News: Council Member Nancy Gardner

city council district 6 v corona del mar & newport coast

Nancy Gardner

council member v newport beach, california

newsletter: february 2013

COMPLETE STREETS
There is a growing mood to make streets more inviting to all users—cars, bicycles, pedestrians. Well, at least on the part of cyclists and pedestrians. Many drivers are of the Farragut school: Damn the non-autoists, full speed ahead! One of the drawbacks to changing this attitude is a state rule that mandates if a certain percentage of drivers exceed the posted limit, then the speed limit needs to be raised. If you don’t make the change, you are in essence creating a speed trap which means that if you cite speeders, any good traffic attorney will get the ticket thrown out. This would seem to put us on an ever-ascending speed spiral, since whatever limit is set, people exceed it (Freeways were 55 mph, people went 60-65. Limit changed to 65, people go 70-75), so the question is, What if we disregard that rule? What if we say, Our residents want this to be a 25 mph zone, and so we will leave it at 25. I doubt we’d create a new Wild West of traffic, a bunch of people going, “Hey, I can go fifty, and if I get a ticket, so what? I can hire a good attorney for several thousand dollars, and I can spend half a day in court and get off.” Right there you have an argument against such behavior. Besides, 98% of the people are unaware of the state law, and on top of that, most people generally obey the limit within that five or ten mph cushion. I mentioned all this to Tony Petros, our new council member, who knows everything traffic, and he is inviting THE man, an individual who is actively working at the state level to give cities more flexibility in this matter, to give a presentation to council on the subject. Hopefully, that will help us find new tools to set speed limits on our streets.

THE PAST REVEALED
I recently received a wonderful photo from Bill Ficker. It is of a lad on a board with a paddle, inscribed Balboa, 1937. I didn’t know that SUPing had been around that long—or Bill, either. He should write a book on defying age.

GOAL SETTING
We had our priority session, and one of my issues was long-range planning for our urban forest since many of our trees are getting to the end of their natural lives, and it would be nice to avoid that “clear-cut” look which results when you take everything down at the same time. The MOD squad (Municipal Operations Department) will do a presentation to council on the subject, and it’ll be an opportunity to see if we need additional action to preserve our canopy.

FORWARNED IF NOT FOREARMED
The city is going to be doing a massive water pipe replacement in CdM beginning in April and going through the summer. The pipe will go from Pacific View Drive down San Miguel, down Macarthur to PCH where it splits, one leg going down Carnation to Bayside, the other south on PCH to Dahlia to 5th Avenue and Fernleaf. As you can imagine, there will be significant traffic impacts. However, staff will avoid working on the most heavily-traveled areas during the summer—at least that’s the plan, but there will be unavoidable delays, so when you get slowed down, remind yourself that this is improving water delivery and safety. And maybe chant a few oms. Meanwhile, summer traffic will be improved in another part of town. The left-turn signal at Marguerite and PCH should be installed by April which will be a big help on summer weekends when all those people are ready to return home from the beach.

CITY HALL MOVE
We will soon make the big move to our new city hall, and I’m sure it will be interesting. We have held three council meetings in the new council chamber with all our new electronic whiz bangs. A month and a half in, and we are still waving at the mayor to get permission to speak, the voting tends to be only a little faster than if we were sending smoke signals, and that’s for seven of us. The big move involves hundreds. This is no rap on city staff. They have done great planning for the move, but technology being what it is, there are bound to be bugs. If you do get impacted, as with traffic delays, remind yourself that the new city hall will let us provide new and improved levels of service. And maybe throw in a few oms.

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.

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Council Member 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