HomeMy WebLinkAboutIV(c)_Additional Materials Recieved_MosherOctober 15, 2024, GPUSC Item IV.c Comments
These comments on an item on the Newport Beach General Plan Update Steering Committee agenda
are submitted by: Jim Mosher (jimmosher@yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660
(949-548-6229)
Item IV.c. Review of GPAC’s October 2 Meeting (Vision Statement and
Workshop Documents)
I realize the committee members will have little time to read these comments, since they are
being submitted on the morning of the meeting.1 So I will try to keep them brief.
The stated purpose of this agenda item is to review the GPAC’s October 2, 2024, decisions to
conduct further subcommittee review of the Dudek-prepared Vision Statement and Worksop
Topics documents. The current agenda packet provides no detail as to the discussion that led to
GPAC’s decisions, but I supported both decisions and prior to the GPAC meeting had provided
written comments that can be found on page 20 of the present packet’s 22-page Attachment 3
2
(IVc_Vision Statement Memo) and on page 30 of its 41-page Attachment 4 (IVc_Workshops
Memo). To those, I would like to add these additional thoughts:
● As I attempted to say at the October 2 meeting, I find Dudek’s proposed
backwards-looking from 2050 Vision statement to be so generic as to leave readers
wondering what we seek the General Plan revisions to do: it seems to me nearly all the
words it chooses could equally well describe the Newport Beach of 2025.
● At the same time, it completely omits key community concerns highlighted in the topic
headings of the existing Vision Statement. For example, the airport.
● To guide a 25-year development plan, I think it would be much more productive to have
a forward-looking vision statement, clearly stating what those of us in 2025 hope to be
different in 2050 and what we hope to keep the same.
● In that connection, I would note that the first two pages of Chapter 1 (Introduction) of the
existing General Plan, apparently written at the end of the process, list 14 things the
consultant believed execution of the 2006 plan would accomplish.
● I believe that sort of specific agreement on what the revision process is trying to
accomplish should come at the beginning of the process, rather than at the end.
● For that reason, I think Dudek’s proposed workshop “visioning” approach, which seems
to be “Here is a vision for Newport Beach in 2050, what do you think of it?,” is not as
useful as it could be.
● I think it would be much more productive to offer several different visions of what a future
Newport Beach could be, and ask participants to choose which future they prefer, or if
they would like to see something still different. At least in my view, only after an agreed
to desired future state has been clearly defined, should one discuss the decisions
needed to get there, and the community-values-based principles guiding those
decisions.
2 The cover page of Attachment 3 mistakenly identifies it as “Attachment No. 4 - Workshop Memo.”
1 Curiously, the title page of the agenda says the members will have time to review material submitted by
“5:00 p.m. on Wednesday”-- 24 hours after the meeting starts.
General Plan Update Steering Committee- October 15, 2024 Item No. IVc Additional Materials Received
October 15, 2024, GPUSC agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 2
● More specifically, I see that GPAC member Susan DeSantis has submitted for the
GPUSC’s consideration five thought-provokingly different visions for a (possibly distant)
future Newport Beach, and the distinctly different decision-making principles that would
be needed to get to them. I think exposing workshop participants to those, or something
like them, and asking them to choose between them, would be an excellent introduction
to the plan revision process.
● Ideally, the entire community would be invited to choose between such alternative
visions through a wider survey, so the GPAC could better understand if it is in tune with
the wishes of the population as a whole, and not just the subset who participate in public
meetings.
● One thing I notice lacking in all of the visions is recognition that Newport Beach does not
exist as an isolated, self-sufficient microcosm, as the Vision Statements might make it
appear, but rather as part of a vast urban and national/international structure on which it
is highly dependent, and without which it would completely fail. I believe we need a
clearer articulation of the principles that have guided our existing decisions regarding the
areas in which we are trying to be self-sufficient and those in which we are content to
rely on the “outside world” to supply our needs, and we need discussion of whether we
want any changes in those.3
● Regarding the Workshops Memo, at the October 2 GPAC meeting, staff provided some
clarifications to the concerns raised in my earlier written comments. I now understand
the Workshop Goals and Policies to be topics raised in Dudek’s preliminary outreach
regarding which they now seek further community input on. I continue to think the topics
need review by the relevant GPAC subcommittees, to ensure the subcommittee
members will be getting the input they will need to make policy recommendations on the
topics important to them.
Finally, while Dudek is recommending adding clearly-stated “guiding principles” for the first time
to our General Plan, I would note that Newport Beach is not, at present, entirely devoid of
decision-making principles. The Council’s Legislative Platform (most recently adopted by
Resolution No. 2023-14), for example, opens with five Guiding Principles. Similarly, the
Council’s Fiscal Sustainability Plan lists sixteen. There may be others. The GPAC may wish to
consider whether the principles presented to it align with those, and whatever vision and
principles the GPAC settles on, the GPUSC may wish to consider if it should get Council
feedback on them before the process of fleshing out the implementing details goes too far.
3 The very first full-sized figure of the existing General Plan,Figure I1, is a “Southern California Regional
Map” showing Newport Beach’s location in a larger geographic setting. It also oddly highlights the
locations of our immediately-neighboring cities, and the disconnected cities of Los Angeles, Anaheim and
Riverside (none of which appear to be mentioned in the plan itself). I may have missed it, but other than in
the Circulation Element, I am unable to find any explanation of how this setting influences our plan.
General Plan Update Steering Committee- October 15, 2024 Item No. IVc Additional Materials Received