If you review the actions carefully of three of the four incumbents trying to hold onto their seats in the upcoming election, I doubt that you will want to vote for them, especially when you compare them to the top-notch candidates who have long histories of involvement in the community.
Joy Brenner, Roy Englebrecht and Tim Stoaks have all lived in Newport Beach for a large part of their lives. They will bring transparency and citizen involvement back to the government.
On the other hand, three of the four incumbents promote developers over residents and put self over city in their decisions.
Their controversial actions are many. They sought to deprive residents of their constitutional right to overturn their approval of the 25 story Museum House when they forced the referendum petition to contain 3,700 unnecessary pages, but they lost that battle. They treated a well-respected City Manager shabbily, forcing his early retirement. They considered hiring a non-qualified politician to replace him-someone they could more easily control.
Mayor Duffy refuses to admit that a fellow Councilman, Scott Peotter works for him and should recuse himself from voting also. The residents of Newport Beach have such minimal respect for Councilman Peotter that he was the subject of a Recall which only failed by 106 signatures.
Presently, Mayor Duffield is turning his boat facility into a medical growing area and has hired Peotter to help him. Legal yes, but hypocritical as both Duffield and Peotter voted against allowing medicinal marijuana dispensaries in Newport Beach.
Can we really afford four more years of such unprofessional and alarming behavior? NO, we can’t!
I am voting for Joy Brenner, Roy Englebrecht and Tim Stoaks.
Tom Baker
Newport Beach
