MAILBAG:

According to the special City Council meeting Oct. 30, which was when this plan was first made public, our City Council is targeting to have the Planning Commission and also the City Council approve a major development deal before year-end whereby the Irvine Co. obtains from the city very valuable development rights in Newport Center involving more than 430 new housing units and 278,000 square feet of new office development, and in exchange, pays a cash sum of very near $43 million.

As a former mayor, I politely request our City Council provides answers to our residents concerning the following questions:

• What is the rush to get this complicated financial and development deal done by year-end? Did not the far less complicated development agreement between the city and Lennar Corporation for its planned 79 new housing units below the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and a $5 million fee to the city take more than six months to complete?

What is pushing this year-end deadline? The city hall ballot vote in February 2008? Or is it the Irvine Co., which has wisely calculated that the shorter the city review and study period the more likely it is that a number of major city requirements and details normally included in such a major development deal won’t be made part of the final agreement and/or that the fee might have been higher if more study and time was taken by the city?

• What qualified third party consultants (both financial and legal) has the city used to verify that this proposed development fee of nearly $43 million is fair to the city in both amount and legal detail and enforceability?

For instance, there are experienced residents in this development fee field who have suggested that this fee should be more than $80 million, in exchange for what the city is permanently granting the Irvine Co. by the proposed development agreement.

What educated comparison can you provide us that the current $43 million fee is fair to the city?

If the city has used consultants, then the residents deserve to know their qualifications and also their findings in view of the very large amount of dollars involved. If the city has not, then why not?

The standard and proven course of fiduciary conduct and care when dealing with a deal of this size and complexity is to use qualified third party consultants to study, advise and confirm.

• The development rights the Irvine Co. wants belong to all of us and the fees being considered are clearly the biggest development fee which will ever be paid to our city.

Our residents deserve to know and be assured by our City Council that the city has been as well represented, advised and counseled as the Irvine Co., and also that appropriate time is taken for city and resident review, hearings, study and input before the final decision is agreed to.

JOHN HEFFERNAN

Newport Beach

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