Entire council opposes Prop. 5

The Newport Beach City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday night opposing a statewide ballot measure that would allow more nonviolent drug offenders to attend treatment instead of serving prison or jail time.

The council also postponed a scheduled vote Tuesday on plans to build a roughly 3,566-square-foot private home that Corona del Mar neighbors complain will ruin the scenic ocean view from Begonia Park after receiving a scientific report that a rare plant species might grow on the site.

Several Balboa Peninsula residents at the meeting asked the council to pass a resolution to voice the community’s opposition to Proposition 5, or the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act.

“I already have parolees living within 30 feet of me,” said longtime Newport Beach resident Barbara Roy, who lives next door to the drug rehabilitation home Narconon. “I feel this poses a threat to our public safety.”

The Nov. 4 statewide ballot measure would broaden the scope of Proposition 36, passed by California voters in 2000. Proposition 36 allowed nonviolent drug offenders to attend treatment in lieu of incarceration. Proposition 5 would expand drug treatment programs for inmates to ease the state’s overcrowded prison system, reduce some penalties for marijuana possession and reform parole laws.

Nancy Clark, of the Newport-based addiction treatment center Nancy Clark & Associates, asked the council to reconsider passing the resolution.

Proposition 5 would prevent crime in the community by rehabilitating drug addicts, she said.

“I have had an opportunity to work with thousands and thousands of people, and [addiction] is an epidemic,” Clark said. “I don’t feel that the council should be having a position on this ... please consider there is more information to be had.”

Nancy Clark & Associates is the only rehabilitation facility in area that receives Proposition 36 funding for alternative sentencing programs, Clark said.

Many Balboa Peninsula residents and rehabilitation home activists have claimed that Newport’s many sober-living homes draw convicted criminals to the area through state alternative sentencing programs.

Clark’s clients come from within the community, and don’t move to Newport from other areas for treatment, she said.

“They are trying to change their lives, but they come from here,” Clark said.

Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff advised the council that a city ordinance passed in January already would block most rehabilitation homes that offer alternative sentencing programs from operating in Newport.

In other council business, a rare blooming plant that may grow on a lot next to Begonia Park will hold up plans Corona del Mar resident Kim Megonigal has to build his retirement home there for at least several more months.

The citizen group Friends of Begonia Park opposes plans for the home because its members claim that the home will block the ocean view from the park.

City officials received a report before Tuesday’s council meeting from a biologist hired by the Begonia Park group that Megonigal’s lot may be home to the rare plant Laguna Beach Dudleya, said Newport Beach Planning Director David Lepo.

The flowering plant is classified as a threatened species by state wildlife agencies.

City approval for the house will have to wait until at least next spring, when a study of the lot can be done to determine if the plant grows on the lot, Lepo said.

“It’s a little frustrating they sprung this on us the day of the meeting,” said architect David Olson, who designed plans for the Megonigal residence. “But we’ll be back.”

Members of Friends of Begonia Park said they want to preserve Begonia Park’s ocean view.

“I don’t have a view any more after someone built on the lot in front of my home, but the view from the park belongs to the public, so we should protect it,” said Karen Fleming, a Corona del Mar resident.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].