Letters to the Editor
Foley has done more, worked harder and deserves our vote for Supervisor
I have been a homeowner and resident of Newport Beach for nine years. For the past five years, I’ve worked to address the impacts of John Wayne Airport on surrounding communities in Orange County, and I’ve witnessed many elected officials talk about this issue. Katrina Foley is the rare public servant who actually delivered results. As Mayor of Costa Mesa, Katrina gathered 20,000 signatures of residents opposed to the operational expansion at JWA and she delivered those signatures to the Board of Supervisors alongside hundreds of concerned citizens during the 2019 GAIP (General Aviation Improvement Program) process.
At the time, I remember feeling like community members didn’t have a seat at the decision-making table when it came to the airport. That changed in 2021 when we elected Katrina Foley to the Board of Supervisors.
There is no better candidate for District 5 Supervisor than Katrina Foley. During the past year that she’s served as Supervisor, Foley has worked tirelessly on behalf of her constituents and has accrued an impressive number of accomplishments. Here are some highlights:
JWA Fly Friendly Program: As an Airport Commissioner, I witnessed firsthand, Supervisor Foley working collaboratively with residents, JWA staff, the City of Newport Beach and the General Aviation community to develop a Fly Friendly program which will soon begin to bring relief from GA aircraft noise to communities surrounding the airport. The fact that she managed to produce this entire program in a less than a year is an unprecedented feat.
Homelessness: Supervisor Foley tackled the problem of homelessness head-on the day she took office: She conducted an audit of the myriad collection of County homelessness programs and expenditures; directed a survey of homeless citizens to understand the issues they confront; and, she hosted an OC Homelessness Hearing to identify the drivers of homelessness and come up with solutions to solve this intractable social problem plaguing our communities. And it is especially noteworthy that, as Costa Mesa Mayor, she spearheaded the construction of a homelessness shelter. Katrina gets things done.
Sober Living Facilities: For more than a decade, Katrina advocated for regulatory reforms to protect patients and neighborhoods from abusive, profit-mill-style detox and sober living home operators. As Costa Mesa Mayor, she worked to adopt the first regulatory scheme that has been repeatedly upheld by the courts. The County adopted the Costa Mesa ordinance and added more protections in 2019. As Supervisor, Katrina’s office collaborated with Newport Beach to share ordinance details and Newport Beach initiated a code amendment to move an ordinance forward. Supervisor Foley serves on a newly formed ad hoc committee to examine and provide recommendations on residential treatment facilities. Notably, Foley testified before a CA state hearing on sober living facilities stating that by allowing the industry to regulate itself, the state endangers patients and neighborhoods and insisted that the state step up. “To achieve change to our sober living regulations, we need policy change across all levels of government,” she said. Katrina will work to make sure policies change.
This is a small sample of the work Supervisor Foley has done to help solve some of the most difficult problems confronting our communities. She’s smart and ethical, works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, and she gets results. Please vote for Katrina Foley for District 5 Supervisor so she can continue this important work.
Sue Dvorak
Newport Beach
I just can’t be quiet in my opposition to Measure B
I have a right to keep silent, but I can’t! The most recent presentations by the proponents of Measure B – the proposed change to our City Charter to directly elect the mayor of Newport Beach – causes me to once again speak out. Last week, proponents of Measure B claimed that you need to be mayor to get positions on regional boards. Point of fact...Councilman (Will) O’Neill was just made the Chair of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency (the Toll Roads), and he is not mayor. He was also not the mayor when his appointment to this Board was made in 2016.
The proponent further stated that you need to be mayor to be a member of the OCTA Board. The current Board Chair of OCTA, Mark Murphy, was appointed to the Board in 2017 when he was a city councilman in Orange, not mayor. And he wasn’t actually elected mayor until Nov. 2018. The vice-chair, Gene Hernandez, who was just re-appointed to the board, is currently the Mayor Pro tem of Yorba Linda, not the mayor.
Other than the OCTA, our city councilmembers, not the mayor, represent us on most Orange County agencies important to Newport Beach – 11 of them, in fact.
Councilman (“Duffy”) Duffield has stated that he could not get the attention of the congressman in D.C. when he visited as a councilmember but could when he was mayor. The fact of the matter is that Newport Beach received the dredging money well after he was no longer mayor. If he thought it was so important to have the mayor present in order to get a meeting in D.C., the mayor should have accompanied him on this trip.
It should also be noted that the City had previously received $16-$18 million for dredging despite not having an elected mayor. My experience when representing the City in D.C., on two different trips, is that you actually get a lot more accomplished when meeting with staffers as opposed to the actual elected representative.
Let’s not forget that Measure B has been proposed by the council majority that was responsible for the firing of one of the most effective city managers in the history of our city, Dave Kiff. And, although this proposed Charter Amendment does not explicitly detail the cost in the measure that the City will incur, the experience of other cities that have an elected mayor is that they have expenses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of the position and the staff that is needed for this newly created office to function. There is no reason to believe that this will not be the case in Newport Beach.
To the proponents of Measure B I ask, “What didn’t the City get that we needed because we have not had a directly elected mayor?” And, “Why did you abandon the signature gathering process to place this measure on the ballot and resort to going directly to the Council majority for approval?” No public outcry, no demand from constituents, the city is and has been governed well for the past 70 years; the City is financially sound, citizens are not complaining, so where did this come from?
I have the right to remain silent, but in this case I just can’t. I urge you to vote NO on Measure B.
Jeff Herdman
Newport Beach City Council, 2016-2020
Newport Beach