THE RACE FOR NEWPORT BEACH CITY COUNCIL

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- The first thing any visitor to the office of District

7 City Council candidate Robert L. Wynn must notice is that there isn’t

much space left on the walls.

Wynn has hung plaques of appreciation from the Boys Club of America,

the League of Cities and the Chamber of Commerce. Others commemorate his

stints as city manager in Imperial Beach, where he served from 1957 to

1968, and Coronado, from 1968 to 1971.

But an aerial view of Newport Beach, a painting of City Hall and the

city’s seal clearly show that his two decades as Newport Beach’s city

manager, from 1971 to 1991, have left a lasting impression.

And on his desk, Wynn keeps a paperweight that displays a brass copy

of his Newport Beach city manager business card.

He still remembers his first day on the job -- Aug. 1, 1971 -- when

then-Mayor Ed Hirth let Wynn in on the city’s most pressing issues.

“He told me the three priorities for the city,” Wynn recalled. “Create

a general plan, balance the budget and control growth at John Wayne

Airport.”

The city’s halls of administration looked quite different when Wynn

first arrived on the scene. The police chief worked out of a rented

office above a paint store on 32nd Street. The Planning Department also

occupied a rented building.

“The city literally didn’t have any money,” Wynn said.

Two decades later, he’d helped devise a general plan and left the city

with hefty reserves in its coffers. As for the airport, that was one of

the things he passed on to his successor, Kevin Murphy, in 1991.

“Traffic was also a hot button,” he said, “especially on hot summer

days when people came to the beach.”

Wynn describes his departure after 20 years in a matter of fact way.

“In the afternoon, I went to the utilities yard and to the

departments,” he said. “I said, ‘It was a good experience.’ I told them

that I intended to live in the city and would drop by periodically. I

gave them my city key and went home.”

But when he talks about city projects that came to fruition under his

tenure, the quiet Wynn lights up a little.

Things such as the OASIS Senior Center, the city’s central library and

the Upper Newport Bay bridge were projects that involved creating

consensus. And consensus is something that’s been missing from the

current council, he said.

“When you do things like that, being a city manager or a city council

member could be fun,” he said. “Indecision and lack of trust are a

problem.”