Longtime Newport planning commissioner Toerge eyes City Council spot

After serving nearly 11 years on the Newport Beach planning commission, resident Mike Toerge had helped to write and rewrite three of the city’s guiding documents.

The experience left him with a span of knowledge he felt shouldn’t go to waste. Be they related to the local coastal plan, the zoning code or the general plan, he could boil down issues that others might find tedious or mind-boggling, he says.

He could also communicate those salient points for residents effectively.

“I didn’t want to just throw that away,” he said. “I want to empower people with the facts, instead of polarizing them with exaggerated information.”

And so Toerge declared his candidacy for city council, District 6.

Toerge, who moved to Newport Beach in 1981, has long been involved in the community: he began the nine-month Leadership Tomorrow program in 1995, which orients participants with various facets of the community.

He has been a member of the Balboa Yacht Club since 1987, where he served on various committees, and of the Corona del Mar Residents Association board since 1992, his campaign website says. (He served as the Board President in 2001 and 2002.)

In 2004, he enrolled in the city’s Community Emergency Team, known as CERT, according to the website. The program trains members in how to handle emergency response. Toerge also helped with fundraising and finalizing building plans for the recently constructed OASIS Senior Center, as part of the center’s Building Fund Committee, his website says.

The University of Southern California graduate has past experience as a real estate broker and started his own industrial park development company, Strata Land, where he has worked since 1989.

Fiscally conservative, Toerge says his business has helped him with problem-solving skills that can apply to a political role.

He knows that many issues are “close calls,” and that all decisions don’t come easily. A secure leader can recognize the validity in an opponent’s argument, he says.

When it comes to his strategy for governance, he places a great emphasis on hearing what the public has to say.

“Everyone wants to know what I think today,” Toerge said of campaign season. But the reality is, once I get elected, I want to know what they think.”