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Venezia: Candidates should want to run

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The Newport Beach City Council race got a little more interesting last week with the addition of Marshall “Duffy” Duffield.

He seems to be a contender to challenge Mayor Rush Hill, though his quote in the Daily Pilot wasn’t what I expected.

“I don’t aspire to this,” Duffield said. “It’s just out of necessity and others pushing me, supporting me to do this.”

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I’ve covered my share of candidates over the years, and it’s been my experience that unless a candidate has a true fire in the belly for politics and all that goes with it, things don’t end well.

It’s interesting to note who’s pushing Duffield into this race: Bob “Stop the Dock Tax” McCaffrey and his new group, Residents for Reform.

McCaffrey tells me he’s not happy with the direction the city’s taken on many fronts and is behind Duffield because he feels he’s a respected businessman and has good name recognition.

But I wonder if Duffield really is prepared for what might lie ahead.

He’s quoted as saying he doesn’t believe that his business — he is the Duffy behind Duffy electric boats — would preclude him from voting on harbor issues unless he stood to reap a direct financial gain.

But his business is all about the harbor, a fact not missed by opponent Hill, who told me this could raise conflict-of-interest issues.

“If you take someone whose whole livelihood is from the harbor, if the dock fees come up or tidelands issues for example, he can’t even be in the room,” Hill said.

He added that Duffield is opposed to his water-taxi idea but not his floating-dock concept, which could be quite lucrative for Duffield’s business.

Hill knows a bit about conflict of interest.

“Perception is one thing, reality another,” he said. “We have attorneys in town who watch this like a hawk. I was under FPPC [Fair Political Practices Commission] investigation for two years and I could have been fined thousands of dollars.”

Should Duffield get on the council, he could face the same scrutiny.

Will he be ready to put his livelihood on the line?

McCaffrey railed about the cost of the Newport Beach Civic Center, rising pension costs, sober-living homes, the change in trash service and the arrogance of council members when I spoke with him.

With such passion, why isn’t he running for council?

“I have been asked to run and I said yes — I’d run in the opposite direction,” he joked.

Kidding aside, though he doesn’t want to be in the forefront, he does plan on being a player behind the scenes in this upcoming election.

McCaffrey said Residents for Reform plans on raising money and putting together a slate of like-minded fiscally conservative candidates.

How will he go about this?

That’s where he got pretty vague.

I asked if Residents for Reform will conduct candidate interviews and then give endorsements and financial support to those it selects.

He said the group will do all those things, but wouldn’t tell me who was on the committee in charge of this vetting or offer names of people I could speak to.

He said my question was premature and there was plenty of time to organize this.

I also asked McCaffrey about former Fair Board member and political consultant Dave Ellis’ involvement with Residents for Reform, since Ellis helped with his Stop the Dock Tax movement.

“We haven’t hired him yet for this,” McCaffrey said.

But on April 25, Ellis sent out an email saying that at McCaffrey’s request he was announcing the formation of Residents for Reform and asking folks to “like” the group on Facebook.

I mentioned to McCaffrey that I found his alliance with Ellis rather odd since several council members who he’s complaining about — Keith Curry, Mike Henn, Ed Selich, Leslie Daigle — were Ellis’ clients when they initially ran for office. One could argue that they’re on the council because of Ellis.

McCaffrey didn’t want to talk about this.

But perception is what politics is all about.

Will other candidates in this race seek McCaffrey and his group’s endorsement as Election Day nears?

His Stop the Dock Tax message seemed to resonate with the roughly 1,000 people affected by the harbor issue, but what about the rest of Newport?

Many were not happy with his call to boycott the Christmas Boat Parade or his stunt of having a sky-writing plane drown out speeches at the opening of the civic center festivities.

I got the distinct impression that McCaffrey did not enjoy our conversation because of his short and somewhat evasive answers. I, on the other hand, found it quite enlightening.

BARBARA VENEZIA, whose column appears Fridays, lives in Newport Beach. She can be reached at bvontv1@gmail.com.

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