Greenlight adds to its team

June Casagrande

The Greenlight Committee on Wednesday announced four additions to

its steering committee: Rick Taylor, Tom Billings, Laurel Mann and

Joe Gleason.

Taylor is vice president of the Airport Working Group and was

Greenlight’s candidate for the City Council seat won by incumbent

Gary Adams in the last election. Mann, a Newport Coast resident, is a

finance professional new to the Greenlight group. Billings is an

outspoken critic of city government who opposes building a luxury

resort at Marinapark. Gleason is a mariner.

“This is our new generation, who bring new ideas and will carry

Greenlight into the future,” said Phil Arst, spokesman for the

committee.

Arst said that this infusion of young blood should counter

critics’ claims that Greenlight is composed mainly of retirees more

set in their ways and resistant to change than the majority of the

city.

“That’s never been true, but should be clearer than ever now,”

Arst said.

The four new committee members will serve alongside continuing

committee members Jean Watt, Evelyn Hart, Tom Hyans, Allan Beek,

Elaine Linhoff, Jeanne Price, Mildred Litke and Arst.

After a council election in which only one of four Greenlight

candidates won seats, the committee is focusing on the general plan

update process, bolstering the city’s conflict-of-interest rules and

scrutinizing the city budget for inefficiencies. The group will

continue to oppose to high-rise office development in the city when

and if such projects come up in the future.

Though Greenlight has not taken a position on the resort

development proposed for Marinapark, Hyans and Billings have taken

public positions against the project.

City Councilman Tod Ridgeway, who has openly opposed some of

Greenlight’s objectives, said that he thinks the group’s role in

local politics continues to be a cause for concern.

“What concerns me is the polarization they created and that they

created in the last election,” Ridgeway said. “Their one council

member who was elected, Dick Nichols, is supporting placing two

baseball fields in our Back Bay regional park. Is that what

Greenlight stands for?”

Some Greenlight critics fear that the group wants to undermine the

general plan update process now underway. But Greenlight leaders

believe that the process is skewed in favor of developers.

“I’m not for no-growth; I’m for smart growth,” Billings said. “I

realize that economic growth is important.”