Four Newport Beach residents are challenging three incumbents representing three districts, hoping to unseat them in the upcoming City Council elections.
Tina Babajanians is challenging incumbent Joe Stapleton in District 1, which serves residents on the Balboa Peninsula and in West Newport.
In District 3, residents Walter Stahr, a writer, and Tim Stoaks, a retired construction executive, are challenging incumbent Erik Weigand. The district represents three neighborhoods in Upper Newport Bay: Dover Shores, Castaways, and Santa Ana Heights.
In District 6, which covers Corona Del Mar residents, incumbent Lauren Kleiman faces a challenge from retired surgeon Andrew Gerken.
Newport Beach councilmembers represent seven geographic districts, but all voters cast ballots for them. All three incumbents first joined the council in 2022.
Recently, The Orange County Register published its voter guide, which asked candidates questions ranging from how the city should handle state-required housing planning to transparency in government and balancing its budget. Included here is a snapshot of some of the candidates’ answers.
District 1
Babajanians, a small business owner, said among Newport Beach’s greatest needs, transparency is a top concern.
“It’s a skill to be practiced,” she said.
“It arises from excellent communication and real access to documentation and data,” she said. “Public leaders and city staff should show their work and their rationale for how taxpayer dollars are spent. The public deserves to understand how their money is being spent, why it is being spent, and who stands to benefit. And it all comes down to this: the public deserves answers when they ask.”
On the question of meeting housing needs and mandates, Babajanians said, “I’d steer required density toward sites that make sense, such as near transit, commercial corridors, underused lots, rather than established neighborhoods.”
In Stapleton’s view, the biggest need he said he sees is protecting Newport Beach’s local control as state mandates and outside pressure push in the opposite direction on housing, airport protections, and how the city is governed.
Also a business owner, Stapleton said the way to keep local control is to stay engaged early, understand the legal and technical details most people never see, and make sure Newport Beach negotiates from a position of strength rather than reacting after decisions are already made elsewhere.
“That’s how we kept our housing element compliant while building in protections against unchecked development, and it’s the same vigilance our airport settlement agreement will require as it approaches renewal,” he said. “Local control isn’t something we get to assume. It has to be actively defended, year after year, by people who understand exactly what’s at stake. That’s the work I’ve done, and the work I’ll continue doing for Newport Beach.”
District 3
Stahr said his greatest concern is having a City Council that listens to its constituents.
Examples he points to include studies the city is conducting on moving its police headquarters to an area near City Hall currently used as a sculpture garden.
“Instead of proceeding full speed ahead with a jail and police station and parking structure in the park, listen to the residents, who are almost universally opposed to destroying 5 acres of central parkland and sculpture garden,” he said. “Listen to the residents and find another site for the police station.”
Stahr added that he has “considerable legal, financial, and political experience that I would bring to the City Council.”
A vision for the city Stoaks outlines in his campaign statement for the ballot includes removing the old toll booth at Newport Coast Drive to relieve traffic in the area, constructing a West Newport community center and expanding senior programming.
Not in his vision, he said, is using the sculpture garden as a venue for a police headquarters. Instead, he opposes the idea of the headquarters generally and would rather see substations in some of the city’s most impacted areas such as on the peninsula, he said.
“Government is here to listen to the community,” he said, “and my job, after listening, is to make those needs and wants into realities.”
Weigand said the city’s greatest need is public safety. As a son of a Newport Beach police officer who later became an investigator in the District Attorney’s office and a mother who served in the Traffic Division of the city’s Police Department, he said what he believes makes the city stand out is its responsiveness to the community and, important to that, he said are the response times from police and fire.
“Since arriving on council, crime has been reduced year over year,” he said, adding that it’s down 12% this year.
“I was able to support a fourth paramedic unit, which has contributed to major reductions in response times,” he said. “Our success doesn’t happen by accident, and my commitment to police and fire has earned me their support for my re-election. Additionally, I believe the Police Department needs a new headquarters ASAP, and I am committed to finding them a location right in the heart of our city — Newport Center.”
District 6
Kleiman also agrees that public safety is paramount and must be protected and continues to see that as one of the city’s greatest needs, she said.
“Newport Beach residents choose to live here not just for its physical beauty, coastline or amenities, but because of safety and quality of life,” she said. “My father is an Air Force veteran turned asphalt paver who taught me the value of service, hard work and accountability.”
She also said that, for bolstering the city’s revenues, it is “important to continue to adopt pro-business policies and practices that foster growth and prevent stagnation” and noted the 3rd Thursdays street fair she championed in Corona del Mar.
For Gerken, Newport Beach’s greatest need is to regain its residents’ trust, which he said it lost because it no longer “reflects the longstanding values that have defined the city for decades.”
“Residents value parks and open spaces; the council does not,” he said. “Since 1970, there has been a consensus that high-rise, high-density is not appropriate for our city. The council proposes to be a partner in such a project.”
Residents have the “right to vote on major development projects, debt and the general plan,” he said of the city’s charter, adding consensus needs to be built with the community when making decisions.
He also points to the need to protect public safety and neighborhoods from the impacts of traffic, aircraft noise, homelessness, group homes, and party houses.
Read more of the voter guide, including what the candidates said would make them good leaders and how they would represent the city’s diverse community at ocregister.com/voter-guide.
Ballots may be returned by mail (must be postmarked by Nov. 3 and received within a week of Election Day) or by dropping them off at the OC Registrar of Voters’ drop boxes around town now; the first vote centers will open for in-person voting on Oct. 24.
