frequents our
Friends of the Library bookstore and thinks that their prices (usually a dollar,
occasionally two for a dollar) a great bargain, I was in the book equivalent of
pig heaven. Marveling that there should be such bargains in the world, I quickly
filled two bags and went, as directed, to the Friends bookstore to pay, only to
be greeted by a closed door with a sign: “We are closed because you didn’t
volunteer.” That’s not a sign we see in Newport which says a lot about our
library and our community.
HOW TO BE A HAPPY (AS OPPOSED TO MAD) SCIENTIST
Study Tursiops truncates. For those few of you who don’t know Latin, the
common name is Coastal Bottlenose Dolphin. Okay, I admit I didn’t know that
until a few weeks ago, either. Anyway, there is something called the Coastal
Dolphin Survey Project, led by Dennis Kelly of OCC, and you and I can be part of
it by reporting sightings of dolphins with the date, time, location, direction
of travel and number of animals to
dolphinproject@hotmail.com. The more we know about these delightful
creatures the more we can do to protect them. To learn more, go to
www.coastaldophinsurveyproject.org.
SEAC
For years, the city had a pattern of waiving fees for special events and
providing some financial support. It was very informal, and then our new city
manager thought to total it all up and found it was a considerable sum. New
protocols were put in place. City costs would not be waived, and events that
wanted city support had to meet a number of criteria and be ranked by SEAC (Do I
have to spell everything out? Special Events Advisory Committee, a group of
residents appointed by the council). We have just completed the exercise, and
SEAC performed admirably, but it’s a very flawed process. You have fundraisers
for local schools competing against fundraisers for cancer treatment, both
competing against marketing events like Restaurant Week and social/art events
like Taste of Newport and the film festival. Weird. If it was up to me, I’d have
the city get out of the business. Some events would survive, some
wouldn’t—capitalists of the world unite. The other council members didn’t
exactly jump on that band wagon, but they did agree that we need to look at the
subject again, so we will have study session on it. Any ideas are welcome.
FUTURE TOPIC SUGGESTIONS
This is a two-way process, so please don’t hesitate to contact me with your ideas and opinions. My email address for city business is: NGardner@newportbeachca.gov. Don’t worry if you forget it. I’ll still be using the AOL one, too.
Mayor Nancy Gardner
QUALITY OF LIFE Advocate FOR NEWPORT BEACH
City of Newport Beach | 3300 Newport Blvd | Newport Beach, CA 92663
Phone: 949.644.3004 | EMAIL: ngardner@newportbeachca.gov
Copyright 2012 v Nancy Gardner v All Rights Reserved